The view from the Gulf

Neil Quilliam

There has been no coordinated response among states of the GCC, but the messages have been universal, and surprisingly each one has welcomed US efforts to restart peace talks and praised this particular US administration for doing so. But in each case, the same set of issues and concerns has been highlighted, namely the status of Jerusalem, the situation of refugees and ultimately a simple absence of a revival contiguous Palestinian state.

While much has been made of younger Gulf generation’s apparent disconnect from the emotive issues around Palestinian statehood, the state of Jerusalem and the larger refugee issue, older leaders in the Gulf continue to pay them heed. And despite a desire to coordinate with Israel on matters of security, intelligence sharing and tech, they will not advance the relationship under the terms of the so-called ‘deal of the century’.

Put simply, the deal forces Palestinians to concede ground on all matters of importance. And should the Arab Gulf states sign up to it, they will be judged harshly by history for not only selling out Palestine for $50 billion, but also footing the bill. As such, they all feel compelled to hedge and pay salutary lip-service to US efforts but know quietly they will die on the vine and that the Arab Peace Initiative is the only viable framework for advancing talks.

Even younger leaders know that the greater risk will come from signing up to the deal rather than twitter wrath of the US president.

Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim threw a copy in the bin, emphasizing that it ‘was born dead’ and ‘should be thrown in the dustbin of history’.

While the Saudi official position towards the deal was one of qualified support, the Saudi press reported that King Salman had spoken with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has rejected the plan, to ‘stress to him the Kingdom's steadfast position vis-à-vis the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people’. The king reportedly added: ‘The Kingdom stands alongside the Palestinian people and supports its choices and what[ever] will actualize its hopes and aspirations.’

Turki Al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, described the deal’s idea of a Palestinian state as ‘a brutal conception’ and the deal itself as a ‘modern-day Frankenstein’. ‘For Palestine, it is definitely a step back,’ Al-Faisal said. ‘[The Trump administration has] given up the legitimate history and weight of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and adopted a unilateral path.’

The view from Europe

Reni Zhelyazkova

The initial EU response to President Trump’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan was one of caution. An official statement soon after the announcement declared that the proposal needs to be studied and assessed but only a few days later the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, condemned the plan for being out of line with internationally agreed parameters.

Some member states like Luxembourg have expressed support for the foreign policy chief’s position. Ireland, historically a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, and Sweden, the only country to recognize the Palestinian state after becoming an EU member, have responded negatively to the US proposal, expressing concern over mentions of Israeli annexation of Palestinian land and stating that it falls short from previous international agreements.

Other EU countries, however, have been much more guarded in their reactions. Responses from Germany and France have so far been lukewarm – on the one hand, welcoming US attempts at re-igniting peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and, on the other, warning that any future negotiations and agreements must be carried out in accordance with internationally established parameters and legal frameworks.

A strong voice of support for Trump’s proposal was that of Hungary, whose minister of foreign affairs and trade, Péter Szijjártó, commended White House adviser Jared Kushner on the plan during a meeting in Washington last week. Other EU countries are yet to respond publicly to the proposal but unity among all EU countries is far from certain.

The EU’s official position is that a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders and in line with previous agreements and UN resolutions is the only viable option for lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

However, Israeli foreign policy under Netanyahu has focused on strengthening bilateral relations with countries in eastern and central Europe. Cooperation with Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and most recently Slovakia and Hungary has improved in all areas – from security and trade to tourism and cultural exchanges.

Five of these countries, namely, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria recognized the State of Palestine prior to joining the EU, but the rise of populist nationalism, concerns over migration and terrorism, and improving relations with the Trump administration in the US have contributed to an alignment in views between Israel and the right-leaning governments in southern and eastern Europe, as well as those in Italy and Austria.

Improved bilateral relations have translated into political acts of good will towards Israel with a number of EU countries expressing support for Israel in the United Nations and other international forums. Austria, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic defied official EU position and attended the US embassy opening in Jerusalem in May 2018.

In this sense, Israel’s strategy in eastern and central Europe can be seen as a deliberate effort to break up consensus within the EU, and, ideally, reverse the bloc’s position towards the Middle East conflict, but also towards Iran. 

At a time when the EU is managing Brexit, a complex internal agenda, including arguments over the EU budget, and with its relationship with the US strained over Iran, trade and other issues, it is unlikely that the bloc will contribute significant efforts to the Middle East Peace Process. It is even more difficult to see the EU coming up with its own proposal and even less likely that all member states will be able to agree on such an initiative given internal divisions. 

Under the EU Neighbourhood Policy, the European Joint Strategy in Support of Palestine for the period 2017-20 has focused on supporting the Palestinian Authority (PA) with institutional reform, economic development and service delivery. Progress, however, has been limited as the success of programming is dependent on Israeli policy towards the West Bank and Gaza. This has hardened under Netanyahu, who enjoys the full support of the current US administration and sees the EU as biased towards the Palestinians. 

Any plan that replaces the 2017-20 joint strategy will most likely be a continuation of the current approach which focuses on conflict management and supporting the already crumbling two-state solution by keeping the PA alive. 

Some room for cautious hope remains, as much depends on the outcome of the Israeli election on 2 March and the US presidential election in November. Changes in leadership could open up space for EU to actively support the reinvigoration of peace talks and regain its relevance as a mediator in the Middle East Peace Process.

Given the international context, it is in Britain’s best interests to treat Europe as the ‘inner circle’ of its foreign, security and international economic policy, argues Dr Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, in a new paper.

The British government’s approach since 2010 of seeking to enhance the UK's relations with the world’s emerging powers while balancing these with relationships with the United States and Europe has had only limited success. With constrained resources, and in the face of intense global economic competition, mounting security challenges and decaying international institutions, trying to commit the UK equally on all three fronts will not succeed in the future.

Britain, Europe and the World: Rethinking the UK’s Circles of Influence calls for a different mindset and strategy towards the UK’s place in the world – one in which Britain is surrounded by three concentric circles of influence:

• The first or ‘inner circle’ is the EU, the region with which the UK’s relationships need to be strongest and most active.
• The ‘second circle’ consists of the protective and enabling set of economic and security relationships with the US.
• Finally, an ‘outer circle’ comprises the UK’s other key bilateral and institutional relationships.

Should the UK vote to remain in the EU, policy-makers should commit to placing the EU at the centre of Britain's foreign policy, using the country’s economic weight, diplomatic skills and networks to play a leading role in leveraging more effective EU-wide policies.
 
Should the country vote to leave, the UK and the EU would enter an extended period of dislocation before arriving at a new, mutually diminished settlement. British policy-makers would be forced to deal and negotiate with the EU on critical policy issues from the outside. It is hard to see, argues Dr Niblett, how that could lead to EU policies or an international context more in line with British interests.                          

Despite its structural flaws and competing national interests, the EU offers the best prospects for managing the rapidly changing global context, for three main reasons:

First, it allows the UK to leverage the EU’s global economic weight to enhance the UK’s economic interests internationally, including securing beneficial trade agreements and contributing to EU and global standard-setting and rule-writing. Conversely, leaving would require the UK to renegotiate over 100 trade agreements, and would disadvantage UK interests in EU markets, including making EU governments less likely to liberalize services.                          

Second, it gives the UK a say in designing new EU initiatives to strengthen both British and European security in the face of diverse threats, whether managing the flow of refugees and other emigrants; combatting terrorism; or managing a more assertive Russia and the fallout from a disintegrating Middle East.                          

Third, cooperating with other EU members offers a way of maximizing opportunities to find joint solutions to shared problems, whether in terms of responding to climate change; managing growing cyber insecurity; reversing the decay of governance in failing states; or combating the rise of dangerous non-state actors.

Dr Robin Niblett said:

‘Britain is likely to be richer, safer and more influential in the coming decades if it treats Europe as the ‘inner circle’ of its foreign policy. For a mid-sized country like the UK, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. In the UK’s case, this means choosing to be a leading player in the world’s principal civilian power, the European Union.’

European leaders need to implement common European solutions to the refugee crisis. Only joint solutions can credibly and effectively reduce the growing human suffering and social and political turmoil.

The refugee crisis poses a serious challenge, both to the welfare of refugees and to European societies. In 2015, more than 1.5 million migrants crossed into the European Union. From Italy to Poland, and from Greece to Germany, countries face immense challenges in responding to requests for humanitarian aid, asylum, and integration. The associated integration challenges in housing, language, work and welfare are already formidable. Failing to manage them properly poses serious threats to social cohesion and political stability.

European countries have had sufficient time to analyse and assess the long-standing challenges which created the current crisis. Now it is time to act – not individually and at the expense of others, but jointly and in a spirit of European solidarity. This is why Vision Europe – a partnership between seven leading think tanks and foundations in Europe – will in 2016 focus its efforts on providing practical solutions to the current refugee crisis, and its root causes. We, the seven signatories, writing in an individual capacity, see an urgent need for a common European approach, to compliment local and national efforts.

At present, there is no consensus among member states on how to respond to the crisis, neither on the objectives to be achieved or the methods to be used.  But disagreements on substance must be overcome now. Building on current discussions, we propose a comprehensive agenda at the EU level, with five major dimensions.

First, it is important to control the EU’s external borders so that only refugees fleeing war and persecution, who have a legitimate right to seek asylum, can enter and potentially remain in the EU. The porous nature of the EU’s external borders has meant an unacceptable loss of control in the eyes of many EU citizens and has raised false hopes for irregular migrants trying to enter the Union. The control of the borders of the Schengen Area should be a collective effort of the EU and all Member States, coordinated by European Institutions with professional staff and with financial support provided to Member States at the EU’s periphery. Regaining control of the EU’s external borders is essential to preserve open internal borders.

Second, beyond implementing the already agreed upon relocation of 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy, the EU should develop a system which distributes a much larger number of refugees across the Union, directly from the hotspots in the EU and the neighbouring counties such as Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon. Member States not willing to host refugees themselves could choose to make a primarily financial contribution to the system. A Migration Solidarity Fund should be created to manage this compensatory system. Turkey’s efforts to reduce the crossings in the Aegean Sea should be matched by a willingness among EU Member States to take in refugees in an orderly manner. The Conclusions from the European Council seem to move in the right direction in this regard.

The third measure should be to improve, standardize and speed up the processes to determine asylum applications. The sooner refugees know whether they can stay, the more energy can be invested in their integration into host countries’ societies and in family reunions. The sooner a decision is taken, the fairer and more feasible it is to send back those whose requests are refused in full respect of international law and human rights. And EU members cannot afford to have vastly different standards in granting asylum status.  Under international law, there can be no limit set on the number of those eligible to request asylum.

As a fourth measure, we recommend expanding efforts at the EU level to improve the living conditions of refugees staying in countries close to their countries of origin. Many refugees want to return to their homes as soon as the situation becomes safe again. They should not be driven to start the hazardous journey to the European Union only because of unbearable conditions in the countries where they are currently sheltering.

Last but not least, the EU and its Member States should work vigorously towards ending the violent conflicts that are the principal causes of the crisis. Europe must invest heavily in the Syria peace process, in particular. The EU must also raise the ambition and resources of its Neighbourhood Policy, with a focus on helping to stabilise the region and on improving the living conditions and economic opportunities in the Southern neighbourhood.

But action is also required at the national level, especially in the EU countries where significant numbers of refugees have received or are expected to receive asylum. The distribution of refugees across municipalities and regions should be fair and should come with adequate support and resources from the national level, emphasising education and language training. The recognition of professional competences and support to enter the labour market should be available at a very early stage. Within our societies, we need a dialogue between refugees and the host society. It should be made clear that respect for human rights, democratic values and cultural norms is indispensable for a prolonged stay in the respective European host country.

Coming from seven European countries, with different national policies and approaches to the refugee crisis, the foundations and think tanks of Vision Europe are working together to advance new ideas, to frame an informed debate and to emphasize the benefits of common European solutions to Europe-wide problems. Europe is strong enough to manage the migration challenges, but only if political leaders act now, act responsibly and use the resources at their disposal, including support for civil society working in this area. We must not leave the public space to populists and nationalists offering false promises. Only a European solution will be workable and sustainable.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany

Artur Santos Silva
President, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal

Guntram Wolff
Director, Bruegel, Belgium

Mikko Kosonen
President, Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, Finland

Piero Gastaldo
Secretary General, Compagnia di San Paolo, Italy

Robin Niblett
Director, Chatham House, United Kingdom

Yves Bertoncini
Director, Jacques Delors Institute, France

For the past few months, users have been sharing their thoughts on our website on the future of democracy and the role of technology in it. Many have shared concerns about the effects of technological change:  

• Social media may be undermining the historic role of politicians to speak on behalf of their constituencies.
• Twitter favours brief writing and hence brief thinking, which may be leading to a deterioriation in democratic debates.
• The risk that the so-called 'echo chamber effect' undermines balanced and reasoned public debate.

But there have also been lots of ideas about how technology can help European democracies become more responsive and dynamic such as:

• The use of technology to better inform citizens and include civil society in decision-making.
• Sybil-proof identity verification for social network accounts operated by local municipalities.
• The development of non-profit personal data cooperatives as a response to the domination of Big Tech.

Now we want users help in shaping the final report. What do you think should be included?

We are opening up the report writing process and inviting you to take part and feed in your views. Work with us on a collaborative draft in Google Docs – comment, edit and get an insight into the black box of think tank research.

We’ll also be incorporating the most interesting submissions from the previous phase. If you'd like to make a submission, you can still do so here.

How To Join

To access the documents, you will need a Gmail account and to be registered as a user on demtech.chathamhouse.org. Each research question has its own working document, accessed via the Research Questions page.

The process is open to everyone. We look forward to working with you!

Join the project now

Summary

• The United States’ transatlantic allies need to appreciate how its global leadership is changing and what this means for their interests, and respond accordingly. Notions of US decline have been overstated, but the country is not going to play the same international role in the future that it has previously.
• As the United States’ international engagement changes, Canada and Europe should increase coordination with it to prevent power vacuums from emerging. The transatlantic allies should work together to build greater links at all stages of the policy process, from perceptions of threat, prioritization, analysis, threat definition and policy formation to implementation and action.  
• As the United States’ capabilities adapt to its changed circumstances and role, so too must those of its allies. This adjustment must go far beyond military aspects to enhancing diplomatic, energy, economic, intelligence and other resources.
• In addition to the challenges around differing interests, priorities and capabilities inherent in any alliance, Europe appears to have lost its confidence. In part this is due to its growing disengagement and introspection. But Europe retains huge potential for influence if it uses its resources effectively. There is much that European states can do, individually and together, to take more control over advancing their strategic interests. Equally, by working together they can do much to nudge the United States in helpful directions to support the mutual interests of all parties.
• The conversation on reforming global institutions such as the IMF must move beyond the need for change per se towards articulating the actual shape of such changes. Europe and Canada will likely need to push the United States into accepting reform of these institutions to better reflect today’s reality and tomorrow’s challenges. Global institutions need more diversified leaderships if they are to ensure their long-term legitimacy and influence. This will be difficult to push through politically in the United States, but by working with new regional and global powers to propose reforms, Europe and Canada can help find an acceptable solution.
• The use of ad hoc coalitions does not necessarily damage the efficacy of broader consensus institutions such as NATO. In fact, flexible coalitions may often be desirable when solutions to new challenges need to be developed and agreed quickly.
• Canada and Europe should consider partnering with other actors besides the United States where necessary. This may be expedient for meeting individual objectives, and would have the secondary benefit of demonstrating to emerging powers that the West does not exclude cooperation with others out of an arbitrary loyalty to the United States.
• Europe needs to appreciate the potentially dire consequences of failing to adapt to changing US leadership and an increasingly complex world. There is a real chance that the European project could unravel in the next few years due to external and internal pressures. While many European policy-makers display an understanding of these challenges in private, in public there is little appetite for taking the decisions necessary to bring long-term stability to the continent. 

Diane Coyle will join us for a discussion on the impact that new technologies will have on transatlantic economic transformations in the future.

Economic growth rates in the US and Europe have been decelerating over the last decades, and the growth that has materialised has not been equally shared by all.

While technological advancements have contributed to widening inequality of income and wealth, at the same time, technological change is a driving force in improving living standards.

Looking ahead, what role will new technologies play in economic transformations and disruptions?

How can leaders in government and business on both sides of the Atlantic best harvest the potential and respond to the challenges of technological change and its impact on the economy?

This event is part of the US and Americas Programme ongoing series on Transatlantic Perspectives on Common Economic Challenges.

This series examines some of the principal global challenges that we face today and potentially differing perspectives from across Europe and the US.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

Megan Greene will join us for a discussion on the prospect of future economic and political uncertainty on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency and the ongoing saga of Brexit negotiations underscore the amount of uncertainty about the economic future on both sides of the Atlantic.

Despite that, business and consumer confidence in the US and continental Europe have soared. Are we still stuck in secular stagnation, or are we breaking out of the low growth, low inflation, low rate environment we’ve been in for years?

What opportunities and risks are posed by this year’s elections in France and Germany, the upcoming elections in Italy, and the mid-term elections in the US?

This event is part of the US and Americas Programme ongoing series on Transatlantic Perspectives on Common Economic Challenges. This series examines some of the principal global challenges that we face today and potentially differing perspectives from across Europe and the US.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

In the past few weeks, European Union member states have implemented measures such as social distancing, school and border closures and the cancellation of major cultural and sporting events in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. Such measures are expected to have significant economic and political consequences, threatening near or total collapse of certain sectors. Moreover, the management of the health and economic crises within the EU architecture has exposed tensions and impasses in the extent to which the EU is willing to collaborate to mitigate pressures on fellow member states.

The panellists will examine the European Union's response to a series of cascading crises and the likely impact of the pandemic on individual member states. Can the EU prevent an economic hit from developing into a financial crisis? Are the steps taken by the European Central Bank to protect the euro enough? And are member states expected to manage the crisis as best they can or will there be a united effort to mitigate some of the damage caused?  

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members.

Not a corporate member? Find out more.

The Polish election on 13 October resulted, as expected, in a victory for of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).

But despite again securing a slim majority in parliament, it has not been wholly a triumph for PiS. And though there continue to be concerns about the party’s authoritarian tendencies, the election has illuminated some important nuances to its support and appeal, which hold lessons for politics across Europe.

Even though some opinion polls had suggested PiS were close to winning a supermajority in parliament that would have allowed it to pursue constitutional changes, the party fell short of that target, while it lost its majority in the Senate. Thus, while PiS may well renew its efforts to consolidate its control over the state apparatus and the media or meddle with the justice system, it becomes much more difficult with the opposition controlling the Senate and being able to scrutinize laws or have a say in the appointment of public officials.

Most importantly, the election result has shown that while Polish citizens were willing to reward a party that delivered on promises of economic growth and redistribution, they were not ready to hand a blank cheque for full-blown institutional realignment to PiS. Tellingly, many moderate candidates in PiS lists performed quite well among the party’s voters. 

Even though they rewarded a party that at times employed harsh rhetoric against Brussels, Polish voters have long expressed some of the strongest rates of support for EU membership, according to Eurobarometer surveys. The government has also faced massive protests against its most radical initiatives, such as reform of the judicial system and a law to almost completely ban abortion that was ultimately scrapped. It is therefore more likely that the party’s radicalism kept it from increasing its share, rather than helping it to secure victory.

This is not to say that the threat of illiberalism does not remain alive in Poland. But it shows that the degree of PiS dominance in Poland has never been comparable to that of Fidesz in Hungary, with which it is often compared.

This was reflected in the party’s own rhetoric. In the election campaign the government mostly focused on its economic record, recognizing that much of its support is conditional on conventional measures of political success like voter welfare. PiS may not give up on its ambition to establish a ‘new Polish republic’, but the elections have made it clear that economic stability rather than political radicalism will ensure its longevity in power – with the latter perhaps even being a liability as the party experiences fatigue in office.

Similarly, despite the government’s antagonistic stance towards the EU on various issues, PiS never entertained ideas of withdrawing from the EU, as some of its critics feared earlier in its term. With the Polish economy deeply entwined with the European market and Poland expecting – probably for the last time – to receive substantial subsidies from the next EU budget, EU membership is a necessary precondition for the economic success for which PiS is claiming credit.

With the pro-European left returning to parliament but also an extreme party of the right winning representation, the next government will have a difficult balancing act as it tries to draw on the benefits of EU membership while maintaining its defiant image towards Brussels.

Ultimately, beneath the rhetoric and the posturing, PiS is a party that has shrewdly combined popular policies from the left and right, fulfilling promises of both cultural sovereignty and economic redistribution. Its reelection should not come as a surprise given that it fulfilled its electoral pledges by delivering some of the things that many voters in western Europe also crave but that mainstream parties there have largely failed to provide.

When we look back on Brexit, what will it tell us about Europe? Will it simply be that an insular UK was always different and destined to never fit in? Will it be that the UK's decision to leave revealed deeper problems with the EU? Or will it be that the threat created by the UK's withdrawal united the continent and saved the European project?

The speaker will explore Brexit through the prism of biblical and ancient Greek mythology. She will examine the reasons behind Britain’s decision to leave the EU and imagine a ‘better Europe’ that has learnt the lessons of the past and reconciled the divisions exposed by the Brexit vote. How can the EU reinvent itself and re-engage its citizens? And where does a post-Brexit UK fit?

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

This roundtable brings together German experts to discuss the country’s role in Europe and the world. Over the course of two sessions, Germany’s EU and wider foreign policy will be examined, with speakers sharing their views on where the country finds itself at the beginning of 2020 and what drives its current priorities across a number of areas. Participants will also compare perspectives on what a post-Merkel Germany might look like, now that the future leadership of CDU, Germany’s largest political party, is under question.

The event will comprise two separate sessions. Participants are welcome to attend either one or both.

08.30 – 09.30
Germany in the EU and the Eurozone

Speaker: Mark Schieritz, Economics Correspondent, Die Zeit
Chair: Quentin Peel, Associate Fellow, Europe Programme, Chatham House

Germany’s voice remains possibly the most important in any debate within the EU, including in those around the future of the Eurozone. The country has long been seen as the stalwart of the European economy and its government has always played a key role in driving Eurozone policy. However, most recent EU-wide attempts at reform have fallen short of what many claim needs to be done to complete the monetary union. The recently announced Eurozone budgetary instrument, for instance, remains very small and only focused on investment instead of stabilisation. The German government has been reluctant to go along with French President Emmanuel Macron and his structural reform proposals, though some other member states remain sceptical of his ideas for further integration too.

How can German attitudes towards the future of the Eurozone be explained? Is the government’s resistance to ambitious EU-wide economic reforms shared across the political spectrum in Germany? What stands in the way of further Eurozone reform when it comes to other EU member states? And will Germany’s reluctance to engage with reforms in this area, make it more difficult for the country to build coalitions when it comes to other EU policy areas?

09.45 – 11.00
German Foreign Policy in Perspective

Speakers: Joshua Webb, Programme Manager, Berlin Foreign Policy Forum and the Berlin Pulse, Koerber Stiftung
Dr Nicolai von Ondarza, Deputy Head, EU/Europe Research Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)
Chair: Dr Uta Staiger, Executive Director, UCL European Institute

Historically, Germany has been reluctant to play too active a role on the global stage, relying on its place at the heart of Europe and the transatlantic alliance. However, the current uncertain global context appears to have led to some rethinking on how the country can ensure its voice is being heard internationally, especially where its values are being challenged and its interests are at stake.

What drives German foreign policy in 2020? What are domestic priorities when it comes to trade, security and Germany’s place in the world? What shifts in public opinion may have been engendered by Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency? What does the rise of China – and China’s growing interest in Europe – mean for Germany’s wider Asia policy?  Finally, what role will Germany play in a post-Brexit Europe? And what are the country’s priorities in its future relationship with the UK?

The speakers will discuss these and other questions, sharing the findings of a recent German public opinion survey and compare these with international expert perspectives. 

Summary

• There is a widespread sense that liberal democracy is in crisis, but little consensus exists on the specific nature and causes of the crisis. In particular, there are three prisms through which the crisis is usually seen: the rise of ‘populism’, ‘democratic deconsolidation’, and a ‘hollowing out’ of democracy. Each reflects normative assumptions about democracy.
• The exact role of digital technology in the crisis is disputed. Despite the widely held perception that social media is undermining democracy, the evidence for this is limited. Over the longer term, the further development of digital technology could undermine the fundamental preconditions for democracy – though the pace and breadth of technological change make predictions about its future impact difficult.
• Democracy functions in different ways in different European countries, with political systems on the continent ranging from ‘majoritarian democracies’ such as the UK to ‘consensual democracies’ such as Belgium and Switzerland. However, no type seems to be immune from the crisis. The political systems of EU member states also interact in diverse ways with the EU’s own structure, which is problematic for representative democracy as conventionally understood, but difficult to reform.
• Political parties, central to the model of representative democracy that emerged in the late 18th century, have long seemed to be in decline. Recently there have been some signs of a reversal of this trend, with the emergence of parties that have used digital technology in innovative ways to reconnect with citizens. Traditional parties can learn from these new ‘digital parties’.
• Recent years have also seen a proliferation of experiments in direct and deliberative democracy. There is a need for more experimentation in these alternative forms of democracy, and for further evaluation of how they can be integrated into the existing institutions and processes of representative democracy at the local, regional, national and EU levels.
• We should not think of democracy in a static way – that is, as a system that can be perfected once and for all and then simply maintained and defended against threats. Democracy has continually evolved and now needs to evolve further. The solution to the crisis will not be to attempt to limit democracy in response to pressure from ‘populism’ but to deepen it further as part of a ‘democratization of democracy’.

What role does the EU want to play in a world characterised increasingly by power politics? The new European Commission has explicitly stated its ambition for the EU to become a stronger geopolitical actor. Is it capable of becoming a third pole in an enduring US-China stand-off?

From climate change to trade policy and security, the next 5 years may prove decisive in proving the EU can be a strong player both in its neighbourhood and globally. Given what is at stake, what are the Commission’s strategic and policymaking priorities for the next five years? With the discussions on the future EU budget ongoing, what areas will be prioritized when member states come to make decisions between competing objectives? Does the way the EU is perceived externally depend on its member states’ ability to put on a united front when it comes to the most pressing global challenges?

Finally, is this ambitious geopolitical vision deliverable within the EU’s existing structures? If not, are member states ready to give up more control for a stronger Europe at the EU level?

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

It is less than a month since we published our research paper on the future of democracy in Europe. But it feels like we now live in a different world. The coronavirus has already killed thousands of people in Europe, led to an unprecedented economic crisis and transformed daily life – and in the process raised difficult new questions about democracy.

The essence of our argument in the paper was that democracy in Europe should be deepened. But now there is a much more basic question about whether democracies can protect their citizens from the pandemic.

There has already been much discussion about whether authoritarian states will emerge stronger from this crisis than democracies. In particular, although the virus originated in China and the government initially seemed to struggle to deal with it, it was able to largely contain the outbreak in Hubei and deploy vast resources from the rest of the country to deal with it.

Come through the worst

China may have come through the worst of the health crisis – though a second wave of infections as restrictions are lifted is possible – and there have already been three times as many deaths in Italy, and twice as many in Spain, as in China (although there is increasing doubt about the accuracy of China’s figures).

However, it is not only authoritarian states that seem so far to have coped relatively well with the virus. In fact, some East Asian democracies appear to have done even better than China. At the time of writing South Korea, with a population of 51.5 million, has had only 144 death rates so far. Taiwan, with a population of nearly 24 million, has had only two deaths.

So rather than thinking in terms of the relative performance of authoritarian states and democracies, perhaps instead we should be asking what we in Europe can learn from East Asian democracies.

It is not yet clear why East Asian democracies were able to respond so effectively, especially as they did not all follow exactly the same approach. Whereas some quickly imposed restrictions on travel (for example, Taiwan suspended flights from China and then prohibited the entry of people from China and other affected countries) and quarantines, others used extensive testing and contact tracing, often making use of personal data collected from citizens.

Whatever the exact strategy they used, though, they did all act quickly and decisively – and the collective memory of the SARS outbreak in 2003 and other recent epidemics seems to have played a role in this. For example, following the SARS outbreak, Taiwan created a central epidemic command center. Europe, meanwhile, was hardly affected by SARS – and we seem to have assumed the coronavirus would be the same (although that does not quite explain why we were still so slow to react in February even after it was clear that the virus had spread to Italy).

However, while the relative success of East Asian democracies may have something to do with this recent experience of epidemics, it may also have something to do with the kind of democracies they are. It may be a simple matter of competence – the bureaucracy in Taiwan and South Korea may function better, and in particular in a more coordinated way, than in many European countries.

But it may also be more than that. In particular, it could be that East Asian democracies have a kind of 'authoritarian residue' that has helped in the initial response to this crisis. South Korea and Taiwan are certainly vibrant democracies – but they are also relatively new democracies compared to many in Europe. As a result, citizens may have a different relationship with the state and be more willing to accept sudden restrictions of freedoms, in particular on movement, and the use of personal data – at least in a crisis.

In that sense, the pandemic may be a challenge not to democracy as such but to liberal democracy in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as including freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security – and, after the experience of coronavirus, many citizens may choose security.

This brings us back to the issues we discussed in our research paper. Even before the coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of liberal democracy. In particular, there has been a debate about whether liberalism and democracy, which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled.

In particular, ‘illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many places including Europe (although, as we discuss in the paper, some analysts argue that the term is incoherent). This model of ‘illiberal democracy’ – in other words, one in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights are curtailed – may emerge stronger from this new crisis.

It is striking that Singapore – also seen as responding successfully to coronavirus – was seen as a paradigmatic ‘illiberal democracy’ long before Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán embraced the idea. In particular, there is little real opposition to the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since 1959.

Since this new crisis began, Orbán has gone further in suspending rights in Hungary. On March 11, he declared a state of emergency – as many other European countries have also done. But he has now gone further by passing legislation that allows him to govern by decree indefinitely and make it illegal to spread misinformation that undermines the government’s response to the pandemic. Clearly, this is a further decisive step in the deconsolidation of liberal democracy in Hungary.

So far, though, much of the discussion, particularly in the foreign policy world, has focused mainly on how to change popular perceptions that liberal democracies are failing in this crisis. For example, High Representative Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign minister, wrote last week of a 'battle of narratives'.

But this misses the point. It is not a matter of spinning the European model, but of taking seriously the substantial questions raised by the coronavirus about the ability of liberal democracies to adequately protect their citizens.

The new European Commission had a bold new agenda when it began its work in December 2019, with climate change, digital transformation and strengthening European democracy among its priorities. Less than six months later, the European continent is in the midst of the worst crisis since the second World War and business as usual has been taken over by crisis management.

Has COVID-19 monopolized the agenda in Brussels? What priorities are still on the table and what debates have fallen victim to the coronavirus? Is the current crisis reigniting and exacerbating existing faultlines in the EU or creating new ones?

Reflecting on his first four months as the Economist’s Charlemagne columnist, the speaker will share what decision-making in Brussels looks like during a pandemic and what debates are dominating conversations in the EU capital today.