Bruised but not broken: reviving the appeal of the EU in the minds of V4 citizens

ended

The V4 countries have experienced democratic backsliding and erosion of rule of law in recent years. Citizens have become increasingly disenfranchised politically at both national and European level as V4 societies have become polarized by domestic political elites, who have opportunistically weaponized numerous issues, such as migration and climate change, to further their autocratic aspirations in opposition to European integration. As a result, the V4 citizens are amongst the least engaged in the EP elections. However, the sentiments of the V4 citizenry are generally not understood, particularly around emergent issues such as the EU’s flagship policies on, for instance, climate change, and other cardinal issues that will shape the EU for years to come. Our consortium posits that if the citizenry and their concerns around the looming transformations are not properly understood, they cannot be meaningfully engaged as stakeholders. Our project revolves around the promotion of an engaged V4 citizenry. Contrary to traditional citizens’ engagement projects mainly comprising events, our project also comprises sociological research in the forms of surveys and focus groups based on several years of experience within the consortium. The focal points of these activities will be four highly relevant issues that resonate within the V4 populations, and which has strong EU ramifications; EU climate policies, migration, rule of law and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our citizens’ engagement will be based on empirical research, which will be utilized to both engage the citizens on their own premises while simultaneously adding gravitas to our activities engaging pro-European, pro-democracy law- and policymakers, who can champion these citizens’ concerns. Our project aims to tackle these most contentious issues within the V4, contextualizing them for citizens in order to enable their engagement,and combatting the emerging Eurosceptic narratives already promulgated by autocratic elites.