The second debate of the day concerned the crisis of community in Europe. The discussion was led by Cain Elliott who provided the speakers with a provactive, yet an inspiring distinction between nationalism and universalism. What communities do we need and which of them may guarantee a democratic decision-making?
It might seem that to Dominika Kasprowicz such a thesis is far too general. Contemporary radicals do not necessarily associate themselves with nation states. As she named ethno-nationalists are only a part of a more complex group. There are also regionalists, members of European Free Alliance and finally - socio-political alternatives, ie. movements that gave up their reluctance towards the institutional politics in order to make a social change using the traditional state tools. Thus socio-political alternatives become mediators and negotiators between society and high-politics by e.g. offering ready-to-use legislative drafts.
Later on Kai-Olaf Lang outlined the exisiting theoretical tendencies towards the lack of legitimacy and democracy of European Union legislative processes. In his opinion it's the core aspect of the current multiple crisis. Thus there are three main views. The first - neosovereingtism - which advocates so called negative integration and some re-delegation of competencies to member states. On the contrary, there's a view that promote transnationalisation of democracy within the EU via enstrenghtening the European Parliament, community method and majority voting in the Council. Finally, in accordance with pragmatic functionalism, intergovernmentalism and union method should become the main motor of integration. Nevertheless, all those approaches neglect a few crucial aspects of the current integration. Besides the question of leadership and informal hierarchy, they do not take into account the asymmetries catalysed by the crisis. These are mainly the disproportions between Germany and France, the European North and South or the growing inequalities between eurozone ins and outs. The differentiated integration has also some less formal aspects. As Kai-Olaf Lang mentioned: "while in Italy certain pathologies are accepted, in Hungary and Romania they are seen as evidence of the old thesis that those countries are not so European yet".
Interestingly, Kai-Olaf Lang sees some advantages of populism in Europe. "Populists raise the issues neglected by the establishment" - he underlined. Moreover, it's a clear sign against the triumph of "techonocratic governance mechanisms and political class' narrow answers". Nevertheless, contrary to the dominant public opinion, the European crisis has a little impact on political choices or tendencies so far. As Kai-Olaf Lang said there's no raise of populism or far right in Europe in the light of election results in Europe.
Eventually, he highlighted that institution's legitimacy is built upon its output not the democractic or particpatory procedures. As he said - these are always parliaments that get the lowest public trust records in European countries.
After that Lászlό Rájk presented his opinions about the phenomenon of nationalism. As he said it's always based on the figure of enemy. According to him there are certain differences between the Western and Eastern European nationalisms. He stated that in the West the national mythologies are always ridiculed and acknowledged as fairy-tales. While in the East they are treated very seriously and are the sources of violence and exclusion. In his opinion there are several types of the modern nationalism. Be it some ethno-, religious, location or region nationalism, they all share the negative attitude towards the human dignity, which Lászlό Rájk called the biggest achievemt of liberalism.
Finally, Milica Pešić shared her thoughts on the role of media. She underlined that we have to come back to the view that media is a public good. Media should be freed both from political and economic pressure and work in the spirit of a watchdog that carefully analyses policies and control politicians. She named social media as a very useful tool in the field. Sadly, as her NGO - Media Diversity Institute's research show - the current media-makers are not aware of the contemporary European society. As she said, a typical decision maker in media is a white, over 60 male from a culturally Christian background. To make matters worse, they "ignore the civil society as a source of stories and experts". All that makes media an uneffective tool in communicating policy-makers and the society. Another interesting research qouted by Milica Pešić concerned the scope of media regulations prefered by the society. Surprisingly, it turned out that 69% of people in the UK would like the media market to be more regulated. This can be interpreted as the voice in favour of some media quality legislation.
One of the conclusions that could be made after the debate is that the main problem of democracy - as a kind of social tool to implement more cohesive political solutions, is not its national or supra/trans-national character but the institutional "safety-nets" that guarantees its transparency, inclusivity and output's high quality. This includes active socio-political alternatives balancing on the society-politics border, public good-oriented media and a well-functioning political system based on the principle of human dignity.
Ziemowit Jóźwik
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