The European Polis

Schöpflin, George (2021) The European Polis. Ludovika Egyetemi Kiadó, Budapest. ISBN 978-963-531-378-5, 978-963-531-379-2, 978-963-531-380-8

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Abstract

The book is in two parts. The first is a critical account of the EU as a political entity, a polis (hence the title), while the second part scrutinises the fraught relationship between the EU and Central Europe. Unlike much of the literature dealing with the EU, this assessment tries to give an account of why the EU behaves as it does. Methodologically the approach is diverse and draws on political theory, sociology, anthropology, cultural semiotics, literary theory, post-colonial theory, history. The heart of the argument is that the EU has changed and this change is potentially and actually a source of pitfalls. The essence of the EU was aimed at conflict resolution at the European level, as there are always asymmetries of power. But with the Lisbon Treaty (TEU) this changed. Previously the EU characterised itself as a being committed to “soft power”, but the EU shifted to becoming the “punitive polis”. Hungary and Poland are the two member states against which Article 7 procedures have been launched, i.e. the Sargentini Report; but the Hungarian government’s refutation was ignored by the European Parliament. The trajectory of Central Europe is European, but differently European. The eastward enlargement of the EU was not followed by a westward enlargement of Central Europe. The older member states never really bothered to “learn” the Central Europeans, the latter were simply expected to conform. There the rela- tionship remains. The asymmetries have not been resolved, the Central European semi-periphery is still a semi-periphery.

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