AC Advantage EU solidarity is decreasing – populist buildup over the last decade and COVID pushed it to the brink -- legitimacy is key to maintaining European projects. Rankin 4/1 Jennifer Rankin [Brussels correspondent @ The Guardian], 4-1-2020, "Coronavirus could be final straw for EU, European experts warn," Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/coronavirus-could-be-final-straw-for-eu-europeanexperts-warn, // ajs The European Union has weathered the storms of eurozone bailouts, the migration crisis and Brexit, but some fear coronavirus could be even more destructive. In a rare intervention Jacques Delors, the former European commission president who helped build the modern EU, broke his silence last weekend to warn that lack of solidarity posed “a mortal danger to the European Union”. Enrico Letta, a former prime minister of Italy, has said the EU faces a “deadly risk” from the global pandemic. “We are facing a crisis that is different from previous crises,” he told the Guardian – partly, he said, because of the unpredictable progression of the virus, partly because “Europeanism” has been weakened by other crises of the past decade. “The communitarian spirit of Europe is weaker today than 10 years ago,” he said, adding that the biggest danger for the EU was “the Trump virus”. If everyone took the strategy of “Italy first”, “Belgium first” or “Germany first”, he said, “we will all sink altogether”. “This is definitely a make-it-or-break-it moment for the European project,” said Nathalie Tocci, a former adviser to the EU foreign policy chief. “If it goes badly this really risks being the end of the union. It fuels all the nationalist-populism.” She points out, however, that so far Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has plummeted in the polls, while the popularity of the lawprofessor-turned-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has risen. “In some respects, the public actually want the rational, moderate, reassuring but firm kind of leader.” Europe has moved on from an initial me-first response, where some countries imposed export bans on vital medical kit, or put up border controls that left other European citizens stranded. Germany, Austria and Luxembourg have opened their hospitals to treat patients from the hardest-hit countries. France and Germany have donated more masks to Italy than China, according to the EU executive, which trumpeted the statistics on social media amid alarm it was losing the “the global battle of narratives” over “the politics of generosity”. In the early phase of the crisis, Russia and China sent medical supplies to Italy, while its nearest neighbours failed to immediately respond to Rome’s calls for help. While European leaders have converged on a response to the public health crisis - a pledge to revamp the EU crisis management system, funding for vaccine research and joint procurement of medical kit countries remain divided over how to help the economy weather the storm. The pandemic has reopened the wounds of the eurozone crisis, resurrecting stereotypes about “profligate” southern Europeans and “hard-hearted” northerners. “Each crisis has reduced trust between member states and within the whole system and this is a real problem,” said Heather Grabbe, a former adviser to the EU enlargement commissioner. The Dutch finance minister, Wopke Hoekstra, voiced contrition this week after infuriating his neighbours by asking why other governments didn’t have fiscal buffers to deal with the financial shock of the coronavirus. His comments were described as “repugnant”, “small-minded” and “a threat to the EU’s future” by Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa. Europe is still entrenched in two camps over how to respond to the economic fallout caused by Covid19. France, Italy, Spain and at least half a dozen others want to break with convention by issuing joint eurozone debt, so-called “corona bonds”. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands continue to shun the idea. At a summit last week European leaders failed to reach a decision, passing the problem to finance ministers, who have been instructed to find a way out of the impasse by next week. Meanwhile, the all-consuming coronavirus crisis threatens to divert EU attention from the erosion of democratic standards in Hungary. A newly adopted emergency law caps Viktor Orbán’s decade-long project of centralising power that has left Hungary the first EU country to be classed as only “partly free” by Freedom House. Grabbe, who now leads the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels, thinks attention on the virus risks lessening attention on Hungary. “Orbán is very skilled at choosing his political moment,” she says. “He has often done this before when politicians in other countries are distracted. He introduces new measures and waits for the fuss to die down.” Luuk van Middelaar, a professor of EU law who worked for the European council president during the eurozone crisis, believes the EU can improvise a way out of current divisions. “The EU is internally ill- equipped to deal with any crisis or unforeseen circumstances, and yet each time under the pressure of events it improvises solutions.” During the eurozone crisis it took “two years of drama and near-death experiences” to fashion the solution of European banking union, “as it always takes time for interests and minds to converge ... This time we don’t have that much time so that is worrying.” Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute for International Affairs, thinks the EU can rescue the situation by moving the coronabonds debate on to more “cool-headed, technical” terrain. “Who is actually going to emit these bonds … What are these bonds going to be for? And if one actually manages to give specific technical answers to these questions then it could be an opportunity to break the ice on a debate that has become so polarised.” Letta envisages a “corona deal” that avoids the divisive question of mutualised debt by having bonds issued by the European Investment Bank, the EU’s lending arm. But Germany and the Netherlands also need to move, according to the Italian former prime minister. “The key point to the Germans and the Dutch: please don’t block, don’t stop European measures that we can take together.” Any deal carries the seeds of a future argument. Every time the EU has strengthened its hand in response to a crisis, whether centralised refugee policy or oversight of national budgets, there has been resistance and resentment, according to Middelaar. “The Germans have still not fully digested the role of the European Central Bank as the lender of last resort,” he said while mandatory refugee quotas deepened the cleavage between western and central European countries. “It’s just worth remembering that Italy does not have a monopoly on Eurosceptic politicians. In Germany and the Netherlands there are also Eurosceptics waiting to exploit this issue.” European leaders’ response will ultimately shape public opinion. When Italians felt they had been left alone by Europe in the early phase of the pandemic, confidence in the European project shrank. A poll conducted on 12-13 March found that 88% of Italians felt Europe was failing to support Italy, while 67% saw EU membership as a disadvantage - a remarkable result for a founding member state, where the EU once basked in high levels of support. If European division prevails, the memory will stick of the time when China and Russia rushed to Italy’s aid, thinks Tocci. Italian confidence in the EU “depends more on what Europe does than what the Chinese and Russia do”. “I think that the jury is still out as to whether Europe is going to do what it takes to come out stronger from this.” Declining voter turnout now breaks EU legitimacy and boosts social distortions and populism. Haubner and Kaeding 5/26 [Stefan Haubner is a research associate at the University of DuisbergEssen. Michael Kaeding is a prof of EU poliics at the University of Duisberg-Essen.] “Political equality without social equality? Social distortion of voter turnout in the European elections 2019 across nine European capitals.” Research & Politics, Vol 7, Iss 2. May 26, 2020. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168020928159 TG Low voter turnout is a global phenomenon in democracies at presidential and parliamentary levels of elections (Blais and Dobrzynska, 1998). In Europe the overall trend of turnout has been negative since the 1970s (Franklin and Hobolt, 2011). In European Parliament elections turnout stagnates around 50% despite the 2014 Spitzenkandidaten process (Schmitt et al., 2015). And while the 2019 European ‘elections of fate’ saw an increase in turnout, in fact the voter turnout in eight out of 28 member states still decreased and a majority of eligible voters in 15 out of 28 member states – representing 36% of the total number of European citizens – did not exercise their right to vote. In the long run, low turnout rates call into question the legitimising power of elections. They jeopardise a basic idea in modern democracies: the ideal of political equality (Verba, 2003). This is because participation in elections today depends heavily on socioeconomic characteristics and turnout imbalanced towards the better educated and wealthier citizens (Smets and van Ham, 2013) weakens the integrative and legitimating functions of elections. Also, the inequality in voter turnout increases as voter turnout declines (Tingsten’s law). Consequently, for classic second-order elections such as European elections (Hix and Marsh, 2011), we would expect a stronger social distortion than in the respective main elections because decreasing voter turnout rates would automatically be associated with growing inequality. Plan: In the European Union, voting in European Parliament elections ought to be compulsory. The plan is key to reinvigorating EU legitimacy – it increases turnout, strengthens parliament, and unifies the EU in the face of rising far-right populism. Independently, spills over to broader civic engagement and awareness. This ev includes punishment. Malkopoulou 09 (Anthoula Malkopoulou, [Associate Professor in Political Theory at Lund University specialized in democratic theory and history of political thought], July 2009, “Lost Voters: Participation in EU elections and the case for compulsory voting “, Centre for European Policy Studies, accessed: 8-10-2020, http://aei.pitt.edu/11335/1/1886.pdf // ajs Nevertheless, there are three main reasons why mandatory voting is a particularly appropriate solution for the European Parliament elections. First, as the Parliament struggles to acquire a stronger role vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council, it should protect its raison d’être as an institution that represents the EU citizens. Making voting compulsory would boost the turnout and allow the Parliament to lay claim to an ’input legitimacy’ that is missing from the two other EU institutions. In response to the increase of its powers through the Lisbon Treaty, it must become very clear that the Parliament is the most representative of the three EU governing institutions. It must therefore adopt a more inclusive character and reflect a fair share of the EU population. Second, this solution would recreate the EU electorate as a unified political body and add new dimensions to EU citizenship. Full participation in the EU elections would raise political debates from a national to a European level. In this way, it would distract voters from the narrow national context and elevate them into a European public sphere. Electoral obligation could lead to an increased awareness and interest in European issues and, as a result, create a distinct EU-mindedness. In other words, compelling citizens to vote could work as a costless civic education measure. And, as a side-effect, it would eliminate the expense of election promotion and raise voter awareness. A third positive effect would be a harmonisation of the political landscape. First of all, with the present system of voluntary voting, political parties that maintain electoral clienteles, through family or community ties, have a competitive advantage in the electoral contest. In this way the existing situation rewards clientelism and supports the ‘old parties’. Secondly, since electoral outcome currently depends on the eagerness to vote, which is usually higher in the extreme wings of the political spectrum, technically it is no surprise that farright euro-sceptic parties are on the rise in the European Parliament. As stated above, low turnouts distort the concept of majority and offer an advantage to parties that would otherwise constitute an insignificant minority. The new system would eventually minimise the influence of extreme right parties and legitimate the shares between the different political groups. In fact, the European Parliament deserves a higher degree of procedural representation in order to avoid becoming hostage to eccentric political views. The prevailing political culture to some extent explains why the European Parliament has so far never discussed the option of mandatory voting, neither in a plenary session nor in the Constitutional Affairs Committee. Normally, amending electoral rights would require an intergovernmental conference, like the one preceding the Maastricht Treaty, which made it possible for EU citizens to vote in all member states of the EU. Under the Treaty of Lisbon, the Council can decide on a new treaty without having to resort to a formal IGC (TEC, Art.25). What is more, if at least nine states agree, the procedure for enhanced cooperation could be used to amend political rights. Thirdly, under another new provision of the Lisbon Treaty, changes to the political rights of EU citizens – albeit nonbinding – can be also initiated by a citizens’ proposal to the Commission (TEU, Art.11). Finally, states can always make a bilateral reciprocal adaptation of electoral rights, such as those that already exist between the UK, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, and which does not interfere with the official scope of European Union citizenship. Conclusions Since the mid-1990s, a declining trend of electoral participation in Western countries has triggered a wave of discussions about civic education, awareness-raising and new voting techniques. Some have argued that turnout fluctuations are valuable per se, as they indicate the changing degrees of voter satisfaction or criticism against the government. However, in the case of the EU, low voter turnout undermines the representativity of the European Parliament and its symbolic importance vis-à-vis the EU citizens and the two other major EU institutions. What is more, it damages the image of the Union abroad, especially since democracy and political rights are the cornerstone of its foreign policy and development aid. One of the main reasons why EU voters abstain is that they don’t understand the role, the working procedures and the decisions of the European Parliament. Simplifying the complex EU system of accountability is of course one way to settle the problem. Yet, it is hardly plausible that this would automatically unleash a substantial rise in electoral participation. On the other hand, civic education projects would require large investments over longer periods of time and with uncertain results. A much simpler solution would be to introduce mandatory EU voting rights and punish abstainers with small fines, which would go directly into the EU budget. In countries that practise such a system at present, citizens have a higher interest in politics and discuss political matters more frequently. As a result politicians address the needs of the entire electorate; they campaign on issues rather than on the importance of elections and, in general, spend less money on campaigning. From a moral point of view, a legal requirement to vote rehabilitates the notion of civic duty, fulfils the principle of universal political rights and realises the democratic ideals of participation and equality. If the EU wishes to uphold these principles domestically and promote them worldwide, it should indeed take active steps to fulfil them and provide an example of democratic ideology and good practice to the world. Strong EU legitimacy and soft power in the face of populism sustains liberal multilateralism and the world order – that solves warming and arms control. Kemal Dervis 19, a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, July 25 2019, "Which way now for the EU?", Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/which-waynow-for-the-eu/ - SDGs = Sustainable Development Goals Second, the EU should not aim for a world of constant G-3 geostrategic rivalry, but rather one that upholds the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. Europe should use its hard and soft power to cooperate with all actors seeking to promote a rules-based global order, in areas including trade and competition, climate, the governance of digital technologies, gene editing, arms control, and the pursuit of the SDGs. Whenever possible, the EU should try to amplify its policies through multilateral institutions. Many of Europe’s global allies hope and expect that the EU’s new leaders will champion such a course; moreover, Europe benefits from the soft power that such sentiments generate. If, on the other hand, the EU’s new strategy makes it sound as if Europe just wants to become like China or a “Trumpian” America—that is, a pure power player in a transactional game of realpolitik—then Europe’s soft power will weaken. This point is related to the possible need for majority voting and even intergovernmental treaties to enhance cooperation within the EU. If the bloc is unable to enforce its values within its own borders—as is currently the case, for example, with Hungary—then it will not be able to promote them convincingly on the world stage. Europe must therefore lead by example and project its values everywhere, including in its dealings with the U.S. and China. The hope that Europe may soon once again jointly champion these values with the U.S. is realistic, and should be kept alive. And although differences with China will persist, social and political forces seeking greater freedom and multilateralism are bound to emerge in that country at some point. The EU’s new leaders must chart an ambitious and credible way forward for the bloc. They should seek to build a stronger and more integrated Europe, one that is not held back by the lowest common denominator and is able to stand up for itself while working toward a peaceful multilateral world order. Such a global role could make the EU a new and very different type of superpower. Liberal world order uniquely solves warming Yuval Noah Harari 18, Professor of History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 9/26/18, “We need a post-liberal order now,” The Economist, https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/26/weneed-a-post-liberal-order-now this vision of friendly fortresses is that it has been tried—and it failed spectacularly. All attempts to divide the world into clear-cut nations have so far resulted in war and genocide. When the heirs of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Mickiewicz managed to overthrow the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, it proved The second thing to note about impossible to find a clear line dividing Italians from Slovenes or Poles from Ukrainians. This had set the stage for the second world war. The key problem with the network of fortresses is that each national fortress wants a bit more land, security and prosperity for itself at the expense of the neighbors, and without the help of universal values and global organisations, rival fortresses cannot agree on any common rules. Walled fortresses are seldom friendly. But if you happen to live inside a particularly strong fortress, such as America or Russia, why should you care? Some nationalists indeed adopt a more extreme isolationist position. They don’t believe in either a global empire or in a global network of fortresses. Instead, they deny the necessity of any global order whatsoever. “Our fortress should just raise the drawbridges,” they say, “and the rest of the world can go to hell. We should refuse entry to foreign people, foreign ideas and foreign goods, and as long as our walls are stout and the guards are loyal, who cares what happens to the foreigners?” Such extreme isolationism, however, is completely divorced from economic realities. Without a global trade network, all existing national economies will collapse— including that of North Korea. Many countries will not be able even to feed themselves without imports, and prices of almost all products will skyrocket. The madein-China shirt I am wearing cost me about $5. If it had been produced by Israeli workers from Israeli-grown cotton using Israeli-made machines powered by nonexisting Israeli oil, it may well have cost ten times as much. Nationalist leaders from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin may therefore heap abuse on the global trade network, but none thinks seriously of taking their country completely out of that network. And we cannot have a global trade network without some global order that sets the rules of the game. humankind today faces three common problems that make a mockery of all national borders, and that can only be solved through global cooperation. These are nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption. You cannot build a wall against nuclear winter or against global warming, and no nation can regulate artificial Even more importantly, whether people like it or not, intelligence ( AI) or bioengineering single-handedly. It won’t be enough if only the European Union forbids producing killer robots or only America bans genetically-engineering human babies. Due to the immense potential of such disruptive technologies, if even one country decides to pursue these high-risk high-gain paths, other countries will be forced to follow its dangerous lead for fear of being left behind. An AI arms race or a biotechnological arms race almost guarantees the worst outcome. Whoever wins the arms race, the loser will likely be humanity itself. For in an arms race, all regulations will collapse. Consider, for example, conducting genetic-engineering experiments on human babies. Every country will say: “We don’t want to conduct such experiments—we are the good guys. But how do we know our rivals are not doing it? We cannot afford to remain behind. So we must do it before them.” consider developing autonomous-weapon systems, that can decide for themselves whether to shoot and kill people. Again, every country will say: “This is a very dangerous technology, and it should be regulated carefully. But we don’t trust our rivals to regulate it, so we must develop it first”. Similarly, The only thing that can prevent such destructive arms races is greater trust between countries. This is not an impossible mission. If today the Germans promise the French: “Trust us, we aren’t developing killer robots in a secret laboratory under the Bavarian Alps,” the French are likely to believe the Germans, despite the terrible history of these two countries. We need to build such trust globally. We need to reach a point when Americans and Chinese can trust one another like the French and Germans. Similarly, we need to create a global safety-net to protect humans against the economic shocks that AI is likely to cause. Automation will create immense new wealth in high-tech hubs such as Silicon Valley, while the worst effects will be felt in developing countries whose economies depend on cheap manual labor. There will be more jobs to software engineers in California, but fewer jobs to Mexican factory workers and truck drivers. We now have a global economy, but politics is Unless we find solutions on a global level to the disruptions caused by AI, entire countries might collapse, and the resulting chaos, violence and waves of immigration will destabilise the entire world. still very national. This is the proper perspective to look at recent developments such as Brexit. In itself, Brexit isn’t necessarily a bad idea. But is this what Britain and the EU should be dealing with right now? How does Brexit help prevent nuclear war? How does Brexit help prevent climate change? How does Brexit help regulate artificial intelligence and bioengineering? Instead of helping, Brexit makes it harder to solve all of these problems. Every minute that Britain and the EU spend on Brexit is one less minute they spend on preventing climate change and on regulating AI. to survive and flourish in the 21st century, humankind needs effective global cooperation, and so far the only viable blueprint for such cooperation is offered by liberalism. Nevertheless, governments all over the world are undermining the foundations of the liberal order, and the world is turning into a network of fortresses. The first to feel the impact are the weakest members of humanity, who find themselves without any fortress willing to protect them: refugees, illegal migrants, persecuted minorities. But if the walls keep rising, eventually the whole of humankind will feel the squeeze. In order Warming guarantees extinction – multiple scenarios Specktor 19 [Brandon Specktor] “Human Civilization Will Crumble by 2050 If We Don't Stop Climate Change Now, New Paper Claims.” Live Science. June 4, 2019. https://www.livescience.com/65633climate-change-dooms-humans-by-2050.html TG According to the paper, climate change poses a "near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization," and there's a good chance society could collapse as soon as 2050 if serious mitigation actions aren't taken in the next decade. Published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne (an independent think tank focused on climate policy) and authored by a climate researcher and a former fossil fuel executive, the paper's central thesis is that climate scientists are too restrained in their predictions of how climate change will affect the planet in the near future. [Top 9 Ways the World Could End] The current climate crisis, they say, is larger and more complex than any humans have ever dealt with before. General climate models — like the one that the United Nations' Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used in 2018 to predict that a global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) could put hundreds of millions of people at risk — fail to account for the sheer complexity of Earth's many interlinked geological processes; as such, they fail to adequately predict the scale of the potential consequences. The truth, the authors wrote, is probably far worse than any models can fathom. How the world ends What might an accurate worst-case picture of the planet's climate-addled future actually look like, then? The authors provide one particularly grim scenario that begins with world governments "politely ignoring" the advice of scientists and the will of the public to decarbonize the economy (finding alternative energy sources), resulting in a global temperature increase 5.4 F (3 C) by the year 2050. At this point, the world's ice sheets vanish; brutal droughts kill many of the trees in the Amazon rainforest (removing one of the world's largest carbon offsets); and the planet plunges into a feedback loop of ever-hotter, everdeadlier conditions. "Thirty-five percent of the global land area, and 55 percent of the global population, are subject to more than 20 days a year of lethal heat conditions, beyond the threshold of human survivability," the authors hypothesized. Meanwhile, droughts, floods and wildfires regularly ravage the land. Nearly one-third of the world's land surface turns to desert. Entire ecosystems collapse, beginning with the planet's coral reefs, the rainforest and the Arctic ice sheets. The world's tropics are hit hardest by these new climate extremes, destroying the region's agriculture and turning more than 1 billion people into refugees. This mass movement of refugees — coupled with shrinking coastlines and severe drops in food and water availability — begin to stress the fabric of the world's largest nations, including the United States. Armed conflicts over resources, perhaps culminating in nuclear war, are likely. The result, according to the new paper, is "outright chaos" and perhaps "the end of human global civilization as we know it." Independently, EU right-wing populism allows a revisionist Russia to influence Europe and freely invade the west – Russia first strikes Kirchick 17 [James Kirchick, PoliSci and History Bas from Yale University, Brookings Fellow on Foreign Policy, Brookings Project on International Order and Strategy, author of ‘The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age’, reporter for many papers.], “Russia’s plot against the West.” Politico. March 17, 2017. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-plot-against-the-west-vladimir-putindonald-trump-europe/ TG For a specter is haunting Europe—the specter of populist nationalism. Ideologically indeterminate, it manifests across the Continent in the form of France’s right-wing National Front, the post-communist German Left party and the Italian Five Star Movement, which defies any traditional political label. While these parties, and the intellectual currents to which they give voice, may not align on everything, they are invariably anti-establishment, opposed to the European Union, and hostile to America. They are also all supported—either materially or through other, less tangible instruments—by Russia. This is not incidental. As Europe’s political stability, social cohesion, economic prosperity and security are more threatened today than at any point since the Cold War, Russia is destabilizing the Continent on every front. Indigenous factors—whether long-extant nationalism, design flaws in the Eurozone lack of a common foreign policy, or incapability at assimilating immigrants – certainly lie at the root of these crises. But all are exploited by Moscow and exacerbated by its malign influence. Fomenting European disintegration from within, Russia also threatens Europe from without through its massive military buildup, frequent intimidation of NATO members and efforts to overturn the continent’s security architecture by weakening the transatlantic link with America. If a prosperous and democratic Europe is a core national security interest of the United States, as it has been for the past 80 years, then the Russian regime is one to be resisted, contained and ultimately dethroned. For none of the existential problems Europe faces will dissipate until the menace to its East is subdued. The road to a Europe whole, free and at peace, in other words, goes through Moscow. Just at the moment when the West requires unity, it’s disintegrating. Brexit foretells the potential demise of the EU, a democratic bulwark to Russia’s predatory strategy of divide and conquer. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Americans have chosen a president who abjures his country’s traditional role as linchpin of the liberal world order and wishes to ally with the very power threatening to dismantle it. Unlike any American president of the postwar age, Trump’s 19th century worldview seems to accord with a Russian sphere of interest in Europe. For the next four years at least, it is an open question whether there will be any American leadership to corral Europeans together against Russian aggression and subversion. On the contrary, Trump wants to gain Moscow’s partnership in pivoting back to the Middle East, a strategic realignment that may sacrifice European security as the cost of Russian collaboration. “The End of Europe” may come about not in the dissolution of the EU or something so catastrophic as a conventional war (though these are real, if remote, possibilities), but rather something more ethereal and imaginable: the slow, gradual reversion to the European state of nature prior to the postwar integration project, and the rise of amoral, prostrate, nationalist governments that no longer project the liberal values upon which the Euro-Atlantic community is grounded, and that are willing to engage in purely transactional relationships with Moscow. Should this future scenario come to pass, it will be the fault of apathetic Europeans, absent Americans and aggressive Russians. Unlike during the Cold War, Russia seeks not the military and political domination of Europe through the advance of the Red Army and spread of communist ideology, but rather a resetting of the Continent’s security order. The Kremlin hopes to achieve this through meddling in European and American politics so as to install governments acquiescent to it’s primary objective: supplanting the values-driven, rules-based international system with what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently called a “post-Western world order” wherein might makes right. In this order, Russia’s neighbors will have to accept limited sovereignty within a Russian sphere of influence. Moscow seeks nothing less than a reversal of the momentous historical processes begun in 1989, when Central and Eastern Europeans peacefully reclaimed their freedom after decades of Russian-imposed tyranny. For President Vladimir Putin, who witnessed the downfall of Russia’s empire as a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, and for whom the Soviet Union’s collapse was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” this revulsion for everything that 1989 represents is deeply felt. Putin is implacably hostile to the United States, blaming it for bringing down the Soviet empire and humiliating Russia. Because the European Union and NATO – both of which have welcomed countries once dominated by Russia – serve as obstacles to the reassertion of Russian hegemony, Moscow’s long-term strategy is to undermine and ultimately break these institutions from within, thereby neutralizing the concert of nations that has traditionally been necessary to restrain Russian expansion on the Continent. The Kremlin’s ideal outcome is the “Finlandization” of the West, whereby Europe and America abandon their principles, sacrifice their allies and accommodate Kremlin prerogatives without Russia having to dispatch a single soldier abroad. A West that is divided, inert and unsure of its own basic values is not one that will resist Russia’s revisionist agenda. Which is precisely by the Russians backed Trump—and why Merkel is so worried. Befitting a judo master, Putin is pushing on open doors across the West, exploiting fears over Islam, immigration, economic inertia (blamed on a catchall “neoliberalism”), and globalization to “nudge” Western publics in a more Russia-sympathetic direction. Through means both minor and covert (internet troll factories) as well as significant and overt (a €9 million loan to Marine Le Pen’s National Front), the Kremlin aids and abets a wide variety of disruptive movements and figures in the Western world, no matter how radical or seemingly hopeless the cause, on the calculation that such a strategy is low risk and high reward. The most prominent example of this phenomenon was Brexit, which Russian state media outlets touted ceaselessly, as they have a variety of European secessionist movements from Catalonia to Venice. Frequent Russia Today guest, Putin-admirer and Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage’s recent meeting with WikiLeaks impresario Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London epitomizes what British journalist Nick Cohen calls the “shameless illiberal alliance” Moscow is nurturing all over the Western world. For a more extreme illustration of the Kremlin’s spoiler role, consider the leader of a movement seeking independence for California, who just happens to live in Yekaterinaberg. Secession by the Golden State may seem like a foolish and wasteful endeavor for the Russians. But when the ultimate prize is splitting off the world’s 7th largest economy from the “main adversary,” why not throw a few rubles its way? Beginning with President Trump, many Western leaders have difficulty accepting the strategic necessity of treating Moscow like the pariah that it is. They labor under the illusion that it’s our own hubris, our arrogant post-Cold War imposition of security and political arrangements on an emasculated post-Soviet Russia, that’s primarily standing in the way of good relations, and not Russian revisionism and aggression. Like the titular leader of the free world, a fair number of European political elites, stuck in a mindset that still considers Russia a potential partner, bend over backwards to explain Russian conduct as the predictable and not entirely unjustified reaction of an “encircled” power whose “interests” must be “respected.” They counsel us to bend the rules of the international liberal order to the claims of a revisionist power that wants to overturn it completely. This credulity marked the previous administration, many of whose members have suddenly awoken to the paramount threat Russia poses to our security and values, and who are engaging in a bout of selective amnesia regarding their own solicitousness to Moscow while condemning the current president for his promises to “get along with Russia.” Barack Obama was far too late to realize how the Putin regime constituted a threat to Western values and interests. His first diplomatic gambit as president was a “reset” with Moscow initiated just six months after Russia invaded and occupied Georgia. Six years later, after Russia perpetrated the first armed annexation of territory on the European continent since World War II, Obama insisted, “This is not another Cold War that we’re entering into. After all, unlike the Soviet Union, Russia leads no bloc of nations. No global ideology. The United States and NATO,” he declared, “do not seek any conflict with Russia.” To paraphrase Vladimir Lenin, the West may not seek any conflict with Russia, but Russia seeks conflict with the West. That is because the Putin regime— nationalist, revisionist, territorially expansionist—cannot coexist alongside a democratic Europe willing to stand up for its principles. Moscow sees liberal democracy as a threat and therefore must defeat it, either by force of arms in Ukraine and an attempted coup in Montenegro, or through non-violent means in the West, bringing us down to the Kremlin’s own, depraved level through corruption, disinformation and support for nationalist political movements. If the Kremlin’s intention has been to bring about “a civilization-warping crisis of public trust” in the American body politic, as Sen. Ben Sasse recently described the increasingly hysterical debate over President Trump’s alleged relationship to Russia, it’s clearly winning. Obama was also dead wrong to say that Russia does not lead a “bloc of nations” or disseminate a “global ideology.” Shorn of Marxist-Leninism, the Kremlin today is driven by an ideologically versatile illiberalism willing to work with any political faction amenable to its revisionist aims. Whereas once Moscow allied with local communists and other fellow travelers, now, in addition to those left-wing allies, they can also count upon a growing number of sympathizers on the right. Russia has reverted to its place as, in the words of the liberal writer Paul Berman, “the historical center of world reaction,” headquarters of the new counter-Enlightenment. Only now, after Russia’s audacious interference in the American presidential election, have Obama and his allies in the Democratic Party belatedly awoken to the ideological challenge posed by Putin’s counter-Enlightenment, one that exports kleptocracy and disorder through a European fifth column of front organizations, political parties, media organs, reactivated KGB networks and plain hired hands. The avatar of the Kremlin-friendly conservative is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who, over the last quarter century, has undergone one of the more remarkable transformations in European politics from liberal, anti-communist firebrand to Putin’s closest ally in the EU. Despite being the leader of a proud nation brutally invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union, Orban is the most vocal opponent of EU sanctions placed on Russia over its meddling in Ukraine (a neighbor of Hungary) and has signed a major nuclear power deal with Moscow. Orban also aligns with the Kremlin on a more profound level, championing “illiberal democracy,” echoing Russian-promulgated narratives on Western decline, the advantages of “ethnic homogeneity” over cosmopolitanism, and the threat posed to Christian civilization from Islam. The embrace of the Russian strongman by Western leaders like Orban, Le Pen—and yes, Trump—is the culmination of Moscow’s assiduous, yearslong cultivation of the global right. One of the most potent narratives Russia has weaponized in this regard is that of a Judeo-Christian civilization under siege from a rising Islamic threat. A powerful vector through which Russia blends its informational and kinetic warfare is migration, the consequences of which threaten the future of the European project perhaps more than any other crisis. Russia’s military intervention in Syria and support for the warlord ruling Eastern Libya have created what Russian political analyst Leonid Futini calls a “crescent of instability” around the continent. Having colluded in the conditions driving massive numbers of migrants to Europe through its support of the Assad regime, Moscow then “weaponizes” their presence on the continent by aiding and abetting xenophobic populist movements. Long before the term “fake news” was on everybody’s lips, Moscow ginned up the infamous “Lisa” case, wherein Russian state media falsely alleged that a gang of migrant Muslim men had raped an ethnic Russian girl in Berlin and that German authorities had covered up the crime. As fears of demographic and societal change have taken hold in Europe, Russia has subtly insinuated itself into Western politics to an extent unprecedented since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its narrative of impending civilizational doom increasingly adopted in the parts of Europe traditionally most resistant to Russian meddling, and by conservative Central and Eastern Europeans with anti-Soviet pedigrees. The Kremlin’s overall strategy to dismantle the Western alliance is best encapsulated by a 2013 article in a Russian military journal, where what’s since become known as the “Gerasimov Doctrine” was laid down in writing. Adopting tactics of subterfuge traditionally associated with “non-linear” or “hybrid” war, the doctrine calls for the use of non-military over military measures by a four-to-one ratio, thus allowing a conventionally weaker power like Russia (whose military budget is one-tenth that of NATO’s) to fight asymmetrically by exploiting its adversaries’ weaknesses. Ignored at the time of the article’s publication, the Gerasimov Doctrine was essentially the blueprint for Russia’s strategy in the annexation of Crimea, where special-operations troops without insignia carried out a bloodless takeover while a confused and listless West sat stupefied. A primary component of hybrid war is disinformation. Finely attuned to the particular grievances of a diverse array of Western audiences, Russian psychological operatives produce narratives that find fertile ground in Europe, where resentment over the Iraq War, fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and revelations of National Security Agency surveillance continue to breed antiAmerican sentiment and undermine societal resilience to Russian agitprop. Kremlin “active measures” (Soviet-style lies aimed at influencing an adversary’s decision-making) about Western political and financial corruption, the subservience of Western leaders to shadowy and unaccountable corporations and America’s insatiable quest for global domination— disseminated through social media bot networks that, by manipulating algorithms, create the impression that such information is at the very least widely believed if not factually valid—find resonance across the ideological spectrum, uniting everyone from left-wing anti-globalization activists to right-wing cultural traditionalists. Part of what makes Russia’s war on truth so ominous is that it transcends ideology. Once Moscow had Pravda and espoused the virtues of the international proletariat. Today it uses “fake news” as part of a long-term strategy to transform Western publics into conspiracy-addled zombies. Take the case of the disturbed young man who shot up a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor last year, convinced it was sheltering a child sex ring run by associates of Hillary Clinton. The assailant came to this conclusion after marinating in a stew of conspiracy websites that developed the story based upon email correspondence stolen by Russian hackers from Democratic Party servers. While this was a lone wolf incident, it is not difficult to fathom the prospect of more aimless, politically malleable young men in the West (a demographic disproportionately supportive of Trump and other far-right movements) “self-radicalizing” through the path of inflammatory material propagated by Russia or its proxies on the internet, à la Islamic jihadists. Less implausible is Russia’s ability to alter the political trajectory of Western politics in a way that suits its geopolitical aims. Last year in the Netherlands, a motley collection of Russian expatriates, far-right nationalists and left-wingers banded together to defeat a referendum on an EU trade agreement with Ukraine. Though the Dutch intelligence agency could find no hard evidence of direct Russian government support to the opposition side, it did conclude that the Netherlands is a target in Moscow’s “global campaign to influence policy and perceptions on Russia,” and that the Kremlin has mobilized a “network of contacts built up over the years.” Speaking of Russia’s suspected involvement in this week’s parliamentary election, a Dutch foreign policy analyst told the New York Times that, “A little effort goes a long way” and could “destroy the European Union from inside.” While waging a nonviolent war against the West from within, Russia is rapidly building up its military capacities and engaging in kinetic action along Europe’s. Over the course of Putin’s 17-year reign, Russian defense spending has increased 20-fold. Arms procurement grew by 60 percent in 2015 alone. Kremlin rhetoric over the past several years has also shifted in a disturbingly confrontational direction. Putin’s recent justification for the infamous MolotovRibbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—stating, alongside a stunned Merkel, that the infamous agreement which divided up Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian powers “ensur[ed] the security of the USSR”—epitomizes the moral failure of Russian elites to come to terms with the Soviet past. Other Russian officials, meanwhile, engage in shockingly loose talk about using nuclear weapons and Russian military exercises frequently end with simulated nuclear strikes on NATO capitals. The West has neither acknowledged the threat from Russia nor adequately prepared to defend itself against potential aggression. Only four European members of NATO commit the recommended 2 percent of their GDP to defense; so poorly equipped is the Bundeswehr that its soldiers infamously had to use broomstick handles instead of guns during a training exercise. European instability risks Russian adventurism and Euro-Russia nuke war Fisher 15 [Max Fisher, Vox Foreign Affairs Editor]. “How World War III Became Possible.” Vox. June 29, 2015. http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war TG Fearing the worst of one another, the US and Russia have pledged to go to war, if necessary, to defend their interests in the Eastern European borderlands. They have positioned military forces and conducted chest-thumping exercises, hoping to scare one another down. Putin, warning repeatedly that he would use nuclear weapons in a conflict, began forward-deploying nuclear-capable missiles and bombers. Europe today looks disturbingly similar to the Europe of just over 100 years ago, on the eve of World War I. It is a tangle of military commitments and defense pledges, some of them unclear and thus easier to trigger. Its leaders have given vague signals for what would and would not lead to war. Its political tensions have become military buildups. Its nations are teetering on an unstable balance of power, barely held together by a Cold War–era alliance that no longer quite applies. If you take a walk around Washington or a Western European capital today, there is no feeling of looming catastrophe. The threats are too complex, with many moving pieces and overlapping layers of risk adding up to a larger danger that is less obvious. People can be forgiven for not seeing the cloud hanging over them, for feeling that all is well — even as in Eastern Europe they are digging in for war. But this complacency is itself part of the problem, making the threat more difficult to foresee, to manage, or, potentially, to avert. There is a growing chorus of political analysts, arms control experts, and government officials who are sounding the alarm, trying to call the world's attention to its drift toward disaster. The prospect of a major war, even a nuclear war, in Europe has become thinkable, they warn, even plausible. What they describe is a threat that combines many of the hair-trigger dangers and world-ending stakes of the Cold War with the volatility and false calm that preceded World War I — a comparison I heard with disturbing frequency. They describe a number of ways that an unwanted but nonetheless major war, like that of 1914, could break out in the Eastern European borderlands. The stakes, they say, could not be higher: the post–World War II peace in Europe, the lives of thousands or millions of Eastern Europeans, or even, in a worst-case scenario that is remote but real, the nuclear devastation of the planet. Extinction – nuke war fallout creates Ice Age and mass starvation Steven Starr 15. “Nuclear War: An Unrecognized Mass Extinction Event Waiting To Happen.” Ratical. March 2015. https://ratical.org/radiation/NuclearExtinction/StevenStarr022815.html TG A war fought with 21st century strategic nuclear weapons would be more than just a great catastrophe in human history. If we allow it to happen, such a war would be a mass extinction event that ends human history. There is a profound difference between extinction and “an unprecedented disaster,” or even “the end of civilization,” because even after such an immense catastrophe, human life would go on. But extinction, by definition, is an event of utter finality, and a nuclear war that could cause human extinction should really be considered as the ultimate criminal act. It certainly would be the crime to end all crimes. The world’s leading climatologists now tell us that nuclear war threatens our continued existence as a species. Their studies predict that a large nuclear war, especially one fought with strategic nuclear weapons, would create a post-war environment in which for many years it would be too cold and dark to even grow food. Their findings make it clear that not only humans, but most large animals and many other forms of complex life would likely vanish forever in a nuclear darkness of our own making. The environmental consequences of nuclear war would attack the ecological support systems of life at every level. Radioactive fallout produced not only by nuclear bombs, but also by the destruction of nuclear power plants and their spent fuel pools, would poison the biosphere. Millions of tons of smoke would act to destroy Earth’s protective ozone layer and block most sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface, creating Ice Age weather conditions that would last for decades. Yet the political and military leaders who control nuclear weapons strictly avoid any direct public discussion of the consequences of nuclear war. They do so by arguing that nuclear weapons are not intended to be used, but only to deter. Remarkably, the leaders of the Nuclear Weapon States have chosen to ignore the authoritative, longstanding scientific research done by the climatologists, research that predicts virtually any nuclear war, fought with even a fraction of the operational and deployed nuclear arsenals, will leave the Earth essentially uninhabitable. FW Moral realism must start by being mind-independent – realism wouldn’t make sense if there were a plethora of moral truths contingent on the agent’s cognitively predisposed capacity because then moral truths wouldn’t exist outside of the ways we cohere them. Thus, moral naturalism is true. 1] The argument from supervenience is true and coherently explains the grounding for morality. Lutz and Lenman 18. Lutz, Matthew and Lenman, James, "Moral Naturalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/naturalism-moral/>. //Massa The first argument against normative non-naturalism concerns normative supervenience. The normative supervenes on the natural; in all metaphysically possible worlds in which the natural facts are the same as they are in the actual world, the moral facts are the same as well. This claim has been called the “least controversial thesis in metaethics” (Rosen forthcoming); it is very widely accepted. But it is also a striking fact that stands in need of some explanation. For naturalists, such an explanation is easy to provide: the moral facts just are natural facts, so when we consider worlds that are naturally the same as the actual world, we will ipso facto be considering worlds that are morally the same as the actual world. But for the non-naturalist, no such explanation seems available. In fact, it seems to be in principle impossible for a non-naturalist to explain how the moral supervenes on the natural. And if the non-naturalist can offer no explanation of this phenomenon that demands explanation, this is a heavy mark against non-naturalism (McPherson 2012). That outweighs – controversy prevents acting on moral laws, but lack of philosophical controversy on the correlation between moral and natural facts indicates naturalism guides action. 2] Evolution – only a naturalistic understanding of the world explains it. Lutz and Lenman 18. Lutz, Matthew and Lenman, James, "Moral Naturalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/naturalism-moral/>. //Massa The second argument against moral non-naturalism concerns moral epistemology. According to evolutionary debunking arguments, our moral beliefs are products of evolution, and this evolutionary etiology of our moral beliefs serves to undermine them. Exactly why evolution debunks our moral beliefs is a matter of substantial controversy, and the debunking argument has been interpreted in a number of different ways (Vavova 2015). Sharon Street, whose statement of the evolutionary debunking argument has been highly influential, holds that debunking arguments make a problem for all versions of moral realism—her paper is entitled “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value.” But according to another popular line of argument, these debunking arguments are only problems for moral non-naturalism. The fundamental worry is that our moral beliefs are the product of evolutionary facts rather than moral facts. If this is so, this would serve to debunk our moral beliefs, either because it is a necessary condition on justified belief that you take your beliefs to be explained by the facts in question (Joyce 2006, Ch. 6; Bedke 2009; Lutz forthcoming) or else because the non-naturalist is left with no way to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs (Enoch 2009, Schechter 2017). But if moral naturalism is true, the realist needn’t grant the skeptic’s premise that our moral beliefs are the product of evolutionary facts rather than moral facts. If moral facts are natural, then we needn’t see moral facts as being contrary to natural, evolutionary facts. The moral facts might be among these evolutionary facts that explain our moral beliefs. If, for instance, to be good just is to be conducive to social cooperation, then an evolutionary account that says that we judge things to be good only when they are conducive to social cooperation would not debunk any of our beliefs about goodness. This account would, instead, provide a deep vindication of those beliefs (Copp 2008). Next, naturalism demands empirical facts that are explained and physically verified from science which only a theory of pain and pleasure can provide since there is a psychological grounding for why they are good and bad – that means only hedonism guides action. Independently, only pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable. Moen 16 [Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281] SJDI, brackets in original Let us start by observing, empirically, that a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. “Pleasure” and “pain” are here understood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative.2 The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store, I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good.3 As Aristotle observes: “We never ask [a man] what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems that pleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value. Thus, the standard is consistency with hedonic act utilitarianism. Prefer – 1] Actor specificity – A] Aggregation – every policy benefits some and harms others, which also means side constraints freeze action. B] No intent-foresight distinction – if we foresee a consequence, then it becomes part of our deliberation which makes it intrinsic to our action since we intend it to happen. 2] No act-omission distinction – A] Psychology – choosing to omit is an act itself – governments decide not to act which means being presented with the aff creates a choice between two actions, neither of which is an omission. B] Actor specificity – governments are culpable for omissions cuz their purpose is to protect the constituency – otherwise they would have no obligation to make murder illegal. Only util can escape culpability in the instance of tradeoffs – i.e. it resolves the trolley problem cuz a deontological theory would hold you responsible for killing regardless. Actor spec o/w – different agents have different ethical standings that affect their obligations and considerations. 3] Escapability – all ethical theories must be binding since otherwise they can omit from obligations and never fulfil good actions which defeats the purpose of ethics. Only hedonism is inescapable – a) to justify the converse is good only concedes the standard cuz claiming pain is good, justifies why that’s pleasurable, b) actions are intrinsically motivated by desire for pleasure and people can choose to not follow non-motivational ethics. UV 1AR theory – a) AFF gets it because otherwise the neg can engage in infinite abuse, making debate impossible, b) reject the debater – the 1AR is too short for theory and substance so ballot implications are key to check abuse, c) no RVIs – they can stick me with 6min of answers to a short arg and make the 2AR impossible, d) competing interps – 1AR interps aren’t bidirectional and the neg should have to defend their norm since they have more time, e) comes first – it’s a bigger percentage of the 1AR than 1NC which means there’s more abuse if I’m devoting a larger fraction of time and only the 2N has time to win multiple layers. Theoretical justifications are a voter and o/w—a] it’s an intrinsic good – debate is fundamentally a game and some level of competitive equity is necessary to sustain the activity, b] probability – debate can’t alter subjectivity, but it can rectify skews which means the only impact to a ballot is fairness and deciding who wins, c] it internal link turns every impact – a limited debate promotes in-depth research and engagement which is necessary to access all of their education Method EU Parliament has limited jurisdiction and the laundry list of other methods are historically worse – only the plan solves. Malkopoulou 09 (Anthoula Malkopoulou, [Associate Professor in Political Theory at Lund University specialized in democratic theory and history of political thought], July 2009, “Lost Voters: Participation in EU elections and the case for compulsory voting “, Centre for European Policy Studies, accessed: 8-10-2020, http://aei.pitt.edu/11335/1/1886.pdf // ajs Efforts to increase electoral participation As long as the administration of the EU elections is run by each member state according to national rules, there is little room for manoeuvre left to the European Parliament, at least in terms of reforming the rules for voting. As a result, when the EP’s Constitutional Affairs Committee put forward some proposals to boost participation in the 2009 elections, their impact was minimal. Aiming to address the fact that many EU citizens are disenfranchised because they have moved within the EU, the Committee confined itself to revising Directive 93/109, which lays down the conditions to vote and stand as a candidate in EU elections in any EU country (European Parliament, 2007). In other words, it simplified the bureaucratic procedures for registering voters and candidates in EU states of residence regardless of EU country of origin. It also underlined the possibility to stand as a candidate in more than one member state for the same election, as long as the member states had no objection under their national laws to multiple candidatures. Although these are both very legitimate concerns, they have a marginal impact on absolute numbers, since, according to the subsequent report (European Parliament, 2008), the number of mobile EU citizens eligible to vote in the state of residence is very low compared to those who reside and vote in the same state (2% of the EU’s total population). Being restricted with regard to institutional changes, in order to increase turnout in the 2009 elections the European Parliament resorted to an elaborate communication strategy . With the aim of creating a unified public space, €18 million – which corresponds to 5 cents per eligible voter – were spent in an EU-wide promotional campaign to spread information on the elections (European Parliament, 2009a). The campaign included TV and radio spots, 15,000 billboards displayed in major European cities, posters and other material (European Parliament, 2009b), street installations, choice boxes, seminars, outdoor campaigning, websites, social networking and so on. Additional election communication funds were allocated by the European Commission, in what was seen as the most expensive voter-awareness campaign ever launched by Brussels. Spending tax-payers’ money to boost turnout is generally a new phenomenon for continental democracies. Sweden is an exception, as it allocates special funding for information purposes to domestic political parties (Government Communication, 2003). Otherwise, the EU public is more used to standard campaign spending from political parties and, therefore, parties are considered to be the main agents responsible for getting out the vote. Indeed, many political parties addressed the problem of abstention and made extra efforts to raise voter awareness in the 2009 campaign. But, given the time and expense constraints, many focused on mobilising only their safe electorates. At least in one case, a serious effort was made to attract young and disengaged voters, with the Pirate Party in Sweden making a breakthrough and raising the 2004 turnout by a considerable 8%. For all the efforts to increase turnout, the only ‘positive’ evaluation is nevertheless a negative one: compared to the turnout of 2004, the decrease in 2009 was not too great. If in 2004 the turnout had fallen by 4% and in 1999 by 7% compared to their respective previous elections, the latest 2% decrease offers some slight consolation. However, it remains a fact that less than one in two EU voters bothered to elect representatives to the European Parliament in early June. The figures point to how ineffective the Parliament’s communication strategy was. To improve it would cost more money and many citizens are simply unwilling to pay. Hence, attention is turning to institutional remedies, which, for the moment, largely fall within the jurisdiction of each member state. A practice that is common in many states, especially for referenda, is the turnout requirement. It originated in the USSR, where an election was considered invalid and held anew if it failed to meet a certain turnout threshold. Similar rules still exist today in several ex-Soviet states, like Moldova and Hungary, where at least 50% of electors have to participate to make elections valid (Birch, 2009). They also apply for referendums in Lithuania, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, sometimes sponsored from abroad, like the EU request for a minimum 50% turnout on Montenegrin independence. In some cases, the turnout requirement has been lowered or removed. For example, it was cancelled in Serbia after three failed attempts to elect a new President in the years 2002-2004. In order to avoid a Serbian style institutional deadlock, in 2006 the Russian Duma decided to lift these requirements and only keep a 20% minimum for referenda, while the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia lowered the threshold from 50% to 40% some months ago (January 2009). Albeit drastic and very effective, this practice is less known in Western Europe and, therefore, not very likely to succeed. A common tactic to increase turnout is hold other elections on the same day as EU elections. This in part explains the relatively high turnout in Lithuania in 2004, when EU elections coincided with presidential elections and the dramatic drop in this country’s turnout in 2009 when no other elections were held concurrently. This year, simultaneous national elections were held only in Luxembourg, while seven other states held a simultaneous election to the local administration. The impact on turnout was particularly noticeable in Latvia (53,7%) and Denmark (59,54%), where the referendum on the very popular Danish Act of Succession had an impressive impact on EU voter turnout. As a result, a synchronisation of the EU election day with other important national polls is a first positive step towards increasing turnout. Other examples with remarkable participation rates include Malta (78,79%) and Ireland (58,64%). Both countries use a special electoral system, the Single Transferable Vote, which is highly proportional and therefore attracts more voters to the polls. However, counting is notoriously long and complicated, with election officers recruiting mathematically adept citizens from chess clubs to help them determine the results!3 Two other solutions could include civic education and lower voting ages. The case of Sweden shows that trust in the system and good civic education projects can ultimately bring about high turnouts, at least with regard to national elections. This however, is not automatically extended to EU elections, unless there is specific and targeted training over a longer period of time. Extending voting rights to 16 year-olds would also have doubtful results on participation rates, since younger age groups are generally less prone to turn out at the polls. Furthermore, Estonia experimented with e-voting, increasing participation by an impressive 17%, from 26,83% to 43,9%. Other countries are reluctant to follow their example, however for three main reasons. The first is that an electronic upgrade of electoral administration would require considerable financial resources and a dependence on service (hardware/software) providers. Secondly, concerns about technology security are still widespread in many EU countries and have indefinitely halted the use of electronic voting devices. Thirdly, the levels of internet penetration in households and digital literacy are likely to produce unequal access to evoting and thus to increase inequality in political representation. EU states employ a number of other technical and policy means to facilitate public participation in elections. They include voting by mail (Germany), by proxy (the Netherlands), by messenger (Sweden) or in advance (Sweden, Finland, Lithuania). Other experimental means of encouraging the act of voting are to provide a wide choice of polling stations or to offer financial or other incentives to voters. However, the effectiveness of these techniques has been very limited and their impact on voter turnout leaves much to be desired. The most efficient and cost-effective mechanism to improve turnout is compulsory voting, as shown by the countries with the highest turnout scores in the EU, Four EU countries are, in one way or another, applying such laws: Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece and Cyprus, all have turnout rates that range from 53% to 91%. The Netherlands, Austria and Italy also used to have the same system in the past; indeed, Italy’s high voter participation (65% in EU2009) shows that the country still reaps the fruits of its long-standing participatory tradition. Although the recent removal or mitigation of severe sanctions for abstainers makes for a decreasing trend in the enforcement of compulsory voting, a few other countries have taken the opposite direction of late and expressed an interest in introducing it. In 2001 in the United Kingdom, a Compulsory Voting Bill was sponsored by the Labour Party. Public support has supposedly remained rather high since, at between 36% and 49% (Electoral Commission, 2006). Much more recently, in spring 2008, the topic was raised again in the French Assembly (Sénat, 2003; Assemblée, 2008). The law proposal, submitted by a group of 25 deputies from the ruling centre-right party, came as a reaction to the decreasing participation in local elections. In the aftermath of the 2009 EU elections, the idea of raising participation by punishing abstainers seems to be more and more appealing. German MP Jörn Thießen (SDP) suggested a fine of €50 for non-voters, arguing that “democracy does not work without democrats” (Der Spiegel, 2009). He adds that politicians too are sometimes obliged to vote in the Parliament; thus, the same obligation should be extended to citizens. Earlier, elected French MEP Pervenche Beres (PS) made a similar appeal. She claimed that obligatory taxation provided a model for obligatory voting (Euronews, 2009). In light of these and other arguments for and against compulsory voting, the details of such a system are certainly worth consideration, especially since it is imperative to search for new tools to counter voter abstention.
