European values have become one of the hottest issues discussed currently in the EU. They may be defined from various angles: political (liberal democracy and human rights), legal (the rule of law and the division of powers) or cultural (identity), the most vague and complex of them all. However, these fields are in fact strongly intertwined. The attitude towards the rule of law and liberal democracy depends strongly on how the national community is defined.
Adam Balcer[1]
The ethnicity-oriented nationalism evoking “ancient” origins (nativism) and common features of culture (often religion) as basic pillars of national identity prefers a nation imagined as a monolith. On the other hand, civic nationalism in its current version promotes a more complex vision of the nation, accepting its diversity (individual freedoms, minority rights) and treating the state and citizenship as the main points of reference for the national identity. It is not an accident that ethnic nationalism is especially popular among national populists. They want to portray themselves as defenders of an imagined national homogeneity which is permanently threatened by external and internal enemies. It is the sovereign “democratic” will that constitutes the main binder of the nation. That’s why, in their opinion, majority rule should not be too constrained by the rule of law. These days in Europe, the main expression of divergence between the two visions of the nation (the ethnic-populist and the civic-state) has turned into an attitude towards Muslims. Most of the national populists perceive almost all Muslims or, best-case scenario, the great majority of them as a priori unable to be integrated into European societies. Meanwhile, the proponents of civic nationalism promote an individual approach to every citizen and believe that most of Muslims have already become or are able to be integrated into those societies.
National populists want to portray themselves as defenders of an imagined national homogeneity which is permanently threatened by external and internal enemies. It is the sovereign “democratic” will that constitutes the main binder of the nation. That’s why, in their opinion, majority rule should not be too constrained by the rule of law.
The rise of national populists is going to have serious implications for the EU and its identity. Indeed, national populists try to present themselves as the defenders of nations against supranational and federal European utopias. The fact is however, that the main ongoing confrontation is between ethnic nationalism and the civic nationalism which constitutes the key pillar of the EU. It means that the acceptance of the main proposals of national populists in regard to the definition of the nation will signify the beginning of the end of the EU because it will undermine its democratic foundations, the rule of law and the idea of inclusive identity.
National populists try to present themselves as the defenders of nations against supranational and federal European utopias. The fact is however, that the main ongoing confrontation is between ethnic nationalism and the civic nationalism which constitutes the key pillar of the EU.
Indeed, the current tensions between Poland and Germany are deeply entrenched in the sphere of values and identities. According to the opinion poll conducted in 2016 by the Pew Research Centre, around three quarters of Poles agreed that the Roman Catholic faith was an important criterion in determining whether someone was a true Pole. In the same study, around 70% of Polish people declared a negative opinion of their Muslim co-citizens, even though the small Muslim community in Poland causes no noticeable problems. As a matter of comparison, the attitude towards Muslim co-citizens was decisively more positive in Germany. Around 30 percent of Germans expressed a negative attitude towards Muslims and defined Christianity as an important criterion for being a true German. In the same opinion poll, Poles showed that they were decisively more afraid than Germans of Muslim refugees arriving in their country, though the number of asylum seekers from MENA trying to find shelter in Poland is completely negligible. Despite that fact, many Poles are genuinely afraid of the Islamization of their country.
Unfortunately, Polish fears are being reinforced almost on an everyday basis by the ruling elite. According to the Polish government and the pro-government media, the EU relocation of mostly Muslim refugees from Italy and Greece to Poland is part of a hidden agenda of the European mainstream elites under a German leadership. They want to provoke a massive inflow of immigrants which will undermine the Polish national homogeneity in order to control Poland easier. The link between the EU and Islam, defined as a main threat to Polish security, identity and sovereignty, found a worrying expression in the opinion poll conducted by IBRIS, a Polish research centre, in the summer of 2017. More than half of Poles supported Poland’s exit from the EU if the membership were to be conditioned by the acceptance of six thousand refugees within the framework of the relocation programme. Less than 40 percent were ready to accept them in order to remain in the EU.
According to the Polish government and the pro-government media, the EU relocation of mostly Muslim refugees from Italy and Greece to Poland is part of a hidden agenda of the European mainstream elites under a German leadership. They want to provoke a massive inflow of immigrants which will undermine the Polish national homogeneity in order to control Poland easier.
The obvious differences between Polish and German approaches to the European values may be observed also in the case of the contributors to our blog. For Marek Cichocki, “historical experience of the 20th century (is) making many Poles rather sceptical of the absolute relevance of any kind of supranational structures or universal European norms and sensing a new threating possibility of tyranny and suppression of freedom.” On the other hand, Josef Janning remains convinced that Rechtsstaat constitutes the most important pillar of the EU. “It replaced interactions between states based on power by a decision-making process based on law. Therefore, the rule of law is not just a German obsession with the Rechtsstaat, as is sometimes argued in European political circles. And this is precisely what the current Polish government puts into question: the division of powers and an independent judiciary.”
[1] Adam Balcer is Head of Project at WiseEuropa.
