1
00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:02,709
Well, it's a great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen,

2
00:00:02,710 --> 00:00:08,500
to be here to introduce the speaker at what is one of our most prestigious lectures in this college.

3
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:14,310
We have an annual lecture from the European Studies Centre, which is enormously active anyway.

4
00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:22,280
It's, it's, it's one of the most of all asset centres are active, but the European Studies Centre is particularly active shall we say.

5
00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:26,439
It's, it's always, you always have extremely good seminars and very good speakers.

6
00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:30,640
And I know that tonight is going to be yet another high point in what you do.

7
00:00:31,210 --> 00:00:34,600
And I'm very, very pleased to be able to introduce Professor Offered.

8
00:00:35,350 --> 00:00:42,460
He will be taking questions at the end and what you need to do is attract the attention of the students over there who's got a microphone.

9
00:00:42,850 --> 00:00:47,950
And if you could wait till you get the microphone and if you could introduce yourself, that I think would be nice.

10
00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,940
And so we'll we'll end up the lecture with with some questions.

11
00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:56,830
Professor Ofer is a political scientist and sociologist.

12
00:00:57,490 --> 00:01:04,690
He held the chair of as professor of political science at Humboldt University in Berlin and earned his

13
00:01:04,690 --> 00:01:11,140
degree at the University of Frankfurt and then his have a habilitation at the University of Constance.

14
00:01:11,710 --> 00:01:16,900
He is now well, he says he's retired, but it doesn't sound much like a retirement to me at all.

15
00:01:17,830 --> 00:01:26,620
He is now teaching on a part time basis at the Hertz School of Governance School of Public Policy, where he holds a chair of political sociology.

16
00:01:27,370 --> 00:01:33,310
He has held professorships in the course of his long and distinguished career at the universities of Bielefeld and Bremen,

17
00:01:34,030 --> 00:01:41,139
and he has held research, visiting and professorships and taught courses quite literally around the world the United States,

18
00:01:41,140 --> 00:01:45,670
Canada, Australia, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Italy, Netherlands and a very,

19
00:01:45,670 --> 00:01:51,100
very long list of places where he has contributed his knowledge and his scholarship.

20
00:01:52,090 --> 00:02:01,000
His fields of research include democratic theory, transition studies, European Union integration and welfare, state and labour market studies.

21
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:07,900
He has a long list of publications which, if I were to read them all out, would not leave enough time for him to lecture.

22
00:02:08,500 --> 00:02:14,860
But his most recent work includes a book Modernity in the State, East and West,

23
00:02:15,370 --> 00:02:20,799
Institutional Design in post-Communist Societies, and most recently in 2006,

24
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:30,400
a book with the marvellous title, Reflections on America, Tocqueville, Faber and Adorno in the United States, a very interesting trio indeed.

25
00:02:31,210 --> 00:02:34,420
He is talking tonight on returning to Europe.

26
00:02:34,660 --> 00:02:38,950
Divides and challenges in the enlarged in the enlarged European Union.

27
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:43,120
And like you all, I'm very much looking forward to it. Please join me in welcoming you, Professor, often.

28
00:02:48,530 --> 00:03:00,290
So thank you very much for your kind words of introduction, and thank you for inviting me to this lecture, which I had heard before.

29
00:03:00,350 --> 00:03:13,100
I'm very honoured to be invited as Speaker, but I want to do is to look at the present state of the European Union and in

30
00:03:13,100 --> 00:03:21,620
particular three of its contracted construction sites that are of particular interest.

31
00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:29,480
And I will spend an even amount of time on these three construction sites.

32
00:03:31,340 --> 00:03:42,890
The first is the question the divide, the conflict, the tension, the cleavage between member states and the union, the relationship.

33
00:03:47,540 --> 00:03:59,930
The second a very briefly, I just mentioned this because it is and the discussion everywhere in Europe is the relationship

34
00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:12,080
between five of the six original member states on the one hand and what is commonly used under the.

35
00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:19,390
Acronym PIGS. That is the.

36
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:30,630
Five States and the cabinet. Fiscal financial precariousness.

37
00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:35,790
Portugal, Ireland. Italy, Greece and Spain.

38
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:46,050
Pigs. And thirdly, and most extensively, I'm going to talk about another third divide.

39
00:04:48,050 --> 00:04:54,560
In Europe, and that is the divide that is marked by the former Iron Curtain.

40
00:04:54,860 --> 00:05:09,750
That is the divides, tensions, challenges, conflicts that exist between the EU 15 or the old member states and the EU ten.

41
00:05:10,490 --> 00:05:32,390
That is the new Member States of a past socialist history, leaving out one and a half Mediterranean islands that make up the 27 at the moment.

42
00:05:33,930 --> 00:05:50,990
So the first question that is being us and that I want to briefly discuss is the question of member states.

43
00:05:54,290 --> 00:06:10,580
And the EU, the limitations of democratic accountability at the European level and its consequences for democracy at the national level.

44
00:06:12,890 --> 00:06:23,450
The problem is not primarily that the EU must become democratic, which has happened to an extent through the Lisbon Treaty.

45
00:06:25,250 --> 00:06:32,300
It is that Member States politics must remain democratic and not the democratic.

46
00:06:32,780 --> 00:06:41,360
Process at the member state level should not be pre-empted and distorted by European decision making.

47
00:06:41,870 --> 00:06:48,920
Moreover, major institutional actors at the EU, as many analysts have observed,

48
00:06:49,250 --> 00:06:59,330
that South being one of the most prominent major institutional actors at the EU level, namely the European Central Bank,

49
00:06:59,450 --> 00:07:05,810
the European Court of Justice and the Commission, when it operates as a rule enforcement agency,

50
00:07:06,410 --> 00:07:19,160
have a direct impact upon the citizens of the member states and therefore must be subjected to some kind of institutionalised legitimacy test.

51
00:07:25,930 --> 00:07:36,579
The intensity of institutional interdependence between the national and the European levels of governments is bound to thwarts attempts to

52
00:07:36,580 --> 00:07:44,650
isolate the two levels and to protect the national political system from the effects of the democratic deficiencies at the European level.

53
00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:54,639
That there is, in fact, reason for concern that if the shift of political power from the democratically legitimised national governments to

54
00:07:54,640 --> 00:08:03,070
the EU is not accompanied by some kind of compensation through additional channels of supranational legitimation,

55
00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:10,150
democracy within in nation states will be perceived as the key.

56
00:08:13,990 --> 00:08:20,590
A democracy. I'm not going to discuss democracy except for one distinction that I found useful.

57
00:08:20,590 --> 00:08:24,700
And I hope you won't find too, too primitive or simplistic.

58
00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:33,250
Democracy is a accountability, and accountability applies to two questions.

59
00:08:33,790 --> 00:08:45,400
One is the question how and to what extent rulers are effectively prevented from doing the wrong thing that is,

60
00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:53,140
effective punishment or sanctioning capacity of the ruled over the rulers.

61
00:08:55,750 --> 00:08:59,650
The second is rule as mandated and able.

62
00:09:01,110 --> 00:09:05,480
To do the right thing. And how can they be mandated?

63
00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:21,300
Not violating the limits of rule, but using their power for of purposes that are commonly approved.

64
00:09:21,330 --> 00:09:28,860
A system of rule in which rulers are held perfectly accountable by the rules yet cannot accomplish anything,

65
00:09:29,430 --> 00:09:39,329
is as much a caricature of democracy or an impoverished version as would be a system of rule which

66
00:09:39,330 --> 00:09:44,820
is highly effective in shaping conditions and developments without being accountable to the rules.

67
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,540
So both things must come together. Moreover,

68
00:09:48,750 --> 00:09:54,959
the two aspects of democratic rule hang together as it appears unlikely that the rules will

69
00:09:54,960 --> 00:10:00,840
have good reasons to support a set of rulers whose capacity for significant policymaking,

70
00:10:01,590 --> 00:10:09,870
as opposed to the simple execution of market imperatives and problem solving, has evidently evaporated.

71
00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:16,650
The rules are powerless when the institutional resources to control rulers are absent.

72
00:10:16,770 --> 00:10:23,150
But the rulers themselves can also be powerless and thus do not qualify.

73
00:10:23,190 --> 00:10:31,769
By the second criterion of what a democracy is, when they find themselves incapable of dealing effectively with problems,

74
00:10:31,770 --> 00:10:42,960
of providing public goods or of protecting EU societies from what could be called public bads when this is the case.

75
00:10:43,110 --> 00:10:47,070
The system of rule loses its policymaking capacity.

76
00:10:47,430 --> 00:10:51,540
A democratically constituted political power is idols.

77
00:10:52,230 --> 00:11:00,059
In modern capitalist democracies, the major cause of the incapacitation of rulers is of an economic nature.

78
00:11:00,060 --> 00:11:03,990
Marcus Hold would be policymakers in a bind.

79
00:11:04,410 --> 00:11:13,469
As soon as they adopt an activist approach to the solution of social problems through policymaking,

80
00:11:13,470 --> 00:11:18,390
they will be punished by adverse reactions of economic actors such as investors

81
00:11:19,350 --> 00:11:24,569
and employers on whose activities policymakers depend as their tax base,

82
00:11:24,570 --> 00:11:28,770
as well as their political, as well as their political support.

83
00:11:29,340 --> 00:11:41,370
The present configuration of the euro polity and its largely negative integration is clearly such that it enables

84
00:11:41,820 --> 00:11:50,430
economic actors to make extensive use of this mechanism of punishment and thus to disable the making of public policies.

85
00:11:50,970 --> 00:11:59,130
So. So the question that citizens have of Member States looking at the European Union is

86
00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:07,410
what can the European Union at all do in terms of desirable collective outcomes?

87
00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:15,930
The governing or policymaking or governance capacity is at issue.

88
00:12:17,290 --> 00:12:27,420
The two standard justifications that Europe offers its member states and citizens are the backward looking justification that Member States have,

89
00:12:27,430 --> 00:12:33,640
after all, voluntarily giving up some of their self-identity at the point of joining the union.

90
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:40,570
And second, the forward looking of functionalist justification in terms of output legitimacy.

91
00:12:41,230 --> 00:12:47,080
As for itself, again, as record as that is claimed on the grounds that general observance of these

92
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:52,270
constraints and the universal compliance with European regulations will eventually

93
00:12:52,390 --> 00:13:01,690
hopefully turn out for the better in terms of the the prosperity and the assurance

94
00:13:01,690 --> 00:13:07,990
of even burden sharing and the security from negative externalities and so on.

95
00:13:09,540 --> 00:13:29,980
And well, I think the current issues that European policymakers face make these backward looking and forward looking justifications insufficient.

96
00:13:30,970 --> 00:13:36,520
And the question is, what can actually be accomplished at the European level?

97
00:13:36,520 --> 00:13:49,239
And we look at areas in which the many citizens of European member states, as well as political elites,

98
00:13:49,240 --> 00:14:02,110
express a strong hope, strong demands for joint action at the European level, which, however, does not come for us.

99
00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:07,780
Foreign policy is one example. European foreign policy.

100
00:14:08,050 --> 00:14:14,800
Look at the recent events, the context of the MENA, Middle East and North Africa revolution.

101
00:14:15,220 --> 00:14:27,340
What Europe, in spite of its having a foreign minister now is able to say to this and to do with its own means?

102
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:30,670
This is evidently very limited.

103
00:14:32,020 --> 00:14:48,099
The same applies for of the entire last year the discussion of a common fiscal and economic policy or the economic policy for Europe,

104
00:14:48,100 --> 00:15:01,300
that which would then help to prevent the repetition of the type of crisis that we have been through over the past two and a half years.

105
00:15:02,020 --> 00:15:16,810
Another issue area that Europe has failed to generate policies that are supported or negotiated among

106
00:15:17,470 --> 00:15:26,470
all member states and failed to support is the entire very urgent policy area of migration and asylum.

107
00:15:26,890 --> 00:15:40,330
Again, we have a lot of conflicts here and a ongoing blockade of coordinated, concerted,

108
00:15:40,330 --> 00:15:50,500
harmonised European policies after the very embarrassing experience of the Lisbon agenda of the year 2000.

109
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:58,150
There is still the need for a coordinated European social and labour market policy,

110
00:15:58,540 --> 00:16:05,110
which supposedly works through means of the method of coordination.

111
00:16:06,610 --> 00:16:23,230
At best, we can speak of a stagnation of these policy areas and the European initiatives and European coordinated coordinating activities,

112
00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:31,479
very limited. Indeed, the same applies to the social inclusion agenda.

113
00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:39,760
Now very high up the agenda rhetorically, nominally,

114
00:16:40,300 --> 00:16:53,260
but mostly the member states are left alone with addressing the growing problem of social exclusion.

115
00:16:53,290 --> 00:17:08,740
So the question is what can be accomplished at the European level and how can the governance and capacity of the European Union be increased?

116
00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:14,950
And if we ask for the reasons for the disappointing.

117
00:17:17,540 --> 00:17:23,210
Evidence that there's very little that can be done at the European level.

118
00:17:24,590 --> 00:17:31,700
We often encounter the argument, well, member states follow their own interests.

119
00:17:32,060 --> 00:17:45,740
The particular is selfish interests rather than joining the common cause of European affairs.

120
00:17:46,190 --> 00:17:48,200
And I want to question that answer.

121
00:17:48,500 --> 00:18:01,420
And I think it is of great was felt that this is of great also theoretical significance for social scientists that you

122
00:18:01,610 --> 00:18:13,760
will find how little you get actually explained in terms of interests because interests are themselves not self-evident.

123
00:18:14,690 --> 00:18:22,070
It is not that one should not follow our interests. By not, I mean it is normally considered to be selfish, to follow your interests.

124
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:27,410
It is that you cannot, because it is highly ambiguous what your interests are.

125
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,970
Let me develop this briefly with an example.

126
00:18:32,210 --> 00:18:47,240
Suppose you are Germany and suppose the issue are euro bonds and they are now for the interest positions you can take on this issue,

127
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,840
pro or con eurobonds.

128
00:18:51,440 --> 00:19:00,860
And it turns out that it is not clear what the priority should be from a purely interest oriented point of view.

129
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:07,520
There is amazingly little guidance from considerations of interest.

130
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:15,470
Let us go through the case from a short term and political perspective.

131
00:19:15,890 --> 00:19:30,260
You can, as a German government, say, well, let's use the opportunity to cater to the resentments that prevail against the pigs.

132
00:19:31,430 --> 00:19:44,570
Teach them a lesson and force discipline and also create among your national constituency the feeling of superiority of some kind,

133
00:19:45,020 --> 00:19:52,679
and that has been pursued, etc. But you could also say a long term political perspective and therefore,

134
00:19:52,680 --> 00:20:01,489
let's say use the opportunity to build EU economic and fiscal policy capacity in

135
00:20:01,490 --> 00:20:08,120
order to prevent the repetition of a crisis such as the one we just went through.

136
00:20:08,570 --> 00:20:18,740
That would then lead to a very open minded willingness to embrace the idea of euro bonds.

137
00:20:19,100 --> 00:20:36,440
You could also take a long term economic perspective by saying make sure that the ability to pay is preserved or for that matter,

138
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:41,420
restored on the part of future customers of German exports.

139
00:20:42,020 --> 00:20:51,020
And that would also lead to a very open minded attitude towards such a proposal of highly coordinated.

140
00:20:52,390 --> 00:21:05,120
And then you could take the force of a short term economic perspective, namely, put a high priority on austerity, consolidate the budget.

141
00:21:09,530 --> 00:21:15,920
Avoids being a net contributor to European causes.

142
00:21:16,190 --> 00:21:23,240
And so the problem is that all of these sound somehow related to interests.

143
00:21:23,870 --> 00:21:40,089
But. They cannot be aggregated innovators, and there is no metric by which these contradictory interests and or interpretations of interests add up.

144
00:21:40,090 --> 00:21:47,800
And therefore we still don't know what is the best thing to do in the name of national interests.

145
00:21:48,100 --> 00:21:59,890
So and I suppose that in many issues, in many countries, this can be replicated this exercise interests,

146
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:10,719
in spite of all the respect we have learned to develop forum for a realist approaches to

147
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:18,340
national as well as international policy interests do not tell you very much what you must do.

148
00:22:18,730 --> 00:22:23,350
That is, interests are very ambiguous.

149
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:31,780
You don't know what your interests are. What you do know is about the shifting.

150
00:22:33,210 --> 00:22:46,860
Attitudes in the mass constituency are we have as far as trust in Europe is concerned and trust in European policymaking.

151
00:22:47,250 --> 00:22:55,800
In many countries, a development that in German, Germany looks the following way in the year 2002.

152
00:22:56,190 --> 00:23:01,470
The question is, do you trust the European Union?

153
00:23:01,740 --> 00:23:11,190
Very simple survey question was answered in the positive by 49% of the respondents and in the negative by 40%.

154
00:23:11,790 --> 00:23:15,900
Today, January 2011,

155
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:32,610
the figures are that only 25% express trust in the European Union and its policymaking capacity and the full 67% vote in the negative,

156
00:23:32,730 --> 00:23:40,350
since they do not have any interest in the European Union.

157
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:46,499
This is a dramatic shift, much of which not exclusively can, in the German case,

158
00:23:46,500 --> 00:24:02,850
be explained as a response to the Greek financial crisis and the interpretation that governing political elites have provided of this crisis.

159
00:24:02,850 --> 00:24:15,860
Namely, they are spendthrift and lack discipline and we are supposed to bail them out and it is them against be attitude,

160
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:30,270
a short sighted political logic of of interest, which has not been really counterbalanced by the other considerations, as I have summarised them.

161
00:24:31,500 --> 00:24:45,209
Okay. What prevails in Europe is a pattern of negative integration of markets that is designed to increase the option of economic

162
00:24:45,210 --> 00:24:54,630
exits and is designed to debase the governing capacity of national governments and their protectionist inclinations.

163
00:24:55,950 --> 00:25:08,700
The market integration provides options for exits and punishes protectionist inclinations,

164
00:25:08,700 --> 00:25:13,319
but the process has not been complemented by some supranational positive

165
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:18,420
integration or the restoration of governing capacity at the European level itself.

166
00:25:18,660 --> 00:25:25,500
In fact, the residual elements of governing capacity that remain intact at the level of Member States are used

167
00:25:25,500 --> 00:25:31,500
by them to obstruct the transfer of governance capacity from the national to the European level.

168
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:41,550
Thus, negative integration both decimates national policymaking capacity and induces national governments to cling to whatever remains of it,

169
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,480
rather than sacrificing it for the sake of positive integration.

170
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:54,840
There is a strong sense of in the national public sphere of Member States,

171
00:25:55,080 --> 00:26:00,180
and that applies to both sides of the former and curtain a strong sense of rivalry,

172
00:26:00,540 --> 00:26:09,110
jealousy, the pursuit of whatever is defined as the national interest.

173
00:26:09,570 --> 00:26:19,710
And although that concept itself is fictitious and that interferes with European policymaking capacity.

174
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:25,980
Let me I have a list here of.

175
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:43,430
A number of the controversies that evolve between member states of ongoing issues on which by whatever methods,

176
00:26:43,430 --> 00:26:56,060
the community method, the open method of coordination or unilateral leadership attempted by some countries has not been resolved.

177
00:26:56,510 --> 00:27:05,990
And these policy issues that evade effective European harmonisation include the following.

178
00:27:06,710 --> 00:27:13,250
The concern is in migration of labour, with all its ramification in terms of loss of jobs,

179
00:27:13,250 --> 00:27:18,800
decline of wages in the rich countries, ethnic conflicts, political backlash and so on.

180
00:27:19,820 --> 00:27:22,090
Everything that has to do with migration.

181
00:27:22,110 --> 00:27:30,890
Secondly, outward flow of investments to EU countries with lower costs of employment and in particular lower taxes,

182
00:27:31,310 --> 00:27:35,300
and hence the loss of employment and prosperity at the national level.

183
00:27:35,900 --> 00:27:43,610
Third, the fiscal redistribution within the EU and in particular a larger EU consisting not only

184
00:27:43,610 --> 00:27:48,439
in a net transfer of funds from the rich to the less prosperous countries and regions,

185
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:54,349
but also in the relative deprivation that the previous net receivers,

186
00:27:54,350 --> 00:27:57,920
namely the Mediterranean countries,

187
00:27:59,390 --> 00:28:05,060
are suffering or feel they are suffering after the accession of new and even poorer and therefore

188
00:28:05,060 --> 00:28:11,150
even more deserving claimants among the new Member States in the east and southeast of Europe.

189
00:28:11,930 --> 00:28:23,389
For the competition in markets, for goods and services, which is likely to drive productivity laggards in their respective industries out of business,

190
00:28:23,390 --> 00:28:34,879
thereby adding to the persistently high level of unemployment in the most current member states and the

191
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:42,950
impossibility to do something about this problem by protectionist national protectionist measures.

192
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:49,669
The fifth the disadvantages imposed upon new member states by their being forced

193
00:28:49,670 --> 00:28:55,190
to adopt an entire I keep company dare as a precondition of their accession.

194
00:28:55,200 --> 00:29:00,620
The disadvantages current member countries suffer in terms of the loss of protection

195
00:29:00,950 --> 00:29:06,890
as a consequence of European of the of European Court of Justice rulings.

196
00:29:07,130 --> 00:29:16,700
And it is, in fact just that minorities of one or more countries fear will result from majority decisions within the Council of Ministers,

197
00:29:17,090 --> 00:29:28,130
which are contrary to their majority in national preferences, all of which gives rise to the fear of Europe becoming a form of foreign rule.

198
00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:45,380
And this sense of being controlled by the outside is very intense and explicit in the in the new member states of the socialist economies.

199
00:29:45,830 --> 00:29:59,750
And it does not help, although it is a nice point made by a very prominent European politician that they he said, in my public situation,

200
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:08,660
well, they the Poles, the Hungarians, they have still to learn that there is a difference between that what was so and progressive.

201
00:30:09,830 --> 00:30:15,380
But the willingness to appreciate that difference is perhaps limited.

202
00:30:15,860 --> 00:30:27,170
And then of course, there is the financial market crisis of 2008 and its aftermath in the form of a pervasive

203
00:30:27,530 --> 00:30:33,130
fiscal crisis that affects the new member states much more seriously than the over.

204
00:30:33,260 --> 00:30:41,690
Let me try this. You see here the change from 2000 to 2009.

205
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:49,730
The only exception that survived this relatively favourably is Poland.

206
00:30:50,210 --> 00:31:02,840
For the Polish exceptionalism and not the case of this is is you see this way in Latvia and Romania and even Slovenia,

207
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:10,100
which otherwise is doing quite well and have massive negative growth rates.

208
00:31:10,850 --> 00:31:18,410
And they have also, except for those who have adopted the euro or are tied to the euro,

209
00:31:18,860 --> 00:31:27,260
they have all these very unfavourable ratings for their credit was worse in this.

210
00:31:27,770 --> 00:31:36,740
And I wanted to. It just highlighted the seriousness of the of the problem here this.

211
00:31:36,950 --> 00:31:54,740
Now let me come to to the surge construction site namely the old was the new member states and the dynamics of conflict after accession enlargement.

212
00:31:54,950 --> 00:32:03,050
The end of conditionality, however you want to call it. In order to model the unfolding conflicts between the old and new member states,

213
00:32:04,190 --> 00:32:11,330
I suggest a sequence of three stages of strategic objectives and driving motivational forces.

214
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:17,690
The three stages which apply to the old and the new Member States are first,

215
00:32:17,990 --> 00:32:23,420
the formulation of strategic objectives, which took place sometime in the nineties.

216
00:32:23,870 --> 00:32:38,720
Secondly, awareness of the costs of achieving those objectives, which took place shortly before and since actually accession.

217
00:32:39,260 --> 00:32:46,969
And third, the satisfaction of the disenchantment and frustration with the extent to which

218
00:32:46,970 --> 00:32:52,070
the objectives may or may not have been actually reached and at what cost.

219
00:32:52,340 --> 00:32:57,170
So this is a timeline where you first make plans.

220
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:01,610
Then you see what their realisation costs and how far it proceeds.

221
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:11,950
And then thirdly, you draw conclusions and you do so on both sides of the EU 15 and the EU ten, starting with the old Member States.

222
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:20,960
The original motivation for promoting Eastern enlargement was doubtlessly of a primary, primarily political nature,

223
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:27,650
because the priorities of the EU as well as NATO's around the mid-nineties consisted in helping to

224
00:33:27,650 --> 00:33:35,990
consolidate democracy and the rule of law in the C Central Eastern Europe region through externally,

225
00:33:36,530 --> 00:33:40,490
through externally imposed conditionality,

226
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:49,850
and thereby to normalise the political development of prospective member states through more or less soft forms of outside control.

227
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:58,670
In contrast, the new Member States, having just escaped from a tight and authoritarian form of supranational control,

228
00:33:59,350 --> 00:34:07,700
they are mostly reluctant and sceptical about joining Europe and adopting a readymade are key.

229
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:16,400
But this scepticism and reluctance was consistently trumped by the prospect of past socialist reconstruction

230
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:24,620
that were based upon the expectation of free access of goods and workers to Western markets,

231
00:34:25,010 --> 00:34:30,590
the inflow of foreign direct investment into the Central East European region,

232
00:34:30,980 --> 00:34:39,230
and the claims to modernisation subsidies that would come from the EU once full membership status was achieved.

233
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:49,609
Once the enlargement process was completed in May 2004, respectively.

234
00:34:49,610 --> 00:34:58,880
In January 2007, both sides experienced a wave of second thoughts among the new member states.

235
00:34:59,870 --> 00:35:12,170
These consisted in the realisation of failures and an awareness of necessary sacrifices concerning the respective subordinate objectives.

236
00:35:12,470 --> 00:35:19,520
As to the old Member States, their intended political aim of having stable and democratic eastern neighbours was

237
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:25,910
partly offset by the growing economic challenges originating from the Sea region.

238
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:34,730
These challenges came in the form of an inflow of goods and labour and an outflow of investment and funds allocated

239
00:35:34,730 --> 00:35:47,420
from the EU budgets and the strategy of the new Member States to introduce a very low and flat rate Texas,

240
00:35:47,660 --> 00:35:54,650
both in income tax and incorporation, corporate taxation and in value added tax.

241
00:35:55,010 --> 00:36:08,149
I mean as low as 10% in Bulgaria added to the of to the concerns of the old member states.

242
00:36:08,150 --> 00:36:17,900
I mean, big corporate taxes in Denmark, 56% and in Bulgaria 10%.

243
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,340
And that makes for differences that that they are very unhappy with.

244
00:36:23,270 --> 00:36:29,360
Similarly and in a strictly symmetric of fashion elites as well as none of these and the new member states.

245
00:36:29,420 --> 00:36:34,639
Begin to perceive the political costs of membership because that were framed in terms

246
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:40,580
of losses of national autonomy and the need to comply with EU wide rules and policies.

247
00:36:41,030 --> 00:36:46,430
Thus, both sides begin to perceive the reasons for asking themselves was the price we

248
00:36:46,460 --> 00:36:52,550
had to pay for achieving our primary objectives really was what we got for it.

249
00:36:53,300 --> 00:37:04,670
Finally, if we read a variety of current indicators that emerge in the newly integrated political economy of Europe, rightly,

250
00:37:04,670 --> 00:37:17,900
a third phase of regret and frustration or disenchantment has become dominant as the dynamics of the EU 27 or 25 unfolds.

251
00:37:17,930 --> 00:37:25,130
To put it bluntly, both sides begin to see that what they actually receive for paying the price they paid

252
00:37:25,610 --> 00:37:32,900
is less than what they had anticipated and hoped for from an EU 15 point of view.

253
00:37:32,930 --> 00:37:45,229
The second disappointment relates to the fact that neither regime stability nor the liberal democratic consensus, nor for that matter,

254
00:37:45,230 --> 00:37:56,930
a modern and reasonably corruption free state structure has emerged in the region, has taken firm roots in all parts of the region,

255
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:06,379
a disillusion that is all the deeper as it comes with the realisation that after formal accession has passed,

256
00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:16,580
the leverage of conditionality has practically become inoperative and there are even signs of backsliding.

257
00:38:18,740 --> 00:38:24,890
And I think there's perhaps too much the expenses room of this one seat, very much,

258
00:38:25,100 --> 00:38:33,110
perhaps too much emphasis on the media law in Hungary, but it is read as an example for backsliding.

259
00:38:34,580 --> 00:38:45,530
One also from the region has said sarcastically Now after conditionality is over, we can show them who we really are.

260
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:53,840
But maybe that is exaggerated to to use the Hungarian media at all.

261
00:38:53,990 --> 00:39:00,050
But it is blithely done so in the in the Western media case of backsliding.

262
00:39:00,890 --> 00:39:01,610
Conversely,

263
00:39:01,610 --> 00:39:17,180
the EU ten new member states have also begun to look back at the deal they were drawn into and to see it as a definitely and favourable one.

264
00:39:17,510 --> 00:39:22,610
Not only have they sacrificed too much in terms of national autonomy,

265
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:30,560
this is the official government rhetoric in places such as Poland and the Czech Republic with President Klaus.

266
00:39:31,850 --> 00:39:35,370
But also they receive too little in return.

267
00:39:35,390 --> 00:39:44,720
That is in terms of the all the member states preparedness to assist them on the road to a robust economic prosperity,

268
00:39:44,990 --> 00:39:49,430
rather than keeping them in a position of permanent economic dependency.

269
00:39:49,730 --> 00:39:59,870
This is a new experience. I mean, what is the most automobile intensive economy worldwide?

270
00:39:59,900 --> 00:40:12,139
The answer is Slovakia. They produce 100 cars per year, per thousand inhabitants, 100,000.

271
00:40:12,140 --> 00:40:15,730
And happiness is it is is monocultural.

272
00:40:15,740 --> 00:40:25,030
And if something changes and some people even hope something will change in the mobility regime of Europeans,

273
00:40:25,340 --> 00:40:29,510
then they are likely to suffer very badly from from shifts.

274
00:40:29,510 --> 00:40:35,000
They are dependent upon this. I quoted another example from from Hungary.

275
00:40:35,330 --> 00:40:47,840
So these are dependent economies that are very vulnerable if some major changes, of course occur in Western Europe.

276
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:56,240
Now, of course, time to show whether and to what extent the second and third stages of this somewhat gloomy model will materialise.

277
00:40:56,570 --> 00:41:03,350
Concerning the first stage and the initial patterns of motivation at the beginning of the process that led to Eastern enlargement,

278
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:10,130
it is worth noting that the enthusiasm for returning to Europe as the Polish phrase was in the early nineties,

279
00:41:10,580 --> 00:41:14,330
both within the candidates countries as well as in the EU.

280
00:41:14,330 --> 00:41:20,270
15 Member States was markedly qualified in 1994.

281
00:41:20,930 --> 00:41:29,150
Eurobarometer data show that the least welcome and least favourable assessed best European kind of.

282
00:41:29,250 --> 00:41:36,560
That country, namely Norway, was supported by 75% of the EU 12 citizens,

283
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:45,440
running a full 20 percentage points ahead in terms of the support for membership compared to the most welcome.

284
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:54,139
Most welcome. East European candidate country, which at the time was Hungary and 55% of West Europeans.

285
00:41:54,140 --> 00:42:07,219
So it is a good idea to admit Hungary. So the the the frame of the mental frame of counting upon the idea of cut and the divide

286
00:42:07,220 --> 00:42:13,910
of Europe is still present both in the West and in the East in a very powerful way.

287
00:42:13,910 --> 00:42:19,280
And the one side look at them over there and the other side looks at them over here.

288
00:42:19,550 --> 00:42:27,230
And it is still a mental frame that informs many policy moves.

289
00:42:27,230 --> 00:42:32,090
In other words, the political divide continues to play a significant role.

290
00:42:32,090 --> 00:42:37,459
The legacy of the Iron Curtain, as well as other historical, cultural, economic, geographical,

291
00:42:37,460 --> 00:42:49,370
linguistic and religious differences that exist between the EU 15 and the EU ten, where accession is in fact approved on either side.

292
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:58,129
Such support for enlargement reflects nothing like European solidarity, but to a large extent,

293
00:42:58,130 --> 00:43:03,260
as one author has put it, not altruistic motives at the point of actual accession.

294
00:43:03,260 --> 00:43:15,590
In May 2004, the supporters of enlargement within the EU 1515 just barely outnumber the opponents by 42 to 39%.

295
00:43:16,670 --> 00:43:18,590
Among the EU, ten.

296
00:43:18,590 --> 00:43:30,830
Only in Slovenia and Lithuania did an absolute majority of eligible citizens, namely 54 and 58%, support the accession of their countries.

297
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:40,610
There is a strong legacy of state socialism and not just in the demarcation line which is somehow mentally present.

298
00:43:40,610 --> 00:43:50,750
Although physically, of course, no longer an obvious place to test the hypothesis of.

299
00:43:52,340 --> 00:43:59,389
Perseverance of mental frames or cultural leg theory of transition is the part of

300
00:43:59,390 --> 00:44:04,459
Germany that used to be until the formal end of the state through unification 1990,

301
00:44:04,460 --> 00:44:07,550
the demographic and territorial basis of the GDR.

302
00:44:08,570 --> 00:44:13,100
Even after 20 years since the end of the German case of state socialism,

303
00:44:13,130 --> 00:44:20,750
the normative demarcation line between public and individual responsibilities continues to clearly

304
00:44:20,750 --> 00:44:28,430
show up in opinion surveys comparing East Germany and West Germany as if in a natural experiment,

305
00:44:28,430 --> 00:44:38,979
the GDR. The only example of transition through state murder or the death of a state is contrasting

306
00:44:38,980 --> 00:44:46,120
to the six C case of transitions through the separation of states or state births.

307
00:44:46,660 --> 00:44:56,770
So the GDR allows us to study the vast afterlife of the normative underpinnings of guiding ideas of states and socialism.

308
00:44:57,340 --> 00:44:58,900
The Long Arm of the Past.

309
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:09,160
To summarise just a few findings from recent German surveys, East Germans favour a significantly more substantive definition of democracy.

310
00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:12,970
They think that democracy implies providing for jobs.

311
00:45:13,780 --> 00:45:20,230
They think that real democracy provides control over the banks.

312
00:45:20,740 --> 00:45:30,930
And they think that's democracy as it is practised in their pursuit.

313
00:45:31,210 --> 00:45:47,840
Procedures of a is deficient. And so the assessment of and I want to show this the assessment of market economy and institutions

314
00:45:48,430 --> 00:45:56,200
and we have very good data on this from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

315
00:45:56,710 --> 00:46:03,130
And if I succeed and okay, this is a good example, the economic situation, this is 2006 data.

316
00:46:03,970 --> 00:46:12,910
The economic situation of this country is better today than around 1989,

317
00:46:12,910 --> 00:46:25,570
and the positive answers are in yellow and CB is Central Europe and Balkans and Southeast Europe is as e and as you see in both cases,

318
00:46:25,690 --> 00:46:30,940
these minorities are evaluating the situation.

319
00:46:30,950 --> 00:46:37,720
What is more interesting is that consistently through these macro evaluations,

320
00:46:38,140 --> 00:46:46,630
you'll see that the younger are more favourably disposed in all three regions.

321
00:46:46,990 --> 00:47:00,280
You have to this definition by and by age group and that of the LCR are more favourably disposed younger.

322
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:07,810
That can be a life cycle phenomenon or it can be a cohort phenomenon phenomenon and it remains to be seen.

323
00:47:09,010 --> 00:47:18,790
For the time being, we can say that a minority of people are satisfied with the economic situation in the country

324
00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:26,920
and that the young people and the more prosperous people are much more unsurprisingly,

325
00:47:27,220 --> 00:47:33,160
favourably disposed. And it can be can show it not to one.

326
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,010
And attitude. Okay, this is attitude.

327
00:47:40,210 --> 00:47:50,080
It's a slightly better profile, but you see the same pattern as the younger, the better, and the richer and the better.

328
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:59,620
And overall it is less than 60% of favourable judgements.

329
00:47:59,620 --> 00:48:03,040
I can come to an end. Uh, okay.

330
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:13,089
This is overall life satisfaction. Uh, which in Central Europe and the Balkans reaches just about 50%, maybe lower.

331
00:48:13,090 --> 00:48:21,970
So to distribute it in north of eight below in the former Soviet Union, the same pattern that you see at the at the bottom here.

332
00:48:23,310 --> 00:48:42,930
Let at least this. Rather unsurprisingly, and given the weakness of liberal traditions of political culture in the region,

333
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:55,530
this imbalance provides vast political opportunities for ethno nationalist, populist, anti-European mobilisation.

334
00:48:55,800 --> 00:49:02,640
What I mean by this populism is a drama of its three persons.

335
00:49:04,050 --> 00:49:18,120
This is first we, the good, simple people, honest and trustworthy them our enemies, which can be enemies above enemies from the outside.

336
00:49:18,210 --> 00:49:26,070
Two versions of this that the political the political elite is the business elite,

337
00:49:26,610 --> 00:49:43,110
which leads to a leftist version of populism or minorities and spies and so on, which is rather discriminatory rightist populism.

338
00:49:43,110 --> 00:49:50,790
And then third person in the game is a leader that unites us against them.

339
00:49:51,360 --> 00:50:00,299
And this game of pointing at the enemies, pointing at the leader and the self-description as simple,

340
00:50:00,300 --> 00:50:08,400
trustworthy and good versus evil, corrupt and alien is the basic.

341
00:50:08,850 --> 00:50:18,510
And this is much more common, although is also in some of West European societies is much more common in the east,

342
00:50:18,810 --> 00:50:31,110
partly also pointing to foreign economic elites who exploit us and take unfair advantage of us and so on.

343
00:50:31,590 --> 00:50:44,489
So let me conclude by saying and in the West, there are growing doubts as to whether the logic of Eastern enlargement,

344
00:50:44,490 --> 00:50:53,610
namely the logic of investing through opening capital and labour markets to the region and offering assistance to out of

345
00:50:53,610 --> 00:51:03,239
EU funds will actually yield the hoped for returns in terms of political stability in Central Eastern Europe and Europe.

346
00:51:03,240 --> 00:51:13,260
Wide cooperation. If anything, these doubts are being heightened or at least justified by the perception of symptoms of anti-liberal,

347
00:51:13,260 --> 00:51:21,330
ethnocentric and also anti-European backlash to be observed on the scene of politics of many of the new member states.

348
00:51:22,290 --> 00:51:27,750
My colleague Alain Juppe PD has nicely summarised this.

349
00:51:29,010 --> 00:51:36,540
The indicators of this backlash are the rise of populist groups, political radicalisation,

350
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:46,770
weak majorities of sexual behaviour of in unstable parties and governing coalitions.

351
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:53,220
Occasional violations of democratic standards such as the rigging of elections.

352
00:51:53,700 --> 00:52:04,320
Apart from tiny Slovenia, which is is a very exceptional place for reasons that I have a speculation about,

353
00:52:04,530 --> 00:52:09,239
apart from tiny Slovenia, even the best economic growth performance of the region,

354
00:52:09,240 --> 00:52:21,880
namely the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary have all been backsliding in assessment of the quality of their democracies between 2000 and 2007.

355
00:52:21,900 --> 00:52:31,920
Internally unstable and externally uncooperative political elites are clearly giving rise to doubts in the old member states.

356
00:52:32,370 --> 00:52:44,610
Was it Largement really worth the effort in terms of the economic burdens involved and also what is observed with some consternation in in the West?

357
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:56,940
Is the person in this personal listed confrontational style of in which members of political elites address each other as hostilities?

358
00:52:59,130 --> 00:53:04,800
And that applies also to partisanship in in the media.

359
00:53:05,310 --> 00:53:15,450
So what we can certainly conclude the contrary to what some political and cultural elites try to suggest.

360
00:53:15,450 --> 00:53:19,770
In the West, the transition period is not yet over.

361
00:53:19,980 --> 00:53:30,960
We are involved in the dynamic, the roots of which reach back to the Cold War and to the Iron Curtain.

362
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:39,790
Transition is not. It over and finally accomplished to the contrary,

363
00:53:40,570 --> 00:53:47,560
the present crisis and the challenging resulting challenges resulting from it may

364
00:53:47,590 --> 00:53:57,010
reactivate mental patterns and frames as they were thought to be a matter of the past,

365
00:53:57,010 --> 00:53:58,990
but are not. Thank you very much. Thank you.