Addressing the Erosion of Democracy in Europe
The erosion of democratic principles and the rise of the far right in Europe were all topics of discussion at SPP's recent Rolling Back the Rollback forum.
Political events across much of Europe have seen a rise in popularity for far right parties and a ‘rollback’ of the democratic gains that were made during the 1990s and early 2000s. Three discussion panels were held during the day focusing on the possible drivers of the rollback of democracy, how the EU might be placed to counter these, and on how civil society can use technology to bring these issues to the fore.
While the rise of the far right has not been restricted to countries in the east of Europe, with recent gains seen in France, Italy, Spain and Greece for example, The OSCE has expressed strong concern recently regarding Hungary in relation to mounting restrictions on media freedom, and unfair practices in the run up to the April 6 election. The SPP forum was held the day after the Hungarian parliamentary elections, putting their results foremost in the minds of the forum participants. CEU Trustee Kati Marton, chaired the first panel and opened with a discussion on the previous day's elections within the context of the conference theme.
During the discussion on the EU’s role as a guardian of democracy, Franziska Brantner, member of the German Bundestag and foreign affairs spokesperson for Alliance ‘90/The Greens, noted that countries must become democratic in order to join the EU and mechanisms exist to punish those countries that go off track. Those mechanisms, however, take the form of either small-scale bureaucratic checks or completely removing the right of a member state to vote, with little room for nuance in between.
Heather Grabbe, director of both the Open Society European Policy Institute and EU Affairs for the Open Society Foundations, did not believe that those mechanisms for punishing EU member states for the erosion of democratic principals have ever been effective however. In general, “sanctions don't work in a club and the EU is a club,” Grabbe noted.
Tim Dixon, managing director of Purpose Europe, was one of those discussing the use of technology in democracy support on what was certainly the most optimistic of the panels. “I share a lot of the concerns that have been expressed today. I think the institutional state of democracy and political parties is weak,” he said. “At the same time, I have optimism because there are a lot of tactics and innovation that still haven't been tried yet. Often it is the breakdown of traditional institutions that create opportunity for innovation.”
The panel discussions were followed by a number of working groups to examine the roles which legal institutions, political narratives, civil society, and economic regimes have to play in defending democracy. The results of working group discussions were presented at a short plenary session and a policy paper based on the findings of the forum will be published later in the year.
You can find a more detailed report on the various panel discussions here, and you can watch videos of each panel and the plenary session here.