Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. The beauty of film is that it can open the mind of people to new ideas and different people. Frontiers of Screen History discusses how film might have changed our perspective on European borders. By Ouke Arts The European Union is officially an economic and political union, but it might be argued that its future success is also dependent on whether or not it is able to become a cultural union as well. Member States need to share certain values, norms and ideas in order to cooperate smoothly. The discussion about the accession of Turkey is illustrative in this respect: is Turkey too ‘different’ from the rest of Europe? In 2007, a Turkish- German filmmaker named Faith Akin directed the film Auf der anderen Seite. In this film, German and Turkish cultural values confront each other and are to some degree reconciled. The film is a collection of powerful scenes that capture the long Turkish path to European accession. By captivating our imagination and moving borders in how we think about similarities and differences, filmmakers help create and recreate ideas and possibilities. How different movies do so is discussed in Frontiers of Screen History (2013). This book is a collection of thirteen essays that inspire the reader to think about the power of film, but, unfortunately, it lacks topicality. The beauty of film Frontiers of Screen History is a collection of essays on cinema published by the British academic publisher Intellect. The common denominator in the essays is the identification, confrontation and imagination of European borders in fiction films set between 1945 and 2000. These borders come in many forms: national, political, social, ethnic, religious and gender-related. This chosen denominator is broad enough to include practically any film set in the given timeframe and to no surprise, the collection seems to have been assembled somewhat by coincidence. To bring structure to this kaleidoscopic collection of essays, the editing team of four Finnish research fellows introduced a number of sub themes: 1) Worlds divided by the Iron Curtain, 2) Alternative cultural locations, 3) Borders crossed, borders within and 4) Post-colonial borders and cultural frontiers (see Table). The essays in Frontiers of Screen History all share one comprehensive argument, that the beauty of film is that individual viewers are able to identify themselves with the actors and the story and by doing so, transgress borders in their minds and revise their individual opinions within the time frame of a couple of hours (and without having to get up from their seats). The sum of all such individual revisions can emerge as a significant collective impact on what we call our zeitgeist or concept of modernity. Indirectly, any given film can have an impact on our society as a whole. The contributors to Frontiers of Screen History connect their individual experiences with a number of films to academic opinions in the field, but only partially discuss this great potential for impact on society as a whole. Back to history Unfortunately, the collection of essays in Frontiers of Screen History focuses on films set between 1945 and 2000 and takes a historic rather than a forward-thinking perspective. Current issues are largely missing in the thirteen essays. In my opinion, more recent films lend themselves much better to political reflection. Consider, for example, films that are not included in Frontiers of Screen History. These include films such as Disconnect (Henry Alex Rubin, 2012), which captures the impact of media technologies and social media on human interaction, and Broken (Rufus Norris, 2012), which looks at the limitations of an engineered society. Other recent films not in the collection revise our ideas on economic issues, including Inside Job (Charles H. Ferguson, 2010), Unter dir die Stadt (Christoph Hochhäusler, 2010) or Margin Call (J.C. Chandor, 2011) on the origins of the financial crisis that started in 2008. Reconstructing European borders In my experience, the impact of these films is hard to describe in words or to translate into logic, but is easy to understand on an emotional level. This impact can lay the foundation for a generation of political ideas. Politicians use arguments and rhetoric to try to convince the collective imagination of the rightness of their ideas (and it usually takes politicians more than a couple of hours to do so). To some degree, politicians have a direct impact on our society. Both the comparison between film and politics and the concept of history as liquid inform the idea that film as a medium and cinema as an art form are very powerful tools for reconstructing our interpretation of current and past events. More often than not, film is a medium that influences our thinking about social or political issues. Consider another number of films that are unfortunately not included in Frontiers of Screen History such as The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi, 2012), which reimagines religious borders regarding women in Islam, or the documentary Armadillo (Janus Metz Pedersen, 2010), which depicts the absurdity and relativity of distinctions between civilised versus barbaric in international conflicts. Other examples include the film Detachment (Tony Kaye, 2012), which knocks down conventional ideas on the borders between parents’ and teachers’ responsibilities and the film Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010), which succeeds in connecting undesirable events and those responsible for them across geographical borders. But perhaps the most powerful (and least verbal) recent example is the film ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (Victor Kossakovsky, 2011). In this mesmerising film, straight lines are drawn through the centre of the earth and at both ends of the line, people and landscapes are documented and intertwiningly presented. Even with the biggest distance between two borders on earth thinkable, the essence of humanity and the rhythm of nature remain astoundingly equal. If there is ever a sequel to Frontiers of Screen History, I vote for ¡Vivan las Antipodas! to be placed on the book cover. In conclusion, leaving aside the absence of more current issues in the essays, only reading about films and their context in Frontiers of Screen History is not recommended. You will have to goand see films like the ones mentioned in the collection of essays or in this review for yourself, before reading more about them. See them preferably on a big screen in a local theatre so you are invited to completely focus your attention, but watch them on a smaller screen if that is your only option. Go to, stream, download or rent the films that are discussed in Frontiers of Screen History and in this review, and as you watch them, observe how your personal frontiers begin to shift. Your observations will provide great starting point for a political discussion with other viewers.   Ouke Arts is partner at Thaesis, a consulting firm that specialises in new trends in media and technology.   Bibliographic information Raita Merivirta, et al. (2013) Frontiers of Screen History: Imagining European borders in cinema, 1945-2000 Bristol, United Kingdom: Intellect Books ISBN: 9781841507323   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij het onderwerp cultuur.   Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. The Netherlands is not an island. In order to achieve our goals we have to cooperate with other countries. Ideally, within the United Nations; in reality within the European Union. By Sjoerd Sjoerdsma The individual at the centre. That, in a nutshell, is what D66, as a social-liberal party in the Netherlands, is about. A world in which people are free to think what they want to think, and free to do what they want to do. That is the driving force behind our political thought – also when it comes to our foreign policy. To D66, foreign policy is not just about protecting the interests of sixteen million Dutch people. Instead it serves to create a sustainable, safe and stable world for all, a world in which individuals can be themselves and have every chance to make the most of their lives. The best way to achieve this is through international cooperation. Demographic and climatic developments are putting this international cooperation to the test. The global financial crisis fosters nationalist feelings. Fossil fuels are becoming depleted, resulting in tensions. Food and water are divided unevenly. D66 believes these are not arguments to cooperate less, but rather more. Ideally, all countries in the world would cooperate on an equal footing and engage in dialogue. Ideally, the United Nations would be the platform for addressing global issues directly. Unfortunately, we are not quite there yet. The platform on which Dutch foreign policy should take shape is the European Union. For the Netherlands is losing its influence in the world. As a founder of the ECSC, Bretton Woods and others, the Netherlands used to be a major player. But a Dutch seat at the main table of international diplomacy is no longer self-evident. The seat at the G20 was temporary. Countries our size are ranking lower and lower on the new global scale. This is in part self-inflicted. Think of the years of substantial cuts made to spending on diplomacy, development cooperation and defence. It is, of course, also in part due to developments elsewhere in the world. But it is not only the Netherlands that is losing influence. The European Union is also no longer a self-evident global player. In the year 1900, there were 1.6 billion people living on earth, 25% of whom were Europeans. By the year 2050, there will be 9 billion people on this planet, of whom only 7% will be Europeans. Meanwhile, the Americans have made a tough choice in their defence policy: less Europe. The American military presence in Europe is being reduced as the focus shifts towards Southeast-Asia and the Middle East. Europe will no longer be a top priority. Since our influence, our having a voice at the table, is becoming less and less self-evident, it is crucial for the European Union to come up with a truly communal foreign policy. The notion of creating such a communal policy is not new. Since the Second World War attempts have been made to set up a joint external policy. In the early 1960s, President De Gaulle tried to found a political union in which the European member states would cooperate not only in the area of defence, but also in foreign policy. De Gaulle’s plans failed initially. But in 1970 his wish came true in the form of the European Political Cooperation. This was the direct predecessor of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the last few years the external policy of the EU has been extended further. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty enabled the appointment of a High Representative. She – Representative Ashton – travels the world as the diplomatic voice of Europe. She shares the table with heads of government and has her own diplomatic office, the European External Action Service (EEAS). D66 wants a strong Representative. D66 wants the European Union to take on a leading role in dealing with the big issues. Trade agreements. Climate deals. Civil and military missions. Humanitarian and rescue missions. Disarmament operations. But while we are enthusiastic about the ideal of a strong European foreign policy, we are critical of the way it is currently carried out. How do D66’s liberal values actually relate to the main values existing within the European Union? All EU member states have indicated in the preamble to the EU Treaty that they feel inspired by the cultural, religious and humanist traditions of Europe. It was these traditions, amongst others, that formed the foundation for the development of the universal values we recognise today. The inviolable and inalienable rights of man. Freedom, democracy, equality. The rule of law. These values are repeated in article 2 of the EU Treaty. Through this Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, all member states have also committed themselves to the abolition of capital punishment. Thus, under the Treaty, everyone is committed to these principles. At the same time, EU member states regularly clash over their implications. D66 sees a number of areas in which the EU can conduct a joint external policy without much of a problem. Think of customs tariffs and product standards in major trade agreements. Think of environmental and transport agreements. But then we come to our development cooperation policy. D66 thinks parts of it could fall under a joint external policy, but that there may be disagreement. Aid funds, after all, are linked to good behaviour. And member states as well as the European Commission often disagree about what constitutes ‘good behaviour’. And then we haven’t even mentioned peace and security, the issues on which we diverge most. How can we conduct one EU policy in those fields? What if we had European armed forces – when could we then deploy them with a mandate from all member states? The question is: what does an integral European foreign policy mean for Dutch foreign policy? Can the Netherlands still set its own priorities and take action on an individual basis? What happens when European agreements clash with Dutch aspirations? What happens if the Netherlands wants to consistently defend gay rights, while there is no European consensus on this issue? In which areas is the Netherlands willing to, in time, give up its independent voice, and how can we, at the same time, hold on to our unique position as a trailblazer when it comes to issues like the rights of women and gays, or our acclaimed 3D policy? And there are many more important questions like these. How do we strengthen EU institutions like the EEAS so that they are effective, efficient and able to act decisively, and how do we shape our own diplomatic service in the meantime? How do we acquire a joint EU seat in the UN and financial organisations while guaranteeing that these organisations will be thoroughly reformed? How to we create a common EU policy that is not only conveyed externally, but also internally, within the Union? These questions show that the Netherlands should think more strategically about the role of the European Union in national foreign policy. D66 will gladly take the lead in this.   Sjoerd Sjoerdsma is a Member of Dutch Parliament for D66. His main interests are foreign affairs, international relations and development.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen Europese Unie en internationaal.    Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. Door Wouter Koolmees While I was writing this column, my colleagues and I were travelling by train to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. I told them that my column concerned the liberal borders of Europe and Arnold Merkies, a colleague from the Socialist Party, replied that ‘Europe doesn’t have any liberal borders.’ In some way, he’s right about this. The main principles of the European Union are liberal, especially when it comes to the economy and budget finance. Free movement is a liberal pillar of the European Union and the open borders, the level playing field and deregulation give the European citizens the right to move freely between member states. In this sense, Europe does not have any borders. In the last decade, more ‘free movement’ has caused more economic integration, but also greater interdependency between member states. This was exactly what the founders of the EU intended. Like everything, however, it also has another side. Economic integration has made capital so liquid that it runs easily from state to state. Before the crisis, most capital went from North to South. Nowadays it’s going in the other direction, which has had only negative consequences: banks had to be financially backed by states, the interest rates of Southern obligations were raised through the ceiling and all this was followed by strict austerity measures to maintain proper budget finance. The result is a continuously rising unemployment rate, especially compared with the other, Northern, member states. A European Banking Union (Single Resolution Mechanism) is necessary to regulate this disturbing effect of capital markets and I am convinced that it is only a matter of time before we have one if we want to restore the stability of the Eurozone. A Banking Union with European supervision, a European ‘bad bank’ plan and a European system that guarantees bank accounts should be set up as quickly as possible. But more and more, I see a new problem: a Europe of different levels. The Banking Union uncovers a huge difference between the Eurozone and other member states. Some states don’t want European supervision or European politicians deciding on the (potential) bankruptcy of their national banks. I am convinced that this Europe of different levels is something we cannot afford. It creates differences between member states, conflicting with the liberal principles of the Union. There will be no level playing field and that will possibly lead to new protectionism. The actions of one state have consequences for the other. There’s nothing new about that. The new thing is that it creates a Europe of different levels. It creates a paradox, where more European integration creates more differences within Europe. It means a leap backwards instead of the necessary steps forward. The best – liberal – solutions for the future Europe will be harder to achieve. This gives us all the responsibility to find a solution.   Wouter Koolmees is member of Dutch Parliament for D66.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij het onderwerp Europese Unie.  Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. Europe’s border is not on the Turkish straits or the Mediterranean Sea, as physical geographers usually see it. It is the whole Mediterranean basin, and the now multi-national cities of the old continent, which are Europe’s real frontiers. It needs new policies to take that into account, and a new outreach to Turkey should be a central part of them. By Hugh Pope Forces of fragmentation have long tugged at the fabric of the nation-state on Europe’s southeastern borders. Now Turkey, arguably the most successful and coherent state of the region, is experiencing insecurity and widening ethnic and sectarian fault-lines as Middle Eastern turmoil spills over its 900-km frontier with Syria. How will Europe react? Europe’s right-wing political current believes that excluding Turkey is the answer to the problem, putting up barriers and closing down the country’s European Union accession process. In Turkey, a Euro-sceptic reaction elicits equally rejectionist feelings. However, there is no drawbridge between the borders of Europe and Turkey. Ignoring the problems in the respective relationships is, therefore, not an option. The well-being and safety of the European Union depends considerably on its relationship with Turkey. This applies the other way as well; a reality that is sometimes hard to see due to excesses of domestic political rhetoric on both sides. Europe, and its already multinational societies, currently have little protection from all the regional stress, given the open waters of the Mediterranean and a Turkey that now feels emotional hostility, commercial rivalry and strategic ambivalence. The past five years have seen the undermining of the traditional pillars of Turkey’s international relationships, which were a strong army, a solid alliance with the us and nato, opportunistic trading relationships and an ambition to join the European Union. A new point of inflection may be approaching as growing Middle Eastern turmoil applies pressure to Turkey. Overspill from the Syrian conflict has killed 77 people on the Turkish side of the Syrian border since June 2012.1 This insecurity is adding tension to the sectarian divide between the country’s Sunni Muslim majority and Alevi communities (including close cousins of Syria’s Alawites), who make up at least 10 per cent of the population. It has also added a new dimension to the long-running fight between the Turkish army and insurgents drawn from Turkey’s Kurdish-speaking communities, who account for 12-15 per cent of the population. Mishaps include the apparently accidental bombing of a caravan of smugglers that killed 34 Turkish Kurd civilians, the loss of a Turkish warplane on the edge of Syria’s territorial waters and an explosion that killed 25 conscripts at an army base. At the same time, the Cold War bedrock of Turkish foreign policy, its relationship with the us, has also been shaken. There have been many frictions, not least over misleading us signals about arming the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s high-stakes unwillingness to normalise relations with Israel. Turkey has said that it wants to buy Chinese radars incompatible with nato, and has talked of closer links with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is dominated by Russia and China and is sometimes presented as an alternative to nato. As one leading study of clashing us-Turkish policies puts it: ‘challenges… have steadily mounted’ in an ‘underperforming partnership’.2 An economic slowdown may also be in store for Turkey. The economy did well after a banking meltdown in 2000-2001, growing at an annual average of five per cent over the decade to 2012. Istanbul has become a glossy regional hub and Turkish Airlines flies to 200 destinations (with its thickest web of connections to northern Europe). But a period of higher us interest rates in the summer of 2013 showed how quickly Turkey’s fragile balances are upset when big short-term capital flows reverse direction and flow out of the country instead of into it. Similarly, while Turkey benefited from huge trade opportunities in the Middle East in the 2000s – its exports to the Gulf alone going up eight times – the Arab uprisings since 2011 have delivered a grave blow. Turkish trucks can no longer cross Syria and Iraq and economic opportunities in the region have plummeted. The Turkish government’s idealistic and perhaps naïve outreach to Middle Eastern countries has also crashed. Ankara’s increasingly pro-Sunni and pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance has aroused deep suspicions in the principal regional capitals of Cairo (after the ousting of President Morsi), Riyadh and Tehran. Turkey’s most important set of relationships – with European states and the eu, responsible for nearly half of its trade – also stalled after accession talks that started in 2005 ran aground. Both sides are to blame. Attacks on Turkey and its right to join the EU by nationalist and right-wing politicians, particularly France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, made Turkey feel there was no point in making politically difficult compromises and reforms. Turkey often overestimated itself, too, acting as an equal negotiating a partnership and not an applicant trying to join a club. Cyprus, an intrinsic element of the Turkey-eu relationship, remains a spoiler. Divided politically between its Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities since 1963, and physically after the Turkish invasion in 1974, a major round of peace talks between 2008-2011 ended with little new clarity. Attempts to revive the talks in the autumn of 2013 have been uphill work. Greek Cypriot determination to develop new natural gas discoveries without involving the Turkish Cypriots, and Turkey’s increasing indifference to Greek Cypriot views, have reinforced the de facto partition of the island. In recent months, however, there are signs of change. Political unrest in the summer of 2013, especially in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and Taksim Square, showed that Prime Minister Erdoǧan’s power is not unchecked as he heads into a cycle of elections municipal (March 2014), presidential (summer 2014), and parliamentary (summer 2015). After three decades of conflict between the insurgent pkk and security forces, he has chosen to break taboos rather than continue with the stalemated violence. His 16 November 2013 gala of Turkish-Kurdish togetherness in Turkey’s main Kurdish-speaking city of Diyarbakır which included Iraqi Kurdistan leader Massoud Barzani as a guest of honour revived hopes that a March 2013 ceasefire is part of a real peace process. Internationally, Ankara’s policy of worthy isolation, which replaced an emphasis on zero problems with neighbours, clearly proved too lonely, accompanied as it was by a realisation of how few real levers Turkey has in the Middle East. The first sign of change was Turkey’s 2012 call to nato for American, German and Dutch Patriot missiles to defend itself against potential chemical weapons attack from Syria. Ankara has also rebooted relations with Shiite powers in Tehran and Baghdad and opened a new chapter in the eu negotiations, the first in three years. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoǧlu began to set a new tone: Turkey’s leading role in transatlantic institutions is the primary pillar of its foreign policy. […] the EU membership process has been re-energized. […] Ankara and Washington share the very same objectives when it comes to engaging with the Middle East. We have both sided with the new collective consciousness in the region – one that prioritizes good governance in its struggle against authoritarianism.3 To further strengthen these hopeful changes, a new approach to the Europe-Turkey relationship is needed. In the place of competition, European and Turkish coordination and engagement is far more likely to mitigate crises in Syria and the Middle East, help Cyprus’s economy, deal with migrant flows into southeastern Europe, ensure the smooth integration of the now stable Turkish population of four million in the eu, and build up European energy security. The most obvious option is to revitalise the current eu accession negotiations for Turkey’s membership (a 50-year-old process that can only be voted on after another decade, if then). The rigour of the eu process between 1999 and the mid- 2000s laid the foundations for Turkey’s great leap forward and could give the same anchoring discipline again. This is clearly advantageous for Europe, too. For instance, if Cyprus is settled, normalisation will give Greek Cypriots an economic shot in the arm that will relieve a small but significant part of the Euro crisis.4 eu-nato ties will at last be freed of Turkish-Greek Cypriot obstacles, and a raft of other prickly issues and outright rivalries will be cleared from the agenda of EU meetings relating to southeast Europe. It is true that some European Turkey-sceptics have quietly hidden behind the convenient fact that Cyprus blocked half of Turkey’s negotiating chapters with the eu. In recent years, also quietly, Turkey’s leadership has been just as happy to be spared too much eu pressure. But a relaunched eu process would automatically give Turkey a positive, much-needed new narrative – top Turkish officials often underline that the accession process is more important to them than actually joining the EU – and bring Europe leverage on issues it, and many Turks, care about in Turkey: freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary, transparency of government and a fairer political system. Another idea is an associate membership as recently proposed by Euro-parliamentarian Andrew Duff;5 or perhaps a privileged partnership, proposed but never fleshed out by German, French, and other actors. Two thirds of foreign investment in Turkey is from Europe, and a more stable, prosperous Turkey is not just better for European companies who take advantage of this vibrant market, it also reinforces the reality that Turkey is no longer the country of emigration that it once was, whatever the imaginings of the European right.6 And just as there are Turkish immigrants at work in their countries, Europeans should take into account that integration has put European banks on the corners of every town high street in Turkey. For some in Europe, Turkey looks like a medium-sized outsider with an attitude problem. But Europe needs to revise its attitudes, too. Europe needs to look harder at whether it wants Turkey to continue as a problematic rival in its southeastern backyard, or whether it is more productive to ease those problems through greater partnership.   Hugh Pope is the International Crisis Group’s deputy director, Europe and Central Asia Program, and author of Turkey Unveiled: a history of Modern Turkey; Dining with al-Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East; and Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World (published in Dutch as Zonen van de Veroveraars: de herrijzenis van de Turkische volken).   Notes 1 Open source tally by International Crisis Group up to 20 November 2013. 2 See Ambassadors Morton I. Abramowitz and Eric S. Edelman, Co-Chairs, ‘From Rhetoric to Reality: Reframing us Turkey Policy’, Bipartisan Policy Center, October 2013. 3 Ahmet Davutoğlu, ‘With The Middle East In Crisis, us and Turkey Must Deepen Alliance’, Foreign Policy, 15 November 2013. 4 One study foresees a 10 per cent jump in gdp within seven years of normalisation. ‘The Day After: commercial opportunities following a solution to the Cyprus problem’, Peace Research Institute-Oslo, 2008. 5 Andrew Duff, mep, ‘The case for an Associate Membership of the European Union’, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ europpblog/2013/03/06/associate-eu-membership/. 6 Studies show the total number of Turkish citizens living in Europe has dipped, partly because many are adopting European citizenship, and most Turks no longer want to migrate to Europe. See www.euimagine.org.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen Europese Unie, internationaal en grenzen.      Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel.

Between thinkers and acts

Libraries are full of enlightened theories about politics and governance, about justice and freedom. From Aristotle to John Rawls, history is filled with thinkers who want to improve politics. But do politicians care for these abstract theories? Does the political thinker stand on the sidelines or is he a valued advisor? Idee presents a series of interviews in which historian Coen Brummer interviews (liberal) political thinkers on the tension between theory and practice. In this episode: Michael Ignatieff

By Coen Brummer

“Politics is not an idea-free zone”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) was well on his way to becoming the classic example of a polit-ical thinker and a public intellectual. Having studied under Oxford celebrity Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) and authored numerous books on human rights and political theory, not many academics could match his resume, his intellect or his outspokenness. After travelling and teaching across the world, the political historian by training settled down in Boston to teach classes in international relations and human rights at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. But then some party hacks from the Canadian Liberal Party paid him a visit and invited him to put his ideas about politics into practice. Ignatieff was persuaded to run for a seat in the House of Commons. He got elected and lived through a rough period in Canadian politics, with the Liberal Party under siege by the Conservatives. Ignatieff won the bid for the party leadership in 2009, but resigned after a dramatic electoral defeat in 2011. What did he do wrong? Analysing both his mistakes and his successes, Ignatieff wrote a book about his political career: Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics. You write that you admire intellectuals who step up and enter the political arena. But well before deciding to run for office yourself, you realised that those intellectuals often fail. Why did you decide to enter ‘the dark side’? “I thought it was the light side, in fact. I’m a child of the sixties, so the politics of Jack Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were extremely important to me. From the earliest stage I felt that politics could be a heroic way of life. They inspired me and it was a very exceptional time to come of age politically. You had to be made of stone not to be influenced by those people and I certainly was. So when my time came in 2004 and people approached me out of the blue, that went through my mind. I don’t think I judged my moment very well. In many ways, I misjudged it. The times were not suited for what I wanted to do. But I don’t regret doing it.” You are an academic. Why is it that there are always some adversarial feelings between intellectuals and their political ideas on one side and the practical world of politics on the other? “Too many people who write about politics and theorize about politics don’t have a sufficient practical sense of what is doable and not doable. They don’t have a specific sense of institutions. Political ideas are always realised through institutions. You have to understand how institutions work; you have to understand how political parties work. What coalitions of constitutions have to be put together to make ideas work? There is an enormous gap between believing in equality before the law and equality regardless of sexual orientation and then a gay marriage bill. Getting a gay marriage bill though parliament means talking to people who believe marriage is something between a man and a woman. People who believe, for a perfectly honourable reason, that it is unnatural for gays to be together. So, they are not going to vote for you. Perhaps then, you have to persuade them to abstain or to do it some other way. That is how you get things done. The great thing about politics is that in the process of creating coalitions it forces you to reason with people who think exactly the opposite of you.” Before entering politics, did you have the feeling you understood these political institutions enough yourself ? “I didn’t understand them at all. I didn’t understand what a political party was, I didn’t understand how much the Liberal Party had changed over the years. I didn’t understand factions and divisions within the party. All parties have divisions in them. All parties are coalitions, especially parties in the centre. They consist of fiscal conservatives and social progressives, for example. Keeping them together is the disci-pline of a centrist party. During my time in politics, that centrist position came under a lot of pressure. Prime-minister Stephen Harper was bleeding off the fiscal conservatives. The New Democratic Party was bleeding off the social progressives. The challenge was keeping them together and I was not successful. But that’s what I believe centrist politics is. Coalitions are formed within parties. It is about getting people who don’t agree about everything to agree on something. That means understanding you live in a plural world morally. So the task of politics is to mediate disagreement. And find limited compromises that are needed to move forward.” You studied politics for your entire academic career. I can imagine you knew these things already. If we had had this conversation ten years ago, wouldn’t you have told me the same things about parties and institutions? “You can know a lot of things in theory, but knowing them as a daily life experience is very different. I knew in theory that people disagree with each other. They disagree in seminar rooms. But it is another thing to encounter disagreement when it is political. I didn’t understand how antag-onistic politics was. This sounds terribly naïve. What did I think it was, some kind of seminar? It’s a battleground! A battle for personalities, a battle for power. The antagonistic character of it came as a bit of a shock.” How did you handle this? “One of the key things was to hold on to the distinction between an adversary and an enemy. And that’s very difficult in politics. It becomes easy for the metaphors of war and battle to take you over bit by bit. You start using this language of war in politics and it starts to inhabit your mental world. But why do we love politics? Because it is the alternative to war! People tend to forget that politics is a battle of conflicting loyalties. Loyalties to yourself, to those you represent, to you party, to your country. But also to the political system itself. We almost never talk about this, but you don’t want to spend 25 years of your life as a politician and come out thinking you made the system a little worse than when you came in. Few people can claim they have made it better, but you definitely don’t want to have made it worse. I think some of my opponents did make politics worse.” Would you say the political world as you experienced it is by definition hostile to reason, political ideas, the things a political philosopher has on his agenda when he enters politics? “I think that is overstated. Often, people believe that, but I was always struck in caucus debates how much arguments mattered. I wouldn’t say it is like Aristotle’s agora but I heard serious arguments. It is not an intellectual seminar, that’s for sure. But it’s not the idea-free zone people pretend it is either. I wouldn’t want to overdo how rational politics is, but I also don’t want to say that reason and arguments don’t matter. They do matter, for the simple reason [that] they matter to human beings. We’re the kind of animals that need reasons to do things.” Looking back, would you have wished that there was more room for ideas? “What I found striking was that nobody took the time to refute my ideas. They were too busy refuting me. Can it be different? Well, the message in politics is only heard when it is spoken by a messenger who’s authentic. Intellectuals find it difficult that the message depends on the messenger. In academic life, who knew [what] John Rawls looked like? The theory of justice depended on a strong argument, not on the person Rawls was. In politics it is totally different. We don’t talk about ‘health care reform’; we talk about ‘Obamacare’. You cannot separate the message from the messenger. That is how it should be, but the problem is that if you can defy the messenger, you don’t have to refute his ideas. But that simply requires greater political skill: don’t let yourself get framed and impose your own message.” You sound more positive than most intellectuals. The complaint is often heard that they feel they’re not taken seriously by politicians and bureaucrats. “I don’t think intellectuals should be encountered with that much respect. Intellectuals are resentful about the fact that they’re not treated with more respect. Well, tough. Suck it up. Academics and intellectuals have power in society, but all forms of power should be countered with pressure. The only power that can put the power of intellectuals under pressure is the power of the people. I am a democrat in that sense. If you walk around with a PhD thinking ‘why isn’t everyone listening to me?’ you’re slightly missing the point. The point about democracy is that the waiter and the taxi driver are as important in politics as everybody else. Besides, a politician’s job is not to be interested in ideas, but in getting things done. A politician doesn’t have to read the climate science reports or to have great thoughts about nature. His job is to figure out what legislative path we can take that gets our carbon emissions under control. And we ought to have respect for that kind of knowledge. A good politician is not interested in ideas; he’s interested in which ideas’ time has come.” Machiavelli wrote a lot about timing, which he called Fortuna. One of your teachers, Isaiah Berlin, studied Machiavelli extensively. What was the most useful lesson Berlin taught you? “Berlin thought me that political life is not a choice between good and evil, but between goods. Some of those choices are really hard and there is no science, no philosophy of government that can make those choices for you. You just have to choose. Berlin did not believe in political science. He believed in using your reason as best as you can, but a lot of political choices are about shutting your eyes and say ‘boom, we do this’. And it may end up very badly for you. There is not much to guide you, except your principles and your experiences. And every form of choice, Berlin said, involves giving up something else.”   Coen Brummer studied history and philosophy. He currently works as a press officer for D66 in the Dutch Parliament.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij het onderwerp interviews.      Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. The European Union faces significant security threats from countries in its border region. How can the eu legitimately intervene in these countries, and what is fair to ask of its Member States? By Ton van Osch The main focus of voters is most likely their own well-being. One dimension of well-being is the guarantee of fundamental (human) rights as stated in our constitution and several international treaties. Another dimension of well-being is prosperity. No wonder that the economic crisis gets so much political attention. But strategic thinkers in Brussels fear that the next crisis might be in a third dimension of our well-being: security. Some of our neighbours to the east seem to be moving away from democracy. China and Russia have had huge increases in their defence budgets. There is instability in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel, with related flows of refugees, negative effects on our economy, threats of terrorism, illegal trafficking, proliferation of small weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We can see new security tensions linked to consequences of climate change, shortages of essential resources and new threats related to cyberspace. At the same time there are huge cuts in defence budgets all over Europe. The US has had its own cuts in defence and has shifted its priority to the Pacific; they will no longer take the bulk of the burden in crises mainly affecting European interests. The eu cannot fully meet its own security ambitions. It is no coincidence that the President of the European Council decided to have a meeting dedicated to security and defence with the Heads of State and Government for the first time in five years. The EU needs to deal with this growing security threat from the border region; in this article I will focus on how they should do so from a social-liberal perspective. Common security threats The protection and security of the European Union is laid out in the Common Security and Defence Policy. Its general objectives are the promotion of peace, democracy, human rights and international law and order. All eu Member States support these objectives, and usually also agree that they are all affected by the security threats mentioned above. No single Member State can protect itself alone, nor hope to solve security issues on the global level alone. This is the main reason for countries to become a member of organisations such as the UN, NATO and the EU. However, this international and European security cooperation leads to some fundamental dilemmas and problems, particularly for poli-ticians and political thinkers of a social-liberal persuasion. First of all, and most fundamentally, when is military intervention needed and legitimate? Though most security threats seem straightforward, they usually are not. Politicians are confronted with conflicting interests and values. Secondly, how can the responsibility for military intervention and security be distributed fairly? Some countries face more acute security threats than others, and therefore literally pay a higher price for military intervention or the lack thereof. In the European context for instance, countries in the border region – like Poland, Bulgaria and Italy – feel more threatened and usually have higher defence budgets1. The Baltic states and Poland are concerned each time there is a foreign military exercise close to their borders and Estonia was understandably upset when it faced a cyber attack perceived to come from Russia. Thirdly, international decision-making usually is quite complicated as most members of organisations have the sovereign right to decide whether they will contribute militarily or not. How can politicians and policymakers deal with these questions? Military intervention The first and most fundamental question for policymakers and politicians is if, and under what circumstances, military intervention in other countries is acceptable and legitimate. I understand social-liberalism to be a political theory based on the values of self-determination and pacifism, though it does not exclude the right of self-defence. When attacked by Russia, Georgia did have the right of self-determination. By extension, security threats from outside the borders of the European Union might affect the EU as a whole, which could also lead to the need for it to defend itself as a whole. The question becomes more complicated, however, when we need to determine whether or not to intervene not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others. My conviction, based on social-liberal principles such as ‘treasure fundamental rights and common values’, ‘share prosperity’ and ‘think and act internationally’,2 is that countries bear a responsibility for the diffusion of liberal human rights across borders. When, for instance, all fundamental rights and values were broken in Bosnia, leading to a humanitarian disaster, it was fully in line with social-liberalism to try to separate the fighting parties (NATO’s IFOR) and stabilise the region (NATO’s SFOR and EU’s EUFOR), especially if these missions are supported by un Security Council Resolutions.3 I think it also fits the social-liberal line of thinking if military support is given to a democratically elected government to support it against extremists who try to overthrow the government by force, such as in Mali4. In doing so we indirectly also help to counter terrorism, counter illegal trafficking of humans, weapons and drugs, support the legitimate government to improve good governance, and contribute to the restoration of international law and order. A fair share of the burden When military intervention is agreed upon, the next question is what is fair to ask of the various members? Obviously, the answer to this question depends on what is required to counter the security threats in question. First, countries need to determine whether to use nato or the eu. My advice is that each organisation should build on its strength and not try to move into the area of the other’s strength. The strength of nato is that it is suited for common defence and high intensity major operations. Some operations can only be implemented with support of the us, so it helps that through nato the us is auto-matically involved. Therefore, nato remains essential for our ultimate security and defence. But nato’s weakness is that its influence is almost only based on its military capability. The strength of the EU, on the other hand, is that it has many more instruments under its own roof 5 that can be comprehensively synchronised towards a common objective. This eu strength is excellently suited for crisis at the lower end of the intensity scale. Its ‘Compre-hensive Approach’ encompasses cooperation between all relevant instruments. This includes not only defence, diplomacy and development, but also areas such as humanitarian assistance, trade, sanctions (such as blocking visa or bank accounts), and law and order. The High Representative of the eu, who is also Vice President of the Commission6, has the mandate to coordinate all external action. This leads to better results, as proven in the Horn of Africa.7 From a social-liberal point of view it seems reasonable to strongly support the eu’s Com-prehensive Approach to crisis management, including the military dimension, because it aims to achieve all of the values supported in the social-liberal view and ensures that mili-tary action is fully embedded within all other EU actions. Second, what is required of the members? Both NATO and the EU have based their answers on their own preferred scenarios:8 the EU’s is based on peace-enforcing operation and nato’s on common (self) defence. The eu and nato cal-culate what capabilities they need in order to respond to these different scenarios, ranging from the highest to the lowest ends of the intensity scale (such as conflict prevention, humanitarian assistance and evacuation operations). On the basis of these calculations, the organisations determine the shortfalls, the missing capabilities for responding adequately to the different scenarios. It is important to realise that each Member State has only one set of forces. They can use it only once for the UN, NATO, EU, or national purposes, which makes the ability of different military organisations to conduct joint operations within these different organisational structures of crucial importance. nato usually sets the standards for military interoperability and the fair share taken on by each NATO Ally is based on a percentage of its gdp and negotiations on who does what. The EU leaves it up to the Member States as to whether they are willing to give priority to the maintenance and development of those underdeveloped capabilities, resulting in a growing list of shortfalls. Like NATO, the EU cannot sufficiently cope with all the scenarios that it has politically agreed to. It would be very useful to strengthen the development of military capability in the EU in order to optimise the use of the military within the broader comprehensive approach, thereby strengthening the EU’s main asset. Strong capability development in the eu would not only allow the eu to meet the demands of their own scenarios, but would also allow it to support the European part of the nato ambition, as well as taking up a fairer share of the military burden in UNmissions.9 The Netherlands is one of the underperforming countries, not with the military means it still has, nor with its priorities within the Defence budget, but financially in comparison to other Member States10 and to what it has agreed to11. Conclusion In short, in the coming years the European Union will be confronted with significant security threats from its border region. From a social-liberal perspective, there are arguments in support of a security and defence policy which tries to counter these security threats through international cooperation and which demands that every Member State takes its fair share of the international military burden as part of the UN, NATO and the EU.   Ton van Osch was Permanent Military Representative of The Netherlands to NATO and the EU, and Director General of the EU Military Staff. He studied Economics and Logistics at the Royal Military Academy, has a Master Degree in Civil Administration from Leiden University and is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College. He retired from active duty in July 2013.   Notes 1 The Baltic States, Poland, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy move between 1.4-2.5% of gdp. The Benelux countries move between 0.6-1.3% of gdp (SYPRI Yearbook 2013). 2 In 2006, D66 formulated five so-called ‘guiding principles’ of a social-liberal way of thinking. These three are at the heart of it, next to ‘Trust on people’s own power’ and ‘Strive for a sustainable and harmonious society’. 3 See list of un SCRs related to the implementation of the Dayton Agreement. 4 ‘Artikel 100-brief minusma’, letter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the chairman of Dutch Parliament, The Hague, 1 November 2013. 5 Council (Member States), eeas, all Commission instruments, be it with different legal frameworks. 6 Lisbon Treaty Art. 9E and related Council Decisions on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. 7 Pirozzi, ‘The eu’s Comprehensive Approach to Crisis Management’, dcaf, 2013. 8 ‘Defence Planning’ in nato; ‘Capability Development Mechanism’ in eu. 9 Currently eu Member States deliver less than 5% of all troops for the un (see ‘Ranking of military and police contributions to un missions’, report 30 Sep 2013). 10 SIPRI yearbook 2013. 11 NATO, 2% of gdp; nl going under 1.3%   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen Europese Unie en internationaal. Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. Dit artikel bevat figuren en tabellen. Lees het pdf om de tabellen te bekijken.

European borders exist in all shapes and sizes. One can draw lines across cultural, political, economic and religious divides. So what do these borders look like? How clear-cut are they?

By Jeroen Dobber

Crossing economic borders The EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) was inaugurated on 7 May 2009, with the aim to strengthen the ties between the enlarged EU and its neighbours to the East. The EaP offers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine a privileged economic and political relationship that builds upon a mutual commitment to common values (democracy and human rights, rule of law, good governance, sustainable development and market economy principles). As part of this policy, the EU promotes economic reforms aimed at opening the EaP economies to the outside world. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Statistics, Eurostat, monitors progress on these reforms in yearly reports. A key indicator of the openness of the economy is the amount of trade taking place. This is measured through the average of exports and imports, relative to gdp (%). Prior to the EaP’s inauguration we see a decline of this average in all EaP countries. After 2009 there is a clear upward trend. This could indicate that the efforts in the EaP have led to more trade with the EU. Crossing cultural borders ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ The New Testament leaves little room for discussion. But not all neighbours are universally loved, particularly not when they are ‘different’, adhere to different values or come from different cultures. Because of the proximity of the relation people tend to have strong emotions when it comes down to the people living next door. Over 2005-2008 the World Values Survey carried out a study asking who people would rather not have as their neighbour. Using these data we can, amongst others, see what stereotypes are common in Europe’s neighbouring countries. Among the most unpopular neighbours we can, unsurprisingly, distinguish drug addicts and heavy drinkers. They are closely followed by homosexuals and people who have aids. After that, opinions start to differ. Turks would rather not have an unmarried couple living next to them, Russians tend to avoid immigrants and foreign workers, while Moldovans are not very keen on gypsies. Contrarily, there seems to be a high degree of racial and religious tolerance in these countries, as these factors end up at the bottom of the list. Crossing geographical borders The EU’s geographical borders are probably the most tangible form of a ‘European border’. EU citizens will rarely experience this as an obstacle. They are free to leave and enter whenever they like; particularly as of 1995 (Schengen agreement). Amongst other groups this border is experienced differently. One of these groups is migrants. Immigration policies and border controls have made it increasingly difficult for this group to enter ‘Fortress Europe’. Principally responsible for the coordination of the EU’s  border security efforts is the EU agency Frontex. Frontex coordinates the EU’s border controls along 42.673 km of sea borders and 7.721 km of land borders. But despite its efforts there are still people who manage to enter without permission. In Frontex’ Annual Risk Analysis we can see where most illegal border crossings took place. Crossing religious borders The reluctance of various European citizens and politicians to allow Turkey to join the EU often has (implicitly and explicitly) to do with the non- Christian heritage of that predominantly Muslim country. In this view, the European Union is based on a common identity and history determined by its descent from a Western Christian (protestant/ catholic) tradition. The European border is drawn where the influence of this tradition is no longer dominant. This results in two axes: 1) a divide between the Western Christian and Eastern Orthodox tradition and 2) a divide between Christianity and Islam. The following map shows, however, that it is difficult to distinguish clean-cut border lines based on religion. In Greece, the cradle of Europe’s democratic lineage, 98% of the population adheres to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In other ‘European’ countries like Bosnia (Muslim 40%, Orthodox 31%, Roman Catholic 15%) and Albania (Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%) we can see that Islam is the dominant religion. When we compare Albania to Lebanon (Muslim 59.7%, combined Christian 39%) we can see that Lebanon has relatively more Christians and fewer Muslims. Would this make Lebanon more ‘European’ than Albania?   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen feiten en cijfers en grenzen.  Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. Future eu-membership is and has been a driving force behind democratisation processes in the European border region. However, the transformative power of the eu is limited. Old political habits and structures die hard. By Atanas Slavov The prospect of membership of the eu has been an important engine for democratisation in countries in both Central (CEE) and Southeastern Europe (SEE). This, combined with the fact that popular sentiment in those countries is favourable towards the eu’s democratic institutions and the eu’s future1, seems to create a very positive story about democracy and the transformative potential of the EU. However, this positive story could be challenged in several ways. Most importantly, the integration of national political elites and party systems into the European political system does not provide immunity against clientelism, corruption, and conflicts of interests. An inefficient response to this challenge may further weaken the capacity of democratic institutions in those countries and may dampen the prospect of further enlargement of the EU, including hindering the accession of candidate countries in the Western Balkans. Democratic consolidation reconsidered Despite the EU membership of countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, one cannot truly speak of them as democracies that function well. To be sure, there are democratic institutions; however, democracy is not ‘the only game in town’. Democracy, thus, is not properly consolidated. The concept of ‘democratic consolidation’, as described by political scientists Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996), describes the process of democratisation in the last thirty years in different regions such as Southern and Eastern Europe and in Latin America. It refers to a process that takes a given political system to the state where democracy becomes the dominant and accepted system, no longer challenged by powerful political actors, networks or lobbies. As it is consolidated, democracy becomes routinised and deeply internalised in social, institutional, and even psychological life, as well as in individuals’ calculations for achieving success. There are multiple factors that contribute to the weakened state of national democratic in-stitutions in cee and see countries and hamper their future political and economic progress. Generally, institutions in these states are threatened by the long-lasting non-democratic practices of the recent past and/or the insecurities of the present. As a critical Freedom House report2 notes, there is a “democratic decline among the newer European Union members, where the combination of weak traditions of democratic practice, resilient networks of corruption and clientelism, low levels of public trust, and shaky economic conditions have hampered the achievement of indelible democratic reforms.” Both the behaviour of political and social actors and the predominant ethos of the public sphere in see countries differ significantly from accepted eu standards. Instead of the rule of law and accountable and transparent government, there is widespread corruption at a high level, as well as clientelism and an emerging oligarchy. There are events that have led to increasing concern for the future of democracy, such as the questionable appointments in the judiciary in Bulgaria, the Constitutional Court, and national security agencies, the corruption in high offices in Croatia, which has led to the ten-year imprisonment of the former Prime Minister, and the continuous institutional struggles between the Prime Minister and the president in Romania. The hampering of democratic consolidation in see countries can be illustrated by figures from recently published polls and studies. The Corruption Perception Index 2012, developed by Transparency International, ranks countries’ level of corruption and indirectly measures the degree of democratic consolidation, social trust in institutions and the establishment of the rule of law. It ranks the countries from Southeastern Europe much lower than eu member states in Central Europe. Thus, Bulgaria is ranked 75th, Romania 66th, Greece 94th, and Serbia 80th, while the Czech Republic is ranked 54th, Poland 41st, Hungary 46th, and Slovakia 62nd.3 Another recent survey – The Rule of Law Index 2012-2013 – also paints a gloomy picture.4 It shows that see countries underperform significantly compared to their cee counterparts. Failing struggle What should particularly worry us about this failing struggle for democratic consolidation in see countries is that democratic institutions and structures had to be in place before accession to the EU was possible. Hence, it has now become obvious that some countries joined the EU without fulfilling all membership criteria, and that compromises were accepted. The only legitimate justification for full membership of partially democratised see countries is that if they had not joined the eu, their democracy-building may have been undermined by powerful domestic lobbies and the geopolitical interests of neighbouring states, such as authoritarian Russia and democratically struggling Turkey, and that they would have therefore posed a challenge to the security of the EU. The accession of Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia was quite successful in terms of these states adopting the eu legislative framework. However, the transformative potential of the eu towards democracy in the new member states has been quite limited after their accession. Instruments to ensure compliance are weaker after full membership compared to the pre-accession phase. For instance, the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism – designed to assist Bulgaria and Romania to reform their judiciaries, safeguard the rule of law and combat organised crime and corruption in higher offices – has dramatically failed. However, besides the powers that the Court of Justice has to sanction a non-complying member5 or the application of political pressure, the European Union has basically no political power vis-à-vis member states. The only measure that the eu could apply is the procedure that allows a temporary exclusion of a member state from the process of decision making in a case of the violation of fundamental values.6 This mechanism, however, is quite complex and its efficacy is not certain; for example, threats to apply the mechanism to Hungary have not produced the expected positive results and Orban’s government continues with its questionable policies. That said, the requirements to enter the Schengen Area and the Eurozone could, however, also be used as political instruments to make member states comply with eu laws and standards. Old boy networks Yet another problem connected to the eu’s transformative potential in the region is its explicit recognition of old national political elites and parties who have questionable pasts and whose exercise of public power contradicts fundamental eu principles and values. By doing business with these old political networks, the eu effectively reaffirms their power base. A special concern should be noted regarding former communist/ socialist parties and their nomenklatura (high level administrators) and networks connected to the old communist secret services. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the former communist parties in Central and Southeast European countries have continued to provide a platform for the political and economic involvement of networks and lobbies connected to the former regime. Through their membership in the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the Party of the European Left, former nomenklatura, secret services agents and the oligarchy that emerged with their support have received new recognition and an eu-wide scope for their activity. These problems, however, are not limited to former communist parties, but are present in all political families, including Liberals (ALDE) and Christian Democrats (EPP). For instance, there have been regular accusations of the misuse of public funds, corruption, conflict of interests, cronyism against several Bulgarian parties participating in the government in the last decade, including the Bulgarian Socialist Party (PES member), Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria – gerb (EPP member), and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (ALDE member). All of these major Bulgarian parties have received regular support from their European parties on many domestic political issues. This leaves the impression that eu institutions have a double standard. What now? To enhance democratic consolidation processes in see countries and to counteract powerful anti-democratic lobbies and networks, the eu needs to commit resources to strengthening the European-wide cooperation on law enforcement, including the reform of Eurojust and the creation of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office. An emerging case law, grounded in a value-oriented interpretation and the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU by both the Court of Justice of the EU and the national courts, may further strengthen the sense of the eu as a political union and a community of values. Further, active civil society involvement in decision-making could be enhanced through the new participatory instrument of the European Citizens’ Initiative. To exist as an area of freedom, security and justice, the EU has to emerge as a stronger political force that can hold national governments, officials and lobbies accountable in the case of a breach of fundamental EU values and principles. Only then may the eu continue to play a positive transformative role in the new democracies with a troubled totalitarian past.   Atanas Slavov holds a Ph.D. in Constitutional law (2009) and an LL.M. (2003), both from Sofia University (St. Climent Ohridsky), Bulgaria. Dr. Slavov is a senior lecturer in Sofia University’s Public Administration Department and European Studies Department. Currently, he is working on a doctoral research project at the University of Glasgow on democratic consolidation and political theology in the Eastern Christian context. His research interests and publications are focused on liberal constitutional theory, direct democracy and citizens’ participation, law and religion, and political theology.   Notes 1 Public Opinion in the European Union, Standard Eurobarometer 79, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/ archives/eb/eb79/eb79_first_en.pdf 2 Freedom House Report Nations in Transit 2012: http://www. freedomhouse.org/article/hungary-and-ukraine-forefront-democratic-decline-central-and-eastern-europe (last accessed 11.02.2013). 3 Corruption Perception Index 2012, Transparency International, http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/ results (last accessed 13.02.2013) 4 M. Agrast, J. Botero, J. Martinez, A. Ponce, C. Pratt, WJP Rule of Law Index 2012-2013 (Washington, D.C.: The World Justice Project, 2013), 35-39 5 Art. 260 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 6 Art. 7 of the Treaty on European Union.   Bibliography · Linz, J. & A. Stepan (1996). Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen democratie en Europese Unie.Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. How does the European Union influence those outside its borders? Frank Schimmelfennig identifies various strategies. A policy of ‘carrots and sticks’ has lost much of its force, he argues. By Frank Schimmelfennig Though following the economic and financial crisis, the European Union still has to solve many internal issues, there are also external challenges to consider. On its eastern border, Russia is becoming increasingly assertive in the international arena. On its southern border, the tentative transition of Arab countries towards democracy has led to unrest and turmoil. And on a global scale, economic and political power is shifting away from the Western hemisphere. How should the eu deal with these international challenges? As a foreign policy doctrine, liberal internationalism might be helpful for understanding the role of the EU in the world. This article classifies the EU as a liberal international organisation and reviews the strategies it can use to influence its environment as well as the conditions under which they promise to be effective. Liberal internationalism Liberal internationalism is a foreign policy doctrine that is about the diffusion of liberal values across the globe. It stipulates a triangle of peace and international cooperation via democracy, trade, and institutions. Democratic states, it is believed, do not wage war against each other; they are more open to other forms of interactions and interconnections between their societies. Secondly, trade is assumed to make a positive contribution to peace. The connection between free trade and the collective welfare of nations has always been a signature feature of liberal theory in general. Finally, liberal international-ism suggests that international organisations not only foster peace, cooperation, and transnational exchange but also help the establishment and survival of democratic regimes. This liberal triangle of democracy, trade, and institutions is not simply ideology. It has generally found support in empirical research, with ‘democratic peace’ as its strongest element. The EU epitomises liberal internationalism. First, it defines itself by core liberal values: ‘The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights…’ (Art. 2 Treaty on European Union). It is composed uniquely of democratic countries; its accession rules (Art. 49) provide for any European state subscribing to the liberal values to apply for membership. Second, trade is the EU’s foundation. The European Economic Community (EEC) started as a customs union with a plan to develop into a common market. The ‘1992’ program for the Single Market revived European economic integration after many years of stagnation and triggered further integration projects such as the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the Schengen free-travel zone. Third, the eu is the most strongly integrated international organisation in the world. The scope and strength of delegation and pooling of sovereignty is unparalleled by other multilateral organisations. No international organisation has a more powerful supranational parliament or court. As a consequence, the European Union has helped to establish and preserve peace in a formerly war-ridden region of the world, and it has produced intense and durable international cooperation. Foreign policy of the EU These liberal features also characterise the external relations of the EU. Since the early 1960s, it has developed a system of associations with nonmember countries which mirror the liberal triangle. First, trade is both the starting point and the core of the association. Preferential trade agreements have usually been the first agreements the EU has concluded with nonmember states. These agreements have provided the launch pad for deeper trade liberalisation and further economic and political integration. Second, the EU has pursued the deepening of institutional relations with nonmember states. Association agreements include not only committees for the joint resolution of problems and disputes but also an implicit or explicit possibility of deepening the institutional relationship and, in the case of agreements with European countries, of bringing them closer to membership. This has been true for the association agreements of the 1960s with southern Europe, the Europe agreements of the 1990s with Central and Eastern European Countries, and the stabilisation and association agreements of the 2000s with the Western Balkans. Relationships with nonmember states not wishing to join are still highly institutionalised, the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement with Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, for example, comes with the dynamic adoption of eu rules and supranational dispute settlement. Finally, liberal values have also been the main condition for establishing association agreements and moving closer to membership. Democracy, human rights, and the market economy have become essential elements of the agreements that the EU concludes with third countries – from trade agreements to accession treaties. Not only is the signing and ratification of such agreements subject to compliance with liberal principles and agreements; they can also be suspended or terminated if these principles are severely violated by the EU’s partners. For those countries who wish to join the EU, it is generally true that the more democratically consolidated they are, the closer they are to full membership. European countries outside the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), such as Belarus and Russia, are more autocratic than Moldova, Ukraine, and the countries of the Southern Caucasus that participate in the ENP. The countries in the Western Balkans associated with the eu are on average more democratic than the enp countries, and those Western Balkan countries that are recognised as candidates for membership (Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia) are more democratically consolidated than those that are not (Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo). Croatia, the most democratically consolidated country of the group, has recently joined the eu. In turn, however, Croatia has lagged behind the new member states in Central and Eastern Europe that joined in 2004 and 2007. In sum, the EU represents a typical liberal international organisation in its internal and external relations. Internally as well externally, it is based on progressive market integration, democratic membership, and the building of strong common institutions. It is a separate question, however, whether and under what conditions the eu’s external policies attain their goal of promoting democracy and institutionalisation. Influence How can the EU influence developments abroad? Possible strategies can be identified based on three pairs of characteristics. First, strategies can be incentive- or persuasion-based. Incentive-based strategies seek to change the cost-benefits calculations of third countries by offering or withholding rewards or inflicting sanctions. By contrast, persuasion-based strategies seek to convince actors in third countries of the appropriateness of EU policies. Second, strategies can be direct or indirect depending on whether or not the eu takes a proactive stance and seeks to intentionally promote its model and policies. Third, the eu can either use the intergovernmental or the transnational channel. That is the eu can either influence other governments that then adapt to eu goals and policies or it can influence societal actors such as firms, parties, or civil society actors that then put pressure on their governments. Combination of these character-istics leads to a variety of strategies. Conditionality and socialisation are the basic strategies used. Conditionality is a direct, intergovernmental, and incentive-based strategy. Here the eu sets conditions to be fulfilled by third countries in order to obtain rewards or avoid sanctions. The most relevant rewards are different types of agreements ranging from trade agreements to accession treaties as well as the market access and financial aid that come with them. Correspondingly, the eu’s sanctions consist of suspending or terminating such agreements. Typically, however, the eu uses positive conditionality. Rather than sanctioning countries or even coercing them to adopt its norms and rules, it keeps them in the agreement waiting room until they meet the conditions. The effectiveness of conditionality depends on the size of the eu’s rewards, the adaptation costs of the target country, and the credibility of conditionality. In a nutshell, the rewards on offer must outweigh the costs of meeting the eu’s conditions, and the third country government needs to be certain that it will obtain the reward if it meets the con-ditions and that it won’t if it doesn’t. Socialisation is a direct and persuasion-based strategy that may operate at the intergovern-mental or transnational level. It comprises all eu efforts to disseminate its policies by persuading outside actors of the ideas and norms behind them. Rather than manipulating the cost-benefit calculations of external actors, the EU teaches them the principles and rules of European governance. External actors adopt and comply with eu rules if they are convinced of their legitimacy and appropriateness and if they accept the authority of the eu. This is more likely to be the case if the external actors identify with and aspire to belong to Europe. Frequent and solid contacts between the eu and external actors and the resonance of eu norms and rules with domestic traditions provide further favourable conditions for effective socialisation. The EU, however, also affects third countries indirectly. Externalisation is an incentive-based strategy. The EU’s sheer presence as a market and as a regional system of governance produces (sometimes unintended or unanticipated) externalities. External actors adopt and follow EU rules because ignoring or violating them would generate net costs. Firms interested in participating in the EU market must follow the EU’s rules. Countries whose economies are strongly interconnected with the eu make their internal rules compatible with those of the EU. In general, the effects of externalisation increase with the market size of the EUand the strength of its regulatory institutions. The larger the EU’s share is in the foreign trade of a country, and the more binding and centralised the eu’s rules are, the more this country will be subject to adaptation pressures. In imitation, the eu serves as a role model that other countries emulate. Non-member actors imitate the eu because they recognise EU rules and policies as appropriate solutions to their own problems. As in the case of socialisation, novices in the international system are more likely to look for and emulate role models. They are more likely to select the EU as their model if they identify with the EU, are in close contact with the EU, and find EU policies to resonate with their prior beliefs and practices. Conditionality Although the EU makes use of all of these in-struments and mechanisms and has affected third countries with them, its signature strategy is conditionality. It fits well with the EU’s nature as a liberal international organisation because both the conditions the EU stipulates and the rewards it offers derive from this policy doctrine. In addition, its rewards-based and non-coercive strategy is in line with the principle of self-determination. Conditionality, however, is only effective under well-defined circumstances. First, the EU needs to offer countries a credible conditional membership perspective. Membership is the only ‘golden carrot’ that motivates governments to undertake costly reforms. Whereas the EU has had discernible impact on countries that were offered a possible membership, no systematic effect of EU democracy promotion can be found for weaker incentives. In addition, membership conditionality needs to remain credible. If countries such as Turkey get the impression that they might not be accepted even if they fulfil the conditions, the EU impact wanes. The same is true if countries feel sure to be admitted regardless of meeting some of the conditions – as in the case of Cyprus’ rejection of the UN peace plan for the island. The early setting of accession dates as in the case of Bulgaria and Romania can also have a detrimental effect. Finally, domestic political costs of compliance for the target governments need to be moderate. Such costs have proven prohibitive for regimes whose preservation of power depends on undemocratic institutions and practices. Even a credible and attractive offer of EU membership cannot turn the benefit calculations of such regimes positive. National identity issues (such as minority rights and ethnic conflict in the Baltic countries and the Balkans) have also proven difficult to overcome. This situation does not bode well for the future of EU conditionality. Enlargement has become contested in the EU and subject to Eurosceptic mobilisation among EU citizens, thus reducing the credibility of the EU’s membership promise. Moreover, the eu is increasingly dealing with non-members that suffer from legacies of autocratic rule and ethnic conflict and may thus be unable to meet the conditions of accession. As a result, accession conditionality, the most successful strategy of EU external relations, is likely to lose its relevance. The alternatives have proven to be of limited impact. The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), in particular, has been promoted since 2003 as a general framework for countries without the possibility of membership and has copied several elements of the eu’s enlargement policy – such as rewards-based political conditionality. However, not only have the incentives on offer been much weaker, but the ENP has also suffered from inconsistent conditionality. Geostrategic and economic (mainly energy) interests have taken precedence, and the domestic obstacles to liberalisation and democratisation have proven insurmountable in most cases. As a result, there has not been a discernible democratisation effect of the ENP. Because identification with liberal values and Europe are weak in most of the neighbouring region, the prospects of socialisation as an alternative to conditionality appear limited as well. In short, given the current limitations facing conditionality and socialisation as strategies, the eu needs to evaluate and implement other options for furthering the doctrine of liberal internationalism and spreading the triangle of peace and international cooperation.   Frank Schimmelfennig is Professor of European Politics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and member of the Center for Comparative and International Studies. His main research interests are the theory of European integration and, more specifically, EU enlargement, democratisation, democracy promotion, and differentiated integration. He is the author of The EU, NATO and the Integration of Europe: Rules and Rhetoric (Cambridge University Press 2003), which received the Best Book Award from the European Union Studies Association. His most recent book is Differentiated Integration: Explaining Variation in the European Union (Palgrave 2013, with Dirk Leuffen and Berthold Rittberger).   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen Europese Unie en internationaal.    Lees hier het pdf van dit artikel. In spring 2014, the Van Mierlo Foundation publishes an essay on how social-liberals deal with borders. Idee interviews one of the authors of this essay, Frank van Mil, scientific director of the foundation. By Cato van Hasselt The typical progressive liberal has a natural inclination to downplay the significance of borders. To many, the concept of borders reeks of provincialism and stands in stark contrast to the open-minded cosmopolitan globetrotter that the progressive liberal believes one should be. In reality, however, borders are real, and hard to ignore. Even the most unbiased among us have not only physical borders to deal with, but also the notion so entrenched in all human beings: that the existence of a ‘we’ automatically means that there also is a ‘them.’ We need the ‘them’ to define who we are. However much we try, we cannot escape feeling closer to some people than others. It can be people within our own community, or with whom we share our preferences, our culture or our language, things still closely marked by international borders even in a globalised world. How does the progressive cosmopolitan liberal cope with a prophetic global order that places individuals rather than communities at its heart, and the somewhat uncomfortable reality of borders? Frank van Mil elaborates on a guiding principle for social-liberals on the individual, state and European level: think and act internationally. Flexible not fixed “The first thing we need to do is accept the fact that borders exist, that they are real and that they need to be dealt with. Borders, however, are not static; they can be created, dissolved, blurred, shifted and crossed. In spite of twentieth century nationalistic efforts to prove otherwise, borders do not mark an abrupt division between people and cultures; they present a grey area in which one culture gradually fades into the next. Increased globalisation has further stressed the flexibility of the concept of borders. European integration has made physical borders between many of the European states obsolete. By transferring a substantial amount of sovereignty to a supranational order, the European Union has, in addition to increasing the dominance of international law, challenged the notion that national borders bound the sovereignty of states. International companies and civil society have shown even less regard for geographical barriers, connecting people from diverging cultures while spreading their activities worldwide. Cosmopolitan liberals applaud this universal strain of internationalist thinking.” “These developments have apparently led many people to believe that borders have become increasingly irrelevant; they no longer have a place in their conception of the international order and consequently run the risk of being ignored in the liberal discourse. The flexibility of borders does not mean that they will cease to exist, however. People will always be inclined to draw lines in order to distinguish themselves from others, to provide themselves with a feeling of particularity. The tendency to overemphasise the value of universalism gives little weight to this human characteristic, which nonetheless presents us with an inescapable tension. Thinking internationally means that we should approach this tension head-on, with an open-minded attitude. Without almost contemp-tuously pretending borders are only of minor importance in an ever-globalising world, we need to ask ourselves what they mean to us, and subsequently, how they should be treated.” An open-minded attitude “Liberal philosophy as such offers little guidance on the subject. As a first guideline, liberals should express (a certain amount of ) solidarity with the world at large, where the ultimate aim is to bring individual freedom to all. But how this is to be achieved in practice is not clear. This ultimate goal should nonetheless define the way we think and act internationally, starting with our individual attitude. The problem is that from an individual perspective international issues seem so incomprehensibly large and complex that we feel somewhat dwarfed by them. As mere individuals we do not feel we can exert any influence whatsoever on international development. A second guideline offers us some more footing. From the concept of solidarity flows the principle of reciprocity: treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves. This means granting others the individual freedoms we ourselves enjoy. Translating the principle of reciprocity in practice means that we ask ourselves, ‘what if this were happening to me?’ Does the answer to that question seem reasonable, acceptable? Turning the question around will help to gain a perspective on international issues in which the reci-procity principle is respected.” “Th e universal scope of liberalism does not mean that these principles should be equally applicable to the world at large: we can feel more concerned with the fate of Ukrainians than with that of Mexicans – or vice versa. Accepting the social-liberal ideal of freedom also means you acknowledge that people can feel more connected with those that they can relate to, either through geographical proximity, common culture, language or shared values. We can take these differences into consideration when thinking and acting internationally, as long as we do not take them to be fixed, unchangeable facts. The open recognition of particularities will permit an open-minded approach that serves our own interest by enabling us to learn from others, to profit from their knowledge, ideas and cultures. At the same time this attitude will help us contribute to making borders less rigid, to expand the grey area and to expose others to the merits of individual freedom.” State intervention “Presuming that the state reflects (or should reflect) the will of the people, the open-minded attitude is transferable to the state level. Just like the individual, the state should be guided in its actions by the attempt to realise individual freedom for all. In acting beyond state borders the question immediately arises how interference is compatible with the other important liberal principles of sovereignty and self-determination. This tension is sometimes judged to be hypocrit-ical but it is actually just a matter of conflicting principles, demanding a practical weighing for every situation at hand. Liberals agree that international action can be justified on humanitarian grounds, or in case of serious human rights violations. This leaves the many cases of international intervention unaccounted for, where the liberal argumentation supporting intervention is less clear-cut. In these cases action is only justified when sufficient public support exists in the acting and the receiving states.” “If we accept the idea that citizens will relate more to the citizens of some states than to those of others, this means that states will have more legitimacy to act in cases where a stronger connection is felt. This does not necessarily imply geographical proximity. Australians feel culturally much closer to the United Kingdom than to Thailand. It does mean, however, that the receptiveness of both populations is crucial in legitimising the state interference with existing borders. As stated above, state sovereignty does not set borders in stone, stronger yet, the relativity and flexibility of borders is instrumental in the quest for actively promoting the principle of individual freedom. However attractive this may be, a state cannot do so without common consent. Hence, the individual open-minded attitude is crucial in providing the state with the legitimacy to make the flexibility of borders instrumental in attaining its international goal.” The European Union “Europe is an ultimate example of how the blurring of borders has been instrumental in promoting individual freedom. The progressive liberal cosmopolitan is tempted to envision a gradual expansion of the Union, wherein more and more countries embrace liberal values by their own consent. This, however, would not do sufficient justice to the reality of borders. Thinking and acting internationally means that we should openly discuss whether ‘we’ relate enough to ‘them’ to legitimise state action. Taking bor-ders seriously means that you have a duty to ask straight up who belongs to the European Union and who does not. This question deserves a place in the public discourse; an open discussion will help to create the support needed for further European integration by addressing the ines-capable tension between the universal and the particular. Pretending borders are of no importance estranges the entire endeavour from the way people experience the world, and not only from those we like to dismiss as provincial, conservative or narrow minded. Ignoring the reality of borders will also undermine the development of a credible social-liberal view on European integration, for even the most progressive liberal is too much human not to feel part of some ‘we’.” “Thinking and acting internationally means that this discourse should be marked by an open-minded attitude in which the ‘we’ and the ‘them’ are subject to on-going reconsideration. When the borders turn out to artificially mark an out-dated distinction, the state needs to be ready to adjust them accordingly.”   Cato van Hasselt is editor of Idee.   Heeft dit artikel uw interesse gewekt? Klik hier voor meer info en abonnementen. – – Dit artikel verscheen in idee nr. 6 2013: Crossing European borders, en is te vinden bij de onderwerpen grenzen, interviews en liberalisme.