Public discussions in Brussels

To use the consortium capabilities to its fullest while disseminating the findings and research of the RevivEU project, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy organised 4 events in the Belgian capital. With the support of EUROPEUM´s Brussels offices, the members of the RevivEU project travelled to the EU capital in November 2023, March 2024 and April 2024.

The first event was organised on 8th of November 2023 in cooperation with the German SWP organisation, and focused on the current political situation in the V4 countries. Given the event took place after the Polish and Slovak parliamentary elections, which produced two drastically different outcomes, the 15 participants were particularly interested in the sociological findings of the citizens´ consultations carried out earlier in the year and presented during the event by STEM´s director of research Jaromír Mazák. The other speakers included researchers from EUROPEUM and think-tanks from the other three organisations. While the policy and discourse analysis carried out were well received and the audience expressed interest in the already published publications, the most attention was given to the discussion about the citizens´ perceptions, their attitudes and reasons for the decisions of voters – while RevivEU findings are limited to our four core topics, their unique comparability across the V4 provided valuable insight for the discussion.

In March 2023 we organised two public events with around 25 new guests and some attendees of our November event as well. The first one took place on the 6th and focused on the topic of Rule of Law, while the event on the 7th highlighted the topic of NextGeneration EU and wider question on how EU funding works in practice in Czechia. The first event was attended by a broad audience present in Brussels – from policymakers, diplomats, to young professionals and think-tankers. It focused on the current topics of examples of backsliding on the rule of law in the V4, most notably Hungary and Slovakia. To ensure informed debate, we invited a diverse group of speakers – Florian Geyer, Head of Unit for Rule of Law at the European Commission, Eric Maurice from the EPC think-tank, and EUROPEUM´s Klára Votavová, who presented the RevivEU findings. While the first moderated part focused besides our findings on the notion of Rule of Law in itself and the political implications of the current situation, in the second part the audience was more interested in the EU mechanisms in practice, what concretely can be done to prevent the Rule of Law violations. Along with that we looked more closely at what is similar in the V4 countries, like the perceptions of corruption in public life, and what is different and how the differenes in societies can explain that.

The second of the events was also an open discussion but attracted more expert attendees mainly from the EU institutions and other research and academic organisations, given the topics of the NGEU and Just Transition Fund functioning in the member states. EUROPEUM´s Vít Havelka began the discussion with a presentation on our findings of the discourse and political realities surrounding the establishment of the NextGeneration EU fund, as well as its projects in Czechia. Klára Votavová then followed up with her original research on the practical carrying out of another EU fund, the Just Transition Fund, in chosen regions of Czechia and showed where the fund already work well and what still needs to be solved on institutional level. The attendees especially appreciated the second part and the original research, which is unique in the EU. As one of the attendees remarked, most of the EU funds work in a highly decentralised way, though there are differences in the member states´ set up, and thus it is really crucial to monitor and ask whether the EU funding is efficient and used for what it´s meant, not only for the personal and set-up costs whish sometimes happen. Another participant mentioned, that while there remain a few areas to improve, the Czech set-up for the distribution of the Just Transition Fund could serve as an example of best practices in the EU.

Finally, on April 18th, 2024, EUROPEUM’s Brussels Office hosted a discussion titled “Regional Cooperation in Central Europe in the Aftermath of Russia’s War: Changes and Prospect”. This event gathered audience from various think-tanks and other institutions, altogether engaging 15 new participants with some attendees being in audience of our previous events as well. Žiga Faktor, Head of the EUROPEUM’s Brussels Office introduced the topic and then presented outcomes of the RevivEU project which focused on 4 different areas connected to EU policies in the countries of the V4. He highlighted policy papers written by the consortium and mentioned selected data from citizens´ consultations of the V4 citizens. Tomasz Zornaczuk and Lukasz Ogrodnik from PISM then followed up with a brief presentation of their research paper. Some of their key findings included that the political changes following the war in Ukraine weren’t irreversible and the mutations occurring within the regional cooperation didn’t come from the war itself but were already introduced prior to it. The study focused on 8 cooperation formats (and the Central European Initiative, which was considered more of a semantic construct) that were analyzed and compared. The discussion then focused on questions from the participants and led to interesting debates.

The potential of the US elections and a potential return of Donald Trump was largely discussed and more specifically the impact it could have on NATO. The perception of the American billionaire within the Central European countries was also discussed. Some of the participants argued these elements could also be analyzed through meetings in other formats or in the relationships between the societies. The case of an ad hoc participation format, specifically of Central European countries opposing Ukraine’s adhesion was also evoked. This concerned countries such as Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria.

The potential adhesion of Ukraine in the EU was indeed also an important talking point, focusing in part on the potential blockade. One point that was made was the will not to have an accelerated process not being assimilated with a complete reluctance to adhesion in itself. A follow-up discussion point was naturally the perception of Central European countries towards Russia. In this sense, Ms. Pavlina Janebova made some observations about the change of perception in Czechia towards Russia. The Czech population always was rather negative towards Russia whereas the political scene was more lenient in this matter. This changed however when President Milos Zeman, who was the most pro-Russian figure in the Czech political scene, handed over to Petr Pavel in 2023. Lastly, the V4 and its benefits were discussed in length. A particular emphasis was placed on the V4+ formats which involves outside partners such as Japan, Korea or Israel. This positive aspect the V4+ format brings makes its current nonexistence particularly missing according to Ziga Faktor.