ADVOCATES OR CHALLENGERS OF EUROPEANIZATION? AN INQUIRY INTO THE DISCOURSE OF THE ROMANIAN ELITES ON THE EUROPEAN UNION IN THE CONTEXT OF EU ELECTIONS 2014.

AuthorRadu, Loredana
  1. Introduction

    The multi-layered crisis still confronting the EU has generated multiple changes in the Europeans' mindset. According to the most recent Eurobarometer (Standard EB no. 81), EU citizens continue to experience a low level of trust in the European Union; at the same time, they have grown more confident in their national parliaments and governments. Currently, the gap between citizens' trust in the EU, on the one hand, and citizens' trust in their national parliaments, on the other hand, has been lowering down to only 3% (31% vs. 28%), as compared to the pre-crisis situation, when it was around 15%. Plain statistics reveal that the public is willing to resurrect its trust in national institutions, but it is not willing to do the same as regards the EU. This is consistent with Sarah Hobolt and James Tilley's findings that 'when things go badly, and citizens hold the EU responsible, then people's trust in the EU institutions will decline' (Hobolt and Tilley, 2014, p. 9). We assume that this is one of the symptoms of re-nationalization of the national public spheres. Other recent symptoms include the low turnout and the ascent of anti-establishment and eurosceptic parties in the last elections for the European Parliament.

    This paper argues that national elites partly orchestrate this retreat into the national public spheres. As far as Romania is concerned, the national elites play a key role in this phenomenon by engaging in a blame-avoidance game, by tacitly agreeing not to bring Europe forward on the public agenda, and by refusing to 'raise the heat on an issue that threatens to divide their party' (Hooghe and Marks, 2008, p. 19)--as the EU issue is. In order to test these assumptions, we carried out a series of 15 semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives of political, administrative, and media elites in Romania. Interviews were carried out between March 23 and April 24, 2014, right before the start of the campaign for European elections. Our research shows that, in general, the Romanian elites--be them political, administrative, or media-related --declare themselves as euro-enthusiasts or euro-realists; at the same time, through a diversity of blame-avoiding games (see Weaver, 1986; Hood, 2011; Hobolt and Tilley, 2014), they use the EU as a means of diffusing (national) responsibility for crisis-related hot topics, such as the implementation of austerity measures. Are these blame-avoidance games played at the expense of Europeanization? Building on Trenz's recent paper on the narrative construction of European society, our research also reveals that the Romanian elites contribute to the so-called 'banalization' (Trenz, 2014) of the discourse on Europe. By doing this, they paint the image of a 'post-heroic Europe' (Trenz, 2014), which is neither an object of triumph (i.e. inspiring euro-enthusiasm) nor an expression of a trauma (i.e. euroscepticism). Rather, it is a mild taken-for-granted reality, which does not have the capacity to lift up the spirits or to mobilize (pro-EU) energies--either of leaders and elites or of citizens.

  2. Europeanization--the corollary of European integration

    For decades now, in seeking to address EU democratic deficit, communication scholars and political scientists have focused on two interrelated processes: Europeanization and the emergence of the European public sphere. If one could summarize the academic debate in one single phrase, the best choice would be that 'Europeanization literature meets the public sphere debate'(Meyer, 2005).

    Europeanization of the national public spheres is often regarded as a corollary of European integration and as a means of providing for its sustainability (Koopmans and Pfetsch, 2003; Koopmans and Erbe, 2004; Bruggemann et al., 2006; Machill, Beiler and Fischer, 2006; de Vreese et al., 2006; Kitus, 2008). Europeanization is a form of transnationalization, and some use the two terms interchangeably in order to name the process of creating a common European discourse (Bruggemann et al., 2006, p. 1) on topics of common concern and relevance. Europeanization can be 'approached as a set of puzzles' (Radaelli, 2004, p. 2), and assembling the pieces of this puzzle has proved to be challenging for both researchers and decision-makers. Inquiring into the complex mechanisms of Europeanization has gradually transformed the public debate into a scientific quest for the meaning of Europe.

    One very useful differentiation is that between 'downloading' and 'uploading' Europeanization processes. This has been translated into the well-known typology vertical and horizontal Europeanization (Borzel and Risse, 2000; Koopmans and Erbe, 2004; Meyer, 2005; Liebert, 2007; Bruggemann and Kleinen von Konigslow, 2007). Vertical Europeanization consists of communicative linkages between the national and the European level, be they bottom-up or top-down, whereas horizontal Europeanization consists of communicative linkages between different member states. Over time, scholars have come up with several variations on this typology, speaking, for example, about comprehensive Europeanization (high levels of vertical and horizontal Europeanization), segmented Europeanization (vertical, but no horizontal Europeanization), Europeanization aloof from the EU (horizontal without vertical Europeanization), and parochial public sphere (neither vertical, nor horizontal Europeanization) (Bruggemann and Kleinen von Konigslow, 2007).

    Researching Europeanization has been--to a large extent--focused on downloading processes. A suggestive theorization belongs to Radaelli (2000) who identified four ways in which member states respond to EU-driven changes. First, he considered 'accommodation', in which downloading is compatible with domestic structures, policies, discourses and identities; second, he spoke about 'transformation', where downloading poses a challenge to these areas; third, 'inertia', which happens when a political will to bring about change does not exist; last, 'retrenchment', which is when a downloaded policy area stimulates opposition to the EU and gives birth to anti-European interests. Following this top-down logic, Radaelli formulated the following definition: 'Europeanization consists of processes of a) construction, b) diffusion and c) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, 'ways of doing things' and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, political structures and public policies' (Radaelli, 2004, p. 4).

    Top-down approaches 'have been increasingly criticized for their rather narrow top-down perspective which conceptualizes the process largely as a one-way street and treats target countries as passive recipients of EU demands for change' (Borzel and Pamuk, 2011, p. 6). Our paper is premised on what it is often referred to as a 'domestic turn' in Europeanization studies (Moller Sousa, 2006; McCauley, 2011). Departing from this domestic turn, we explore the role of elites in linking the top-down with the bottom-up Europeanization processes of the national public sphere. We premise our approach on Tanja Borzel's statement that 'member states are not merely the passive takers of European demands for domestic change. They may act proactively to shape European policies, institutions and processes to which they have to adapt later' (Borzel, 2003, p. 3). Noteworthy, 'Member State governments may be the most important shapers of EU decisions. Yet, domestic actors are their main takers' (Borzel, 2003, p. 4). Thus, investigating the role played by domestic actors in the Europeanization of the public spheres or in their (re)nationalization becomes particularly relevant.

  3. Europeanization of the national public spheres: the role of elites

    There is a strong tendency in the literature to explain the lack of cohesion and solidarity in crisis-stricken EU by entering the rather complex field of EU communication studies, while tackling sensitive subjects, such as the Europeanization of national politics and policies or the creation of an EU public sphere. EU communication scholars argue that the lack of solidarity in Europe or the lack of a collective identity are connected to the European 'public sphere deficit' (Ward, 2004). As any theoretical field, EU communication is subject to many controversies and opposing perspectives. Some believe that we cannot speak of an EU public sphere in a meaningful way (Baisnee, 2007), while others argue that public spheres 'are social constructions in the true sense of the word' (Risse, 2003, p. 5). Nowadays, scholars no longer search for an EU public sphere outside of or separated from national public spheres. Rather, the emphasis is on the degree to which the national public spheres are gradually Europeanized and European issues are regularly dealt with in the various national media (as underlined by van de Steeg and Risse, 2010). In this context, the concept of Europeanization mediates the debate about the emergence of the EU public sphere.

    This paper treats elites--be those political, economic, administrative or media-related --as domestic actors and agents of Europeanization, who steer the contemporary process of European unification (Best, Lengyel and Verzichelli, 2012, p. 1). Noteworthy, 'the key role in the interchange between actors and institutions belongs to elites in that they are the dominant actors' (Best, Lengyel and Verzichelli, 2012, p. 1). It is true that, in the context of the crisis, the EU has gone through the transition from the 'permissive consensus' to 'constraining dissensus', meaning that 'elites ... must look over their shoulders when negotiating European issues' (Hooghe and Marks, 2008, p. 5) and enjoy a lesser role in 'spreading' the EU message. Still, elites are among the most prominent actors in the social...

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