On 17 January 2012, the Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS) in cooperation with the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) organized a conference entitled “Global Trends and the Role of the EU”.

The conference marked the launch of the three-year-long project, “The changing world order and its implications for the ‘wider Europe’”. The project seeks to attract a group of young researchers to assess the role the European Union will play in a changing global environment. The main aim of the conference was to gather a diverse group of experts and topics in order to create a vivid intellectual forum for raising questions about current global trends and their effect on EU policies.

Launching the first panel, Prof. Laszlo Csaba (CEU-IRES) gave a broad overview of current trends in the global economy. He argued that globalization should be understood as an ongoing secular process that is more organic than planned. Due to the high number of actors, both the assumption that it is likely have come to a stall, or that it can be controlled in the information age are unwarranted. Globalization is likely to stay because it generates welfare. However, the process might also generate problems for Europe, namely through the relocation of industrial and R&D activities to non-European regions.

Dr. Boglarka Koller (King Sigismund College) addressed the problem of European identity. Departing from a criticism of the “normative power Europe” concept, she emphasized the contingency and vagueness of Europe’s normative power, while also drawing attention to the problems the European project is facing in terms of creating a common identity. Though some of the commonly listed elements are still guiding the public perception of the union (e.g. peace and prosperity), to many, the EU has become something alien, even unwanted.

Dr. Asle Toje (Norwegian Nobel Institue) used the basic tenets of realism to echo Stephen Waltz’s warning about an upcoming identity crisis within NATO. Though the transatlantic alliance is likely to remain, what form it will take and what role it will fulfill will largely depend on Europe’s commitment. By pulling out troops from Europe while shifting its foreign policy focus towards emerging powers, the United States will turn from a European power into a power in Europe. Since European NATO member states are unable to defend themselves without US assistance, European military burden sharing will remain on top of NATO’s agenda and will be the key to a prosperous transatlantic relationship.

Prof. Alexander Astrov (CEU-IRES) assessed the state of play within academic international relations (IR) theory. He recalled the post-structuralist criticism raised at traditional IR theory after the end of the Cold War that attacked positivists for neither being able to predict the event, nor being capable of explaining it retrospectively. Prof. Astrov noted that contemporary post-structuralism can be charged with the same kind of criticism for not being able to predict events like the ongoing mass protests in Russia against alleged election frauds. Though this kind of criticism is unjust, perhaps academic theorizing should revert to explanation and prediction to be able to assess “what is going on” in the world. Short of turning back to positivist methods, Prof. Astrov called for the theoretical appreciation of contingency and the unexpected in world politics.

On the second panel, Dr. David Kral (EUROPEUM) discussed the possibility of a multi-speed Europe in the wake of the eurozone-crisis. Claiming that a multi-speed Europe is now very likely, even unavoidable, Dr. Kral analyzed possible scenarios that have surfaced during the ongoing preparation of the fiscal treaty. The most optimistic scenario would probably entail a flexible agreement that would allow reluctant member states (most notably the UK) to enter at a later stage that could reinforce cohesion during these delicate times.

Prof. Peter Balazs (CENS) tackled the problems of EU governance that resulted from the previous enlargement rounds of 2004/2007: the process that transformed the EU from a group of 15 members to a crowd of 27 states was simply not followed by a reimagination of its governance. Prof. Balazs grouped these issues into three categories: policy circle problems, consistency of governance and the behavior of member states. Problems include the increased number of commissioners, overbureucratization, isolated sectoral governance and the increased difficulty of building coalitions for crucial reform within the EU.

Dr. Kai-Olaf Lang (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) gave a sober assessment of the EU’s neighborhood and enlargement policies. Dividing the two issues, he claimed that the EU is starting to lose its faith in being able to shape its neighborhood, while other powers, most notably Russia, are capable of providing an alternative to EU membership to countries like Ukraine. As for enlargement, the prospects are equally grim: enlargement fatigue is still strong and present, even though it lost visibility within the political discourse due to the eurozone-crisis. With key powers like Germany seeing neighborhood policies as a waste of resources, the EU needs to rethink its geographically structured neighborhood policy, to reassess its enlargement practice, especially conditionality, and to adapt a more pragmatic approach in dealing with its neighbors.

Dr. Attila Bartha (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) gave a political economy-based analysis of New Central and Eastern European Member States (NMS) of the European Union. He concluded that the crisis is far from over, and even though we customarily speak about these countries as a monolithic group, reactions to the economic crisis, applied management tools as well as their effects on the quality on democracy differ widely. Based on these factors, the countries can be grouped in four categories. Estonia, where long-term growth factors revitalised and the quality of democracy not deteriorated significantly; the Czech Republic and Poland where after temporary fiscal expansion a slow process of fiscal consolidation is coupled with the quality of democracy preserved; Romania where seemingly successful expert crisis management is overshadowed by increasing social and political conflicts; and finally Hungary, where a short-term crisis was managed, but long-term growth factors have not been revitalised, while the quality of democracy deteriorated significantly.

For more information on project and participants of the conference, please see the conference agenda.

For the media coverage, please see the links below: