The May 2019 European election
Thursday 20th June 2:00 PM to 3:45
Campus Puerta de Toledo, Room 0.B.13
UC3M Madrid
Panellists: Elena García Guitián – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Luciano Morganti – Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Hans-Jörg Trenz – University of Copenhagen; Niilo Kauppi – University of Jyväskylä; Claudia Wiesner – Fulda University of Applied Sciences; José Fernández Albertos – Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
This roundtable will gather scholars of the OpenEUnet Jean Monnet network to discuss the results of the 2019 European elections. OpenEUnet is a platform connecting debates on Europe in the institutions and transnational civil society platforms with national publics for the purpose of matching EU’s policies with Europeanised politics at the national level. The roundtable will be constituted of academics from the network as well as by members of the platform from civil society, think tanks or the media.
This round-table will focus on two interrelated issues, the campaign in the European public spheres and institutional reconfigurations after the elections. The elections are likely to be decisive for the EU. Not only because of the obvious possibility that anti-European forces would increase their weight in the European Parliament, but also because they may for the first time run on the basis of new coalitions. Several voices are calling pro-Europeans to endorse Macron’s strategy in 2017 and run as a united front against illiberal anti-Europeans. This movement may have significant consequences for the realignment of political alliances in Europe. Would it consolidate a new cleavage opposing winners and losers of supranational integration? Would this be consolidated in further national elections? The spitzenkadidaten process might not be repeated and instead the top positions could again be the result of an intergovernmental bargain – what implications could this have for the next 5 years?
Integration, sovereignty and democracy in political competition on Europe
Friday 21st June 09:00 AM to 10:45 AM
Campus Puerta de Toledo, Room 0.B.13
UC3M Madrid
Panellists: Luis Bouza – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă – National University of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest (SNSPA); Uxia Carral – Universidad Carlos III Madrid; Elena García Guitián – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Taru Haapala – University of Jyväskylä; Dragoș Ioniță – National University of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest (SNSPA); Álvaro Oleart – Université libre de Bruxelles; Argelia Queralt – Universitat de Barcelona; Jorge Tuñón – Universidad Carlos III Madrid;
As the May European elections approach, incentives loom for actors on both sides of the fence to frame them as a decisive clash between partisans of national sovereignty – often depicted by their critics as populists – and partisans of further European integration – often depicted by their critics as international elites. However, the return of sovereignty as a concept, frame and or narrative is much more complex than what this opposition entails. This is exemplified by the ongoing effort of French president Emmanuel Macron to resignify the very idea of sovereignty at EU level.
Political communication in the form of signification and framing by political actors and institutions will be important in this electoral competition. This panel will discuss how political actors use the notions of integration, sovereignty and democracy when competing for office (political parties and leaders) or influence (interest groups or social movement) in the fragmented European public sphere. It invites contributions from a wide range of analytical and methodological approaches to agenda-setting, framing and political of political discourse with a focus on ongoing national or transnational struggles on the European Union. Contributions relating these argumentative struggles with political strategies and collective action and contention are particularly encouraged. These agenda, discursive and narrative analyses will feed into the OpenEUdebate Jean Monnet network analyses of the campaign for the European elections and the policy issues emerging form the election results.