European Values, Citizenship & Belonging

What do we talk about when we talk about European values?

All three speakers contributed an interview to the forthcoming publication What Values, Whose Values based on the series. The book, edited by Heleen Touquet, will be published on 21 October 2020 by University Press Antwerp. Read more…

Editor Heleen Touquet interviewed the three keynote speakers of this series for the book ‘Minorities, Belonging and Values’. It was published on 1 December 2021 by University Press Antwerp. Read more…

Session 1:
The role of European values in EU governance

4 March 2020 – University of Antwerp

This was the first of a series of three lectures on the topic of ‘European values, citizenship and belonging’ that UCSIA organizes in collaboration with the Chair of European Values of the University of Antwerp, which is funded by the Baillet Latour Foundation. The session was attended by about fifty people, half of them students at various universities. The guest speakers were François Foret, Professor of Political Science at the Institute for European Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Director of Cevipol (Centre d’étude de la vie politique) and Katlijn Malfliet, prof.em. of the research institute LINES (Leuven International and European Studies) at KU Leuven and an expert on Russian and Eastern European political institutions and law.

François Forêt’s presentation

The project responds to the mission of UCSIA, as explained by its director, Stijn Latré, in his introduction.

UCSIA continues the Jesuit heritage at the university of Antwerp. One of the ways of doing this was in creating a Jesuit network of universities and social centers, called SCRIBANI. The purpose of this network is to reflect on the social construction of Europe today. That is why UCSIA is still concerned, within its thematic line ‘Europe & Solidarity’, with very concrete social issues, such as food banks.

But theoretical reflection on normative concepts, such as ‘solidarity’ or ‘European values’, is as important. In that respect, UCSIA is happy to work together with professor Heleen Touquet, holder of the Chair of European Values, in the development of a series of lectures on European values.

In philosophical circles, it is often alleged that the specificity of Europe is based on three pillars: Greek  philosophy, Christian tradition and Enlightenment values such as freedom, equality and fraternity. From these three traditions stems a common tradition of self-reflection, of self-criticism. The lecture series on European values is a good example of this practice.

UCSIA has another important initiative which combines the key elements of Greek, Christian and Enlightenment tradition: the summer school ‘European humanism in the making’ which it coordinates for the European Federation of Catholic Universities. Students from across Europe can attend a weeklong programme to reflect on Europe and its values in the Italian town of Gubbio.

The three traditions mentioned are often complementary, but can also be at odds with each other, showcasing normative divides within Europe, as in the Lautsi-case. Mrs. Lautsi denounced the Italian state for hanging crucifixes in public schools. In 2006 the European Court of Human Rights  first decided in favour of neutrality. But then ten member states of the Council of Europe contested the ruling of the court. In 2011, the Grand Chamber declared that Italy did not violate the Convention, with 15 voices against 2. Political pressure came mainly from orthodox and post-communist countries from Eastern Europe. So here we have conflicting values: autonomy of the individual in conflict with the right of nation-states to manifest their cultural identity publicly. This case is an example of the complexity surrounding European values.

François Foret presented the ValEUR project ‘Governing values, governing through values, governed by values? The European Union as a risk polity’. It investigates the role of values as a political, not an normative, subject.

How are values used in the European political context? There is a shift in discourse from European identity to European values. Why and who defines the agenda? Not one actor and no abstract entity as the state. But first we need to define values. In the research project they are approached as collective mental and cultural representations which are politically enshrined in law, embodied in institutions and instrumentalized in discourses on power relations. Rather than a clash between differing values, there is a competition between political and societal actors and the media, for specific values; human dignity, rule of law and democracy being the most commonly used. These values are very open and vague and if they are not kept under control, this may lead to a backlash, as Orban illustrates when he appropriates these values, claiming that his country embodies the real Christian European spirit against western European corruption of the said values. The value game is unpredictable and is used as gate keeper between self and other, unity and deviance, market and law, public and private spheres.

Why should we bother about European values? They are being used in name of something else, to legitimize the EU. Since the seventies two competing narratives have been predominant: the narrative of nation building (emphasizing a common past and destiny) and the narrative of legitimation through output (in terms of peace, prosperity and the common good). Since 2000 the narrative of European values, combining elements of both preceding values, has come to the fore. It is based on a common culture (rooted in normative foundations) and market oriented (promoting economic cooperation and materialistic consumption). Foret focuses on this development in his forthcoming book. He is also involved in a comparative research project with Airo Hino of the Waseda University in Tokyo. It revisits the value discourse in a different context. If Europe promotes its Christian democracy, can we find a similar discours in the Asian context? Such a comparison might help us to understand the singularity of the European project.

Katlijn Malfliet took on the challenge of a comparative approach, from her field of expertise, Russian, Central- and Eastern European politics. She is worried about the European project which takes the shape of a Greek drama. We were building Europe and then the fall of the wall introduced a turn in the plot, followed by the enlargement to Central- and Eastern Europe. Did we talk about common values before this? No, we professed the religion of ‘the rule of law’. It was the tool by excellence for integration, based on the belief that economic cooperation would suffice to guarantee sustainable peace. We exported our legal rules and institutional model to transform other countries coming from a completely different context. We reintroduced the Washington consensus, which once worked for us to build peace after World War II, after the fall of Russia. The Kremlin has been very effective over the past two decades in undermining the positive achievements of the European construction, as in the case of the rights of minorities and the support it lends to Assad, pushing Syrian refugees towards Europe. Russia will become normative for Europe as the core country in Asia. Military clashes are not realistic, but the antagonism takes the form of disinformation and cyberwar.

Central and Eastern European countries felt threatened in their hard gained newly established sovereignty. For them it was as if they moved from governance by Moscow to governance by Brussels. Russia still had offered social protection which Europe did not with its neoliberal directives. They were forced to subscribe to the ‘acquis communautaire’ without negotiation. This induced a feeling of humiliation, acerbated by the absence of a social and cultural European dimension. They reacted by strengthening their national cohesion. Ivan Krastev calls it a ‘Frankenstein story’ with Orban and his Polish, Czech and Slovakian counterparts selectively picking and choosing elements from the European acquis as a basis for building systems of illiberal democracy. They develop their own idea of European values. We are caught between a democratic deficit and a deficit of values. This is due to the fact that Western Europe lost the balance between political and civil rights, on the one hand, and economic and social rights, on the other. We have to revisit the values that lay the basis for European cooperation. This lecture series should contribute to that urgent and fundamental reflection.

Online class Peter Verovšek:
Memory Politics in Western and Eastern Europe

4 May 2020 – University of Antwerp

In the West, in and after Nazi times, scepticism about the nation state’s sovereignty in protecting citizen’s rights, formed the impetus to look for supranational human rights protection. By contrast, the loss of sovereignty in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union during 40 years of communism gave predominance to a primordial concern about self-governance over human rights. The ideals of liberalism, multiculturalism and globalization promoted by the West conflict with the preoccupations of the East. For the East, imposing liberal democracy is conceived as the will of Brussels and brings back painful memories of the times of subjection to the will of Moscow. In the East people are critical of global approaches given the communist international order they were subjected to. Central and Eastern-European countries tend to reinvigorate their own national pre-Cold War (Christian) culture, which they feel is being threatened by multiculturalism. This explains the reluctance to accept refugees, while the West recognizes their right to asylum, at least in theory.

Western Europe shows little consideration for the collective memory of Central and Eastern Europe, anchored in the rupture following the fall of communism in 1989, and instead imposes the memory of 1945 for the whole of the European Union. There is a need to also recognize the Eastern experience of totalitarianism as part of the collective memory of the European Union.

Paying attention to the effect that these narratives of the past have on politics of today should be part and parcel of the academic research agenda, so that the historical lens may complement the more fact-based political and economic analyses.

Session 2:
The role of war recollection in European integration

webinar on 21 October 2020

Read more…

Session 3:
The Role of Nationalism in European Community Building

webinar on 12 November 2020

Session 4:
The Refugee Crisis, Solidarity and Values

webinar on 14 October 2020

Drawing from the research underpinning my forthcoming monograph ‘EU Asylum Law & Policy: Constitutional Foundations and Administrative Governance’ (OUP, 2021), I deconstruct the EU’s ‘refugee crisis’ narrative, revealing it to be a crisis of EU values and governance. First, I retrace the gradual erosion of three foundational concepts: fundamental rights, the rule of law, and solidarity. Next, I engage in a comprehensive analysis of underexplored elements of asylum administrative governance, assessing limitations in the EU’s asylum system implementation design and evolving shifts in its administrative architecture. I conclude with critical remarks on the symptoms of a crisis of EU values and governance in asylum: recourse to unilateralism, and deflection of protection obligations- both internally and externally- while offering some perspectives on how they may be addressed.

Session 5:
Intersectionality, Inequality and the Challenge of European Values

webinar 25 November 2020

Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and women of colour’s grassroots activism in Europe and the United States. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, Politics & Gender, Race & Class, Soundings and the European Journal of Women’s Studies. Her co-authored book, Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain, was published in July 2017 by Policy Press. Her co-edited book, To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe, was published in 2019 with Pluto Press. Her new book, Fugitive Feminism, is forthcoming with Silver Press.

Heleen Debeuckelaere is historian, writer and organizer based in Brussels. She regularly contributes to Belgian and international media and was involved in the birth of the non-profit organization “Metissen van België” and the video channel Black speak Back.

Session 6:
Seeking Asylum in Europe: ‘European Values’ and Queer Claims

webinar on 16 December 2020

Nuno Ferreira’s presentation