FINAL REPORT

2013château bélaCentral EuropeanStrategic Forum

29 November - 1 December 2013

20 Years Vision,Dedication C o m m i t m e n tSlovak Atlantic Commission

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Between 29 November and 1 December, Central Europe’s top thinkers and government representatives gathered in the historic venue of Château Béla near Štúrovo, Slovakia, at an annual brainstorming session on Central Europe’s role in European and transatlantic affairs. The debates were open, honest and often heated – focusing on the future of the European project, the raison d’etre of growing apathy and anti-Brussels tendencies in Europe, as well as on the future of European security cooperation and the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy after the Vilnius Summit.

The following summary offers an insight into the discussions among EU, government, NGO and business representatives from Central Europe, the UK, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Brussels – all held under the Chatham House Rule. The fifth year of the trademark Château Béla event was organised by the Slovak Atlantic Commission in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, International Visegrad Fund, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, Centre for European Studies, SAAB and Západo-slovenská energetika, a.s.

Central Europe Fit for the Future

Launching the Château Béla series of strategic debates, the first discussion centred on the

upcoming CEPI and demosEUROPA report analysing Central Europe’s next decade in the EU – to be published and launched in Warsaw and Brussels on 22 January 2014. The panel as well as the 14-author report aim to reinvent Central Europe in a wider sense – by including Austria, highlighting the region’s common interests and working together on achieving them.

The economic crisis has dominated Europe for most of the time Visegrad countries have spent in the EU and so, the discussants agreed, we are used to operating in such a challenging environment. Nevertheless, it is time to ask where we are ten years following the V4’s accession – are we tackling the same issues? Or have we moved on?

Thinkers and experts from the region as well as from other EU countries agreed that it is essential for Central Europe to overcome its complexes and realise that, for example, in terms of economy the V4 is performing very well – with the 15th highest GDP in the world.

Overcoming our complexes also helps the region to switch from pre-accession mentality or, in other words, to stop adapting and start creating. In order to do that, we need to transform from being efficiency-driven, to being innovation-driven. Central Europe needs to become interested in forming its own narrative, to which education is key.

Final Report Slovak Atlantic

Commission

The Slovak Atlantic Commis-sion is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organisation that deals with international security and policy issues.

The objective of the Slovak Atlantic Commission is to actively shape the security and international policy discourse in Europe and beyond by fostering dynamic involvement of the Slovak Republic and the Central European region in international affairs. The SAC is the main organiser of the GLOBSEC conference, the largest security conference in Central Europe.

Central European

Strategy Council  

The Slovak Atlantic Commis-sion is a member of the Central European Strategy Council along with its sister organisation the Centre for European Affairs and think-tank the Central European Policy Institute.  

   

 

In order to facilitate this transformation, the region needs to undergo a number of fundamental changes – improve its research and innovative capacity, do a better job at utilising EU grants, work on building a 21st century infrastructure network. In terms of energy, it needs to modernise its Cold War-like pipelines. The region also needs to react to the changing demographics – namely the increasing size of the Roma minority – and adapt its local labour prognosis.

In the course of creating our own narrative, we must keep in mind that the goal is to place Central Europe into the context of the EU, not set ourselves apart from the rest of the continent. Having done that, the Austrian government should be more involved in the region than it is today, when the business sector is substituting Vienna’s lack of interest in Central Europe.

At the same time, some of the speakers called for Central European countries to stop reflecting, get their act together and start utilising their EU membership. Stop wondering about whether to apply for more EU money or run for EU positions. Just take them.

What Role for Central Europe in NATO and the CSDP?

The upcoming meeting of the European Council will most probably fail to foster a strategic discussion on defence. Today, the EU not only lacks a comprehensive and strategic thinking on issues of defence and security, but it is also short of people capable of defining and fighting for such strategies. One of the reasons behind this trend, speakers agreed, was politicians’ preoccupation with domestic issues.

In terms of geopolitics, we should not simply accept this status quo, as it is in our interest to keep NATO alive, functional, and as strong as possible. By doing so, we will help keep the Americans and Europeans on the same board – an issue the V4 has managed to find elementary consensus on. Nevertheless, as NATO is ready to leave Afghanistan, there are several schools of thought on where the Alliance should head next: prepare for a similar, possibly slightly smaller, Afghan-like affair; or focus on NATO’s boarders as Afghanistan was an overreach; or, finally, as budget cuts are irreversible, we should focus on reducing our ambitions and aim to do less.

In respect to NATO’s enlargement ambitions, the speakers emphasised the importance, yet lack of unity on the issue – with some V4 countries approaching the issue as a matter of legacy, detrimental to our image, and hence push for it less than others in the Visegrad region.

Although the Council meeting is fast approaching, the V4 prime ministers should draft a joint statement in support of a common approach. In addition, the discussants noted the need for strategic goals, thinking, and planning in Europe as the US is turning towards the Far East for new alliances.

Nevertheless, most speakers admitted that rather than being about defence and security strategy, the upcoming Council meeting will most probably focus predominantly on the Banking Union. Despite us putting a lot of money and effort into the policy, the Common Security and Defence Policy is in a worse condition than it was 10-15 years ago. Currently, there is unwillingness to contribute resources or update the EU’s security strategy. At the same time, however, these are all good reasons for further V4 defence cooperation.

Visegrad defence cooperation will not work without overcoming obstacles, namely the difference in procurement structures, pro status-quo academic structures, and protectionism seeking industries. One of the ways the V4 could increase its impact is by creating a jo int Visegrad military college as is the case in the Baltic defence cooperation. On the other hand, if cooperation is meant to become a success, we need to reach domestic consensus on harmonisation of financial and defence planning. Deeper cooperation in the field of joint exercises and training is also desirable and could be realised by connecting the 2015 Trident Juncture in Portugal with the V4 battlegroup certification exercise.

Concluding the discussion, the speakers agreed that challenges should define resources, not the other way around. They also emphasised that values, such as freedom, remain attractive despite us often taking them for granted – Ukraine being such a case in point.

   

 

Facing its Demons – the Future of the EU

In the beginning of the discussion, the kick-off speakers agreed that Europe indeed has a number of demons, often mutually enforcing, that need to be addressed. Firstly, the EU’s technocratic approach was attributed demonic traits – ones, which have resulted in a tendency of the national states to rob Brussels of the capacity to make decisions. Secondly, the debate evolved around the current surge of populism and extremism in the EU – a result of the lack of statesmanship and leadership. In order to avoid negative impact of these demons, the EU needs to find a balance between the two, as it has in the past. Moreover, the EU should not aspire to simply copy the US model, as Brussels does not dispose of the same set of checks and balances as Washington. As the Union is sui generis, it needs to find its own rules, accountability mechanisms and sense of balance. Thirdly, European politics was said to suffer from the demon of dirty money in politics and some of the speakers called for a clean-up of our public life via tougher rules on campaign financing and rules for politicians.

The fourth demon discussed was inherently linked to the fragility of the Union’s institutions. If institutions are not as well rooted as the ever-stronger interest groups, then we are unable to guarantee the predictability of the European project. Communication of EU’s workings and achievements represents another demon tormenting EU politicians. Policies, results of summits and proposals need to be better communicated to the public – especially when it comes to economic issues. Without mastering these five demons, the EU will be unable to advocate its fundamental values outside its borders.

Another point raised during the debate was the Union’s inward-looking approach. During the process of accession, candidate countries were looking inward in order to make outward progress – related to their membership in the EU. Nevertheless, we have abandoned this introspective approach and lost inspiration. Instead we tend to view the EU as a mechanism meant to solve all our internal problems. We should, however, rather see it as a vehicle for communicating our values globally. And it is in this process that Central Europe should take a lead in

order to uphold the EU’s liberal democratic character and economic model within the context of global competition.

Last, but not least, the discussants agreed that we need to acknowledge the technological transformation underway. As we are currently approaching challenges with 19th century education and solutions, this state-of-mind undermines our efforts to shut down extremists who often utilise new technologies for communicating their messages.

Finally, the discussants agreed that commemoration and collective memory are fundamentally important to maintaining Europe’s liberal democratic character. At the same time, they emphasised that businesses should not be excluded and play a role in forming the Union’s future.

European Democracy in Crisis: Tackling Apathy and Political Populism

The last discussion of the event dealt specifically with the current wave of extremism and populism that has been sweeping European politics for quite some time. Identifying disillusionment and political apathy as the main causes for the surge, the discussants observed that such political parties have managed to run good campaigns based on modern technology, aimed at fundamentally changing the current political system.

During the debate, the EU administration was considered culpable for failing to communicate European politics to the public as well as for lack of transparency – including the inaccessibility of voting records from the European Parliament and the European Council. In addition to that, failures of mainstream parties to tackle basic social and political issues create breeding ground for modern European populism. Thirdly, the discussants found inadequate public relations to be another problem playing in favour of extremist parties. Solutions need to be easily understandable and, on the other hand, populist solutions must be refuted.

We need to give up on political correctness and return to genuine rhetoric. Although, political correctness should be present in policies, it should not stand in the way of critical analysis. In respect to the Roma, this should become an issue of European policy, not a national one. The Roma represent 80% of

   

 

rural poverty in the EU and live in unacceptable conditions. Currently, there is a mythological framework used to describe the Roma all throughout Europe – in the West, the minority is often depicted as a monolithic group of nomadic immigrants, and in Central and Eastern Europe they are, more often than not, seen as eaters of the social system.

Moreover, this mythology suggests that all approaches and measure for integrating the Roma have been tried, yet none have so far worked. The reality is, however, that very little has been done and much of what has been done, actually has worked. Some of the approaches that have proven to work include mandatory pre-school education, a halt on sending Roma children to special schools, introducing schools of second chance, providing specialised labour services and microcredits.

In the end of the last panel, the discussants agreed that the rise of extremist politicians with anti-Roma rhetoric is a result of this mythology and easy-fix solutions. In addition to that, inadequate education, lack of dialogue and rising (especially youth) unemployment are among the most fundamental problems, which help populists gain support.

Keynote speeches:

In addition to panel debates, participants of the 5th annual Château Béla Forum also engaged in an honest debate with senior politicians and diplomats.

The speakers emphasised that in respect to the EU’s internal affairs, the continent has gone a long way and it has managed to abandon much of the uncertainty it used to have about the future of the European project. Today, leaders in Brussels no longer limit their debates to the issue of the crisis and no one is questioning the survival of the euro. Political debates are centred on the banking and fiscal union as well as on the need for democratic legitimacy.

In respect to the rising prominence of populist movements and parties in Europe, the speakers emphasised the need to maintain the current system. To this end, leadership is crucial and Europe’s key stakeholders – France and Germany – should not shy away from this role. As anti-Brussels parties have found a following even in Scandinavia, this signals a wide-ranging problem. A problem, which can only be

overcome by communicating with our citizens. Because if we do not, someone else will.

In respect to the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood Policy, the discussants admitted that we failed to realise that the narrative has changed – as Russia came back into the game in time to stop the Union’s agreement with Ukraine.

In 2014, when Central Europe will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism as well as the 10th and 15th anniversaries of the region’s accession to the family of transatlantic organisations – the region needs to show that we are policy-makers, not solely policy-takers.

Finally, participants of the 2013 Château Béla Forum had the chance to discuss one of the most burning transatlantic topics – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The most crucial contributions of the potential deal, the speakers argued, would be the possibility to set global standards in various areas and spread transatlantic values around the world. They also argued that the deal would undoubtedly bring benefits to both sides of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, there are still obstacles which need to be overcome. Strong political will, vision and willingness to make compromise will be the key to success.

This is a joint publication of the Centre for European Studies and the Slovak Atlantic Commission. This publication receives funding from the European Parliament. The Centre for European Studies, the Slovak Atlantic Commission and the European Parliament assume no responsibility for facts or opinions expressed in this publication or any subsequent use of the information contained therein. Sole responsibility lies on the author of the publication.

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