Why democrats need to cooperate better across borders in Europe

“Poland isn’t as bad as in Hungary” - went the comment from a Polish political analyst during a recent online conference I attended on democratic backsliding in the EU. Minutes later an Italian participant emphasised how different the problems that liberal democrats encounter in his own country are from those Polish liberal democrats struggle with. Next, a centrist French politician made clear his problems were separate from those of the Italian interlocutor. And to top it all, a German analyst distanced herself from the French colleague, listing all the nuances. 

Of course, they were all right. Still, it was disheartening to hear so much said about differences, and so little about commonalities. 

The recent, groundbreaking EU agreement on a recovery package has been met with applause but also with questions about how rule of law principles will be defended. The wider context is that everywhere on the continent we are certainly more fragmented, more polarised and more alienated than a decade ago. 

After the financial and debt crisis, and after the migration crisis, the corona pandemic is now shaping our societies. Surveys show Europeans are worried about strains on healthcare systems, the economy, the curtailing of freedoms, and divisions within our societies. This current crisis did initially heighten a sense of solidarity within countries, but two months later social trust started to evaporate. Large numbers of people feel disenfranchised and vulnerable in their own country. 

The collective experience this pandemic has inflicted on us has produced a pivotal moment. We’re having to discover a new reality. The crisis seems to have stirred different forms of protest -  the Black Lives Matter movement being a striking example. As we ponder whether the pandemic is past its peak or not, public anxiety remains high. 

Much of this creates the perfect setting for malevolent political actors to seize opportunities and try to push their agendas. Far-right and ethno-populist parties had managed to thrive in the aftermath of previous crises, by offering simplistic responses to complex questions. They produce “us” versus “them” narratives, constantly looking for enemies. Lies and conspiracy theories have been sowed to divide people and foster culture wars. It’s happened from Italy to Hungary, from Poland to France. 

In so many places we’ve heard language that excludes, and seen political tactics that deliberately polarise. These forces have put pluralist democracy in danger. And make no mistake, they are on the offensive.

All of this raises an important question: can democrats - those who oppose the hate-mongers and would-be authoritarians - seize this Covid moment to come together and act jointly for a more resilient democratic fabric across Europe? 

Several obstacles need to be overcome for that to happen. As I write this, I’m drawing on my own trials and errors in democratic alliance building in Hungary and elsewhere in Europe. Hopefully my experience can provide some useful insights on which steps need to be taken.

First, let’s acknowledge that pro-democracy forces, whether political or civic, can be old as well as new. Recent parties and groups will hesitate to cooperate with more established ones, because they tend to consider them as politically drained and/or financially corrupt. It’s the reason they set up new organisations in the first place, rather than joining older ones. Even if they agree on many issues, these groups are rivals. Such differences are very explicit in Hungary and in Poland where illiberal forces are in power, and where the opposition’s credibility and capability for innovation are put to severe tests. Established parties that suffer from prolonged electoral setbacks end up in survival mode : they are typically characterised by intense in-fighting and fragmentation. They simply no longer come across as attractive partners for younger entities to cooperate with.

Another problem is that civil society organisations often regard political parties as opponents. Until the moment NGOs start regarding themselves as key actors on big issues, they tend to see political parties as merely power players. This perception gap has huge consequences especially when the whole point of cooperation should be to put up a fight for pluralist democracy itself. It is precisely when majoritarian politics treat journalists, civil society organisations and opposition parties as enemies lumped together, that the need to revisit the role of one’s own organisation within society is urgently felt. New ways of coalition building should be sought, to reinforce each other’s strengths instead of letting divide and rule tactics gain ground. Surely this could be done in ways that respect the institutional integrity of each separate organisation. 

The third and probably the most challenging barrier to cooperation among pro-democracy forces is political polarisation. The toxic character of political polarisation is most visible in countries which have a majoritarian or first-past the post electoral system, as in Hungary and Britain. Polarisation is on display in increasingly hostile political language and in the weakening of any capacity for compromise at the European level. Political families within the European Parliament have ended up compromising some of their fundamental values in the name of cynical pragmatism - in order to protect some of their member parties. This has happened despite those parties’ democratic backsliding, corruption cases, nativist ideas and rampant anti-liberal talk. Those compromises have represented a major success for  illiberal forces in Europe. The very idea of pluralist democracy gradually became an ideological-political battle  - no longer something considered untouchable or rock-solid. 

One big question today is whether a majority of European political parties still give the same meaning to the word ‘democracy’. Each time moderate parties disagree among themselves about the definition of the word, their threat perception differs, and thus their capacity and willingness to act together. Some of them consider democracy itself is at stake, some of them don’t. This affects their ability to share a vision of what a more open and pluralistic Europe could be. 

One major consequence of the pandemic has been that our sense of community and fairness has strengthened. That’s very good news. People are also more aware that change is inevitable, and show more willingness to take action for change to occur. It is up to political leadership to show in which direction things may now move: towards more breaking up or towards some bridging? Now is a good time to revisit the democracy debate in Europe. At its core, the question is whether and how we want to live together in the future. Sensing people’s anxiety, illiberal forces offer basic demagoguery as a response to this: “we want to live together as we did in ‘the old days’” - they say. A delusion, of course.

But simply claiming to want to safeguard democracy is not a good enough answer either. As we find ourselves collectively under the pressure of this pandemic, let’s put an end to our decade-long complacency and seize on an opportunity. Those of us who believe that pluralist democracy and a more unified Europe can provide a free, safe and prosperous future for all need to better define how we want to live together - and in particular how we want to embrace those who feel they’re left behind or unheard. Democrats across borders need to look a bit further than shallow partisan interests; they need to come together and take the lead in rewriting a narrative for Europe that makes people feel they belong, and be convinced that politics can move beyond short term wrangling and focus on safeguarding a collective future.