European Union

The European Parliament concluded its final plenary session of its 9th term on 25 April. The European elections will take place on 6 - 9 June.

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On Thursday afternoon, the Eurovision debate between the lead candidates for the presidency of the European Commission took place in the European Parliament.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

On Thursday afternoon, the Eurovision debate between the lead candidates for the presidency of the European Commission took place in the European Parliament.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

I am thrilled to have been awarded the UACES scholarship to support my research trip to Slovenia. As a PhD candidate in war studies, I focus on reconciliation in Slovenia following post-Second World War mass killings. Reconciliation remains a contentious, disputed and polarised topic, experiencing revisionism, contestation and political manipulation. My research aims at developing an understanding of this historical case that still continues to impact the country and its politics today. It was a great privilege to conduct my research trip with the support of the UACES scholarship.

 

The UACES scholarship supported five weeks of fieldwork in Slovenia by contributing to my expenses for the trip, including travel, accommodation, and food expenses. I was in Ljubljana between 14 April and 17 May. The trip has provided me with the opportunity to spend time in Ljubljana to conduct interviews, which are an integral part of my research, as well as archives and the National and University Library of Ljubljana, to collect data and access books that are not available in London.

 

Interviews, networking and access to resources

The interviews were an invaluable source of information which the UACES scholarship enabled me to collect. I was able to get insights on my research topic from key experts working on the post-war atrocities and Slovene reconciliation, including historians, politicians and government actors, journalists, investigators, novelists, and philosophers. They provided me with fascinating insights into my research on reconciliation in Slovenia, the narratives explaining the post-Second World War mass atrocities, political polarisation and the interpretation of history. The discussions were informative and engaging, providing me with significant knowledge to develop my arguments. They contribute to fulfilling my research objectives, which are to understand what reconciliation in Slovenia means, what the obstacles for reconciliation are, the role of historical re-interpretation and revisionism in reconciliation, and finally, what solutions have been attempted to address the obstacles.

 

In addition, the interviews provided me with the opportunity to network and receive guidance from the experts I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing. This has been an exceptional opportunity for professional development alongside the development of my research.

 

Besides the interviews, visits to the National and University Library of Ljubljana provided me access to books and sources such as newspapers and archival material that are not available in London. These resources offer a wealth of information to support my research. Additionally, I visited the government archives, which gave an insight into the gaps in the archives since many documents are missing. However, it was fascinating to access certain documents, and it was exciting to delve into a country’s past through governmental archives. Archives, and the lack thereof, are an integral aspect of my research, looking at a country that has been independent since the early 1990s but was previously part of communist Yugoslavia. During the decades under Yugoslavia, the post-war atrocities were silenced, and their knowledge was hidden. Therefore, the silence in archives and the few documents available are an interesting insight into the role of silence in reconciliation and establishing the facts about the past.

 

Therefore, the UACES scholarship allowed me to focus on my research and develop my professional skills and network.

 

The importance of understanding the context behind the research

Finally, the UACES scholarship enabled me to spend a longer time in Slovenia and visit the museums, including the Museum of Contemporary History and the City Museum of Ljubljana. Museums provide insights into how history is presented to the public and remembered in collective memory. Since my research focuses on a polarised topic, visiting museums and being confronted with how history is publicly explained is insightful to understand my research’s social and political context. Understanding the context is central to this research topic. Indeed, since the focus is on contemporary reconciliation, revisionism and polarisation, context is key to understanding how the problem developed and why events that took place over 70 years ago continue to divide. This context explains how people think and why they argue certain positions, the impact of decades of silence, and the deeply rooted re-interpretations of history.

 

Concluding remarks

The trip supported by UACES was also an opportunity to spend more time in my native country, where I have lived for only a very limited time. I was able to reconnect with the language and culture and delve into a dark chapter of history. Spending these five weeks in Ljubljana allowed me to immerse myself in my research topic and better grasp the context of my research.

 

I am grateful for the recognition provided by the awarded UACES scholarship to conduct my fieldwork because it supported my research and data collection, which I hope will contribute to the academic field of reconciliation and mass atrocities but also to a practical understanding of obstacles to reconciliation, and solutions addressing these obstacles.

The post A UACES-supported research trip delving into Slovenia’s history appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

As the tenth direct European elections are approaching, let’s have a brief look at some key moments from the elections held in 1979, 2004 and 2019.

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European political parties have put forward lead candidates for the post of European Commission President. Watch the debate in the European Parliament on 23 May.

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© European Union 2024- Source EP – Alain ROLLAND

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Very pleased to have you back with us, Nick. You have studied the European far right parties over decades now and you shared your findings several times in our programme, most recently on how these parties respond to the climate crisis. With the European elections less than one month away, let me ask you what you think of all the media speculation about the rise in support for Radical Right Parties.

Before turning to next month, the first thing I would flag up is that the Radical Right already did very well in the 2019 European elections. A leading scholar in the field, Cas Mudde, estimated back then that ‘Right-wing Euroskeptics took between a quarter and a third of the seats in the European Parliament, with populist radical-right parties making the biggest gains’.

That said there is little doubt that the number of Radical Right MEPs looks set to increase further at the elections next month, although not uniformly across the member states.

In a Policy Brief conducted for the European Council on Foreign Relations in January, Kevin Cunnigham and his co-authors predicted that ‘anti-European populists’ are likely to come first in nine member states and that the two transnational groups where Radical Right parties currently sit are likely to win a quarter of the European Parliament’s 720 seats.

 

Is that confirmed in the current opinion polls?

If we look at the three largest Western European states, France, Italy and Germany (all three founding members!), the Radical Right, as represented by the Rassemblement National, the Fratelli D’Italia and the Alternative für Deutschland, could obtain up to 75 seats.

This would represent over 10% of the seats in the Strasbourg Parliament. And that’s before you add the 12 seats predicted for the rival radical right parties in Italy and France, Matteo Salvini’s Lega (with a prediction of 7 seats) and Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête (possibly 5 seats). On the face of it, this is a very significant rump of like-minded Radical Right MEPs emanating from the three big founding member states!

 

Why do you say “on the face of it”?

Because historically, the Radical Right has struggled to work together in the European Parliament, and this has limited its overall influence and impact. Back in 2007 Michael Minkenberg and Pascal Perrineau stated that ‘there is nothing more difficult to establish than an international group of nationalists.’

Since then, we have witnessed more cooperation among radical right parties, but even today, despite the strategic and financial advantages of transnational group cooperation, the Radical Right remains fractured across two groups: the ‘soft eurosceptic’ European Conservative and Reformists group (ECR), and the ‘hard’ Eurosceptic Identity and Democracy group (ID). To illustrate the point, if we go back to our discussion about France, Italy and Germany, currently the Fratelli d’Italia are in the ECR group and the Rassemblement National are in the ID group.

And even within the groups there are tensions between certain parties; for instance, most recently within the ID group between the RN and the AfD over the latter’s controversial meeting on ‘remigration’.

In other words, as Cas Mudde extrapolates, ‘a far-right “super group” remains an unlikely scenario – at least for the next legislature.’

 

So, what will be the significance of their potential increase over the next 5 years?

The significance in the broader sense is that it appears to confirm the ongoing mainstreaming of the Radical Right, which is much debated by political scientists.

What this means in terms of its impact on EU policy is that flagship policies such as the European Green deal may be up for further discussion and potentially watered down. There will also be moves to prioritize a stricter immigration policy, with pressure on the Schengen Agreement and the principle of open internal borders.

In short, the next President of the European Commission, whoever that is, will face significant challenges emanating from the Radical Right in terms of the future trajectory of the European Union.

 

Many thanks, Nick Startin, for sharing your observations and expectations with us. 
I recall you are Associate Professor of international relations at John Cabot University, in Rome.

The post The Radical Right and the European Elections appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Photo de Luka E sur Unsplash

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Ana Bojinović Fenko, you are professor of international relations at the University of Ljubljana. Tell us what you were doing when Slovenia joined the European Union on the 1st of May 2004?

I was already at the University of Ljubljana, 23 years old and just graduated in Political Science with a major in International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences. Only fourteen days before the 1st of May 2004 I defended my Bachelor Thesis with the title: “Western Balkans as an opportunity for Slovenia as a member of the EU”. I was quite enthusiastic to be finishing my studies in this field, which was much focused on the EU accession process of Slovenia at this time when it was successfully finalised and when the accession Treaty came into force.

 

So what were your expectations for the future at that moment in your life?

My expectations as a future Master student were mostly focused on how to seize the new opportunities offered by the EU market and other EU integration instruments. I remember I applied for a master’s in European integration in Nice, in a programme ran by the Centre International de Formation Européenne, and I almost moved to France!

But finally, despite being accepted to the programme, I decided to stay in Ljubljana, where I was offered an employment in scientific research. In October 2004 I started a job as a Junior Researcher, which led directly from the Master to PhD studies in International Relations.

And I could feel the expected opportunities brought by EU membership very quickly, as the Centre of International Relations where I was employed got engaged in concrete international projects, especially those funded by the European Union. We were mostly analysing economic and political effects of EU enlargement for the EU but also for small states such as Slovenia. One specific feature, for example, was the effect of transition periods that were negotiated by some of the new Member States – for Slovenia this was a period imposed by Austria and Germany for opening their job market. In these research projects, the most important feature for Slovenian foreign policy was focusing on the future EU enlargement towards the Western Balkan countries.

 

So you were seizing the opportunities right from the beginning.
How do you look back today at these two decades?

Both personally and professionally I am very satisfied with Slovenian membership. It should be noted though that Slovenia as a society, economy and state did not only profit from EU membership. There were also hard times, for instance the specific period of the economic and financial crisis, when the state was on the very verge of bailout, but then the government managed to avoid international intervention into domestic finance.

Still, I consider the EU political community brings much more positive effects to Slovenia compared to if the state had not become an EU member. In my assessment, the ultimate positive effect for Slovenia – a former communist state – is the internalisation of European values into Slovenian society. This effect was very visible in 2020–2022 period, a moment when the government started several political manoeuvres of de-democratisation, disrespect of human rights and rule of law. Not only political opposition and organized civil society but also the Slovenian people in general opposed en masse such a move away from EU values and in the election managed to change the leading party and the government.

 

So there’s definitely more than economic benefits to EU membership.

Yes, I think so. All of the challenges Slovenia is facing – economic, political, security, social or cultural effects of globalisation – would of course have been present regardless of its EU membership. But for a small state of only 2 million people in the centre of Europe, at the crossroads of four different cultures, I assess that these challenges are met much more effectively in a multilateral setting within the European institutions.

As the biggest opportunity for Slovenia, I see the possibility for our country to contribute to EU policies that respond to specific interests and expertise of Slovenian companies, civil society and state: a fair green transition on a global scale, safeguarding international peace and security, protection of human rights and application of humanitarian law in armed conflicts, and more particularly the integration of Western Balkan countries into the European Union.

 

The last issue may be one of the most pressing ones today. Thank you very much, Ana Bojinović Fenko, for your personal testimony. I recall you are professor of international relations at the University of Ljubljana. All the best for the next twenty years!

The post 20 years of Slovenia in the EU – Ana Bojinović Fenko appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The short documentary, highlighting the importance of voting and safeguarding democracy, has been viewed more than 190 million times since its release on 29 April.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

The short documentary, highlighting the importance of voting and safeguarding democracy, has been viewed more than 190 million times since its release on 29 April.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

The European Parliament concluded the last plenary session of its 9th term on 25 April. The European elections are taking place 6 - 9 June.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Members of the European Parliament represent you in EU decision-making. The Parliament’s website offers you tools to check their activities and discover how they vote.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

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Discover the highlights of what the European Parliament has achieved for you in the 2019-2024 legislative term.

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Monuments in over 60 cities across Europe displayed messages calling on citizens to vote, one month ahead of the 6-9 June EU elections.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Monuments in over 60 cities across Europe displayed messages calling on citizens to vote, one month ahead of the 6-9 June EU elections.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

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President Metsola’s visit in Kyiv on Europe Day demonstrated the European Parliament’s continued support and commitment to Ukraine and its European path.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

President Metsola’s visit in Kyiv on Europe Day demonstrated the European Parliament’s continued support and commitment to Ukraine and its European path.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP