Articles

Regional differences seem to be the common denominator between the players of Project Europe. In an attempt to understand how the European vote is formed, we put some of the underlying issues on the map.

Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia are wondering what kind of European Union they will join, if they ever do. Further north, Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein remain happy to keep their distance, even if the Brexit discussion has caused discontent with the ‘Norway option’ among the country’s Eurosceptic left.

The European Union was originally the creation of failed or failing European empires, even if it now tends to pose as an assembly of innocent little nation states. Facing up to the responsibility for half a millennium of imperialism is painful, but doing so would allow Europe to recognize its unique and auspicious recovery from empire, argues Timothy Snyder in the speech he delivered for Europe Day 2019 at Judenplatz, Vienna.

It is not the case that the move towards populism has spoiled democratic hopes in central and eastern Europe. The hope was part of the problem from the beginning, despite its emancipatory potential, or even because of it. We have to ask two questions: ‘what kind of hope?’ and ‘hope for what?

In May, the UK will be holding the EU elections that were never meant to be. With the party system in Britain a state of flux, they will provide the first real picture since the start of the Brexit negotiations of the will of the electorate. In Denmark, the elections will be indicative of the mood of the nation before a significant general election, while in Malta they take place amidst a controversial debate about corruption and the rule of law.

As a bruised apple attracts flies, human thoughtlessness draws algorithms. Digital beings encourage our false beliefs, exploit our anxieties, and then use us as alibis for what they have done. Timothy Snyder examines what Turing said about the digital threat to a human future.

Overt euroscepticism pervades the political climate in Italy but is hardly anywhere to be found in Latvia. Meanwhile, low turnout in the Czech Republic may help facilitate a rightwing ‘Europe of nations’, despite the alternatives on the table.

Few articles in the recent past can have been vilified so heavily by so many intelligent people than Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The end of history’. Now, thirty years on, the article is worth re-reading. Because, unless one is nostalgic for an orthodox version of dialectical materialism, it is hard to find anything to strongly disagree with. On the contrary.

The smugness of some Irish commentary on Brexit is ill-advised, writes Maurice Earls. Brexit is not an aberration but the expression of a deep-rooted cultural attitude – one that won’t simply disappear under the wheel of progress. Failure to grasp this could prove dangerous for the European Union.

The coming EP elections will serve as a stress test for the role that Croatia plays as the latest EU member state. It will also deliver a verdict on local elites’ efforts to restore their influence in Bulgaria and gauge popular sentiment regarding Austria’s upside-down political system.  

The products of Hungary’s post-truth laboratory are being received with increasing scepticism, while in Estonia the European elections will be a test of nerve following March’s general election. In Belgium, at least, things are just about holding together.

High drama has characterized political life in all three countries during the run up to the European elections in May. The Left is to form a government for the first time in 20 years in Finland but nationalist populism is no less a force there than in Slovakia or the Netherlands.

Francis Fukuyama’s argument that far-right identity politics were pioneered by the left has been criticized as blame-shifting. But this is a partial reading, he counters: identity politics are inherent to the democratic ethos and rooted in modernity itself. Understanding their use by the far-right enables us to form a response.

‘A battle of generosity’ has broken out as the world watched the Notre Dame of Paris burn.The devastation was narrated live in the style of a disaster movie. Self-appointed champions are now rushing to take lead roles: that of the main donor, or the politician from afar who knew better what should have been done.

The outcome of this year’s European elections is more likely to be determined by the state of nations’ finances than their media landscapes. However, the making and breaking of coalitions is something that money still, it seems, cannot buy.

A combination of institutional arrogance and neoliberal policy has broken the link between EU and its citizens. And yet, as the mass demonstrations in support of EU membership in Britain since the Brexit vote show, Europe can still inspire affection. To continue to be worthy of such sentiments, the EU must develop forms of integration beyond rules and markets.