Abstract
The European project has recently reached a critical point, where a discussion on the fundamental objectives of the European Union has entered public debate. Currently there are considerable concerns about a new Euroscepticism arising in response to recent developments and a general feeling of malaise towards the European project from both national elites and ordinary citizens of Member States. This paper engages with the keyword ‘Euroscepticism’, which is somehow connected with both populism and extremism. The distinction between these two phenomena involves the ‘insider’ role of populists and the ‘outsider’ role of extremists, as related to liberal democracy. The connection to Euroscepticism does not mean that populists have anti-liberal features and goals that are a threat to immigrants, minorities and so on. Populism should not be discredited as unconstitutional from the outset. It does not undermine the cornerstones of the democratic canon of values. Populist ‘anti’ attitudes stem from a kind of goal-oriented opportunism, not from a systemic opposition. An anti-system party refuses to cooperate with the ‘system’ parties and has an agenda of destructive refusal within the political process; an anti-party party desires to integrate into the political process constructively, in its own way, and its fundamental traits include always being prepared to communicate and form coalitions. Populist parties operate not with anti-system feelings, but with anti-party feelings. The Treaty of Lisbon will be not the ‘end of the history’, but only an intermediate step for the EU between two permanent challenges: enlargement with more countries, as well as deepening. The European elections of June 2009 showed that there is still much work to do in convincing citizens, not only in the new but also in the old Member States of the EU. The integration process continues to be supported by the governments of Member States so that Euroscepticism will most probably continue to be used as an instrument of opposition parties in national political contests.
It is essential not to simply confuse Euroscepticism with the legitimate and necessary criticism of the many challenges and problems of the EU, such as system failure concerning failing states (no sanctions) within the eurozone and the necessity of bailouts, a democratic deficit, the further expansion of the EU (such as the accession of Turkey), bureaucratic measures in specific policy areas like agriculture and scepticism over the solidarity of financially sound countries with Member States in—admittedly partly self-inflicted—troubles. This would only serve to normatively charge the term of Euroscepticism in a negative and generalising manner. Euroscepticism in general is not a demon; it is just another side of the coin in the whole consensually based European project. In the current crisis of the EU and the eurozone, the topic of criticising the EU deserves some attention in Brussels itself, because the political and public discourses within the EU Member States have already started to shift in a negative way. Otherwise the whole success story of European integration and the construction of the EU as a political system sui generis are in real danger from the political elites on both national and European levels.