Europe, Crisis, Democracy: Central and Eastern Europe at the Heart of the European Crisis

EUROPE, CRISIS, DEMOCRACY

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE AT THE HEART OF THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

Bucharest, October 26-27 2012

Forum presentation

THE CONTEXT

The crisis is placing a strong pressure on the mechanisms of participative democracy: often, the interests of the political establishment (national or European) coincide with those of the financial markets, bypassing any process of deliberation and consultation with citizens. The European response to the crisis is marked by an inter-governmental logic, which aims primarily to contain public spending while protecting financial markets and the banking sector through repeated injections of liquidity. This action is increasingly taking the form of a constitutional reinvention of the European space, with new Treaties (such as the Fiscal Compact) or new supranational supervisory powers effectively constraining the economic policies of member states without guaranteeing any transnational democratic oversight or participation. Participation of citizens, social movements, national parliaments, or the European parliament has been reduced to a minimum in the drafting of such policies, with a move that reduces the meaning of European democracy to a hollow phrase. As a consequence, voters’ turnouts at national and EU elections are continuing to plummet, euroscepticism is increasing even in countries that were traditionally enthusiasts of the prospects of a strong Union, far-right parties are gaining grounds across the continent. While a great majority of Europeans oppose these policies of austerity and neo-conservatism, the struggle against these is fragmented into a myriads of local struggles which see the action of social movements, but also of trade unions and of some political parties. These efforts are largely not coordinated and fail to create an impact at a European level.

This is blatantly visible in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where the response of authorities (austerity measures and massive privatisations) satisfied both the interest of states and financial markets to the detriment of the largest part of the population.  The celebratory accounts of dissident civil society in the region peaked with the 1989 mostly “peaceful revolutions”. Yet in 2012, while focusing on the dissident preoccupations with freedom of speech and expression, the larger problems of growing insecurity and poverty in all the countries in the region are often eclipsed. However, the assaults on democratic mechanisms and on social rights were met by a new wave of activists and protesters, for which the battles of the “established” civil society are obsolete. These sudden evolutions and emerging forces are constructing a new political space with the capacity of informing and re-launching both local and European struggles and alternative proposals - from anti-Acta protesters to the Occupy movement, from struggle to defend natural resources and the environment to resistance against the privatisation of health care and fundamental services.

 

A number of European-level citizens-run political processes are taking place, with numerous new movements and campaigns seeing in the European space their natural space of action. The re-launch of Europe on grounds of democracy and justice, and the way out of the crisis, must see Central and Eastern players at the heart of the process. The Bucharest forum aims to open the debate on and popularise the concept and practice of transnational activism, bringing together and linking key organisations, movements, and individuals in Central and Eastern Europe.

THE PROGRAM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 13-1930 h

13.00  Registration

13.30 - 14.00: Opening session: Building European alternatives. Overview of the most important European-level movements and struggles to have taken place recently and brief presentation of forum’s scope and objectives.

14.00 - 16.30: Panel I: Civil society and/or social movements - differences between 'rational' and 'radical' political activism

This panel addresses a growing division between civil society and political activism in post-socialist East-Central Europe. Dissident civil society was seen as the main alternative organizational form the region had to offer at the dawn of state socialism. Twenty years later, this concept and practice is still widely used to describe types of civil mobilization as non-violent, civilized, rational and seeking cooperation – rather than conflict – with state and market actors. 

The panel is based on the understanding that the East-East cooperation beyond traditional forms of civil society - usually conducted from donor centres in the West - is only now starting. It is only recently that endogenous radical forms of political mobilization started emerging and being visible for similar actors around the region. For this reason in this panel, we gather actors from around the region who are involved in political activism. 

The presentation of each participant will involve answering a number of predefined questions that try to map the scene and the polarization between liberal civil society and new forms of political participation and mobilisation.

• What is the use of the term civil society in your country/context? What is the popular/usual definition of it and where is it located in the political spectrum?
• Whom do you call civil society in your country/context?
• Is there a dissident genealogy to this term in your country/context and what theory/understanding of society/activism is it based upon?
• Are the Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative divisions still relevant? If so, are they advantageous to civil society mobilization?
• Whom/what do you call 'radical left' in your country and are these actors seen as a part of this civil society? Are left wing rhetoric/problematic/actors seen as valid?
• Do you think that the political potential of your group is well grasped by this term, and how do you explain the answer?
• Do you think that the political potential of the population in your country/context and the region is well grasped by this term?
• Is the cooperation between civil society and the radical left happening/possible in your country context and how? Which are the lines of conflict?
• How would you assess the impact of activism on the internet on social change? How real is the danger of activists' agendas clashing with corporate policies on social networks?

17.00 - 19.30: Panel II: The aftermath of neoliberal economy in CEE: What is being done and what is to be done with the welfare state?

 

The neoliberal agenda made it impossible to think of the “welfare state” affirmatively on a global scale. Whether East or West, the welfare state has been substituted by the minimal state. However, the consequences of this shift on Eastern European societies are incomparable to those in the developed EU economies. The swift and brutal change of paradigms (largely enacted by dissidents that subsequently became part of the political and civil society establishments) brought about what today some call “first the transition, then the crash”: Eastern Europe was a peculiar laboratory of the Shock Doctrine where this scenario merged with the primitive accumulation of capital. The politics of free market capitalism has been regarded as the only viable option. A whole new geopolitics based only on economic pillars still has dire consequences for both the economies and the political processes in Eastern Europe.  The dominance of the neo-liberal paradigm had dire consequences for culture too, with artists and actors in the field turned into entrepreneurs and the emergence of a new cultural politics discourse, selling the underfunding of culture and competition on the “free market” as cultural autonomy. 

Historically, Eastern Europe was dominated by socialist politics and economic models, associated with either a strong welfare state or state capitalism. Throughout the transition, much of Eastern European societies and governments have either abandoned the welfare state, or experimented with its compatibility to neoliberal reformism: At best, welfareism was the feel-good of politics. In both cases welfareism is the “ghost of the state” – neither governments, not civil societies in CEE wanted to “play the card” of the welfare state.  

Why is that so? Was it possible to preserve at least a modicum of social democracy to sustain the pauperized populations in the 1990s and onwards? Has today the EU 27 abandoned the welfare state to an exemplary extent that serves as a model for the newly arrived Eastern Europeans?

In this panel we are interested in (1) how this story emerged and developed in various national contexts and (2) more specifically in what has the role of civil society been in the definition and implementation of the neoliberal doctrine? What modes of opting in and out of this story were experienced? Moreover, what are the answers today to neoliberal economic reforms in light of the present crisis – a deepening of the reforms, a return to welfareism, or something else? 

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 10-13 h

10 - 12.30: Panel III: European democracy and transnational movements

Over the last two years the response of European elites to the economic and financial crisis has been marked by an aggressive centralisation of supranational decision-making powers. The new governance structures envisaged no longer simply suffer of a “democratic deficit”, but now represent a true “flight from democracy”. Few countries are experiencing the force of supranational determination of social and economic policies more than those of Central and Eastern Europe (Romania, hosting the forum, is undergoing a tough IMF program), although these are being discussed much less than the cases of Greece or Spain.

The approval of the Fiscal Compact is just the latest step towards the imposition of an ever stricter fiscal discipline, following the European Semester, the Europlus Pact, and the Six Pack. The de-structuring of the foundations of the material conditions and rights of labour, the demolition of the welfare state, the continuous privatisation of fundamental services and common goods, seem to increasingly require the destruction of democracy, even in its representative forms. The electoral process itself no longer takes place in a normal climate, but rather under the permanent blackmail of the crisis of sovereign debts and the threatening oscillations of financial markets.

Any opposition to the unjust and inefficient economic and social choices imposed under the blackmail of debt must be accompanied by an equally strong mobilisation capable of resisting the reduction of the democratic life of European citizens and of relaunching on European democracy. We need a democratic rupture. A democratic rupture based on the contestation of technocracy and its impositions, and on the establishment of a democratic constituent process for another Europe. Central and Eastern Europe must be at the heart of this process.

Many proposals are currently being debated: ranging from a constituent assembly directly elected by citizens to coordinated European campaigns, from a relaunch of the role of the European parliament to greater European coordinator of national trade unions. What should be some of the key demands to take forwards at European level to address the current democratic crisis? What forms of political action and political practices can citizens and social movements put in place to negotiate radically this new space of diffused, evaporating national sovereignty?

12.30: Closing session: Organising next steps at regional and European level

With this closing session we aim to present key regional and European mobilisations and events scheduled for late 2012 and early 2013, and reason together on the most effective strategies to relate the discussions from the forum to ongoing political and cultural activities and work-programs.