European Union

How has the significance of democracy changed, and why do elections not stimulate the same pre-vote frenzy and post-result calm that they use to, and are supposed to?

Between Brexit and the rise of illiberal democracies the pressure to reorient the European project has never been more intense.

Behind the sensational headlines and the obfuscating rhetoric, how can we explain the stark polarisation that seems to be taking hold, across Europe, between those who defend the idea of Europe and its institutions, and those who feel these do not enhance but rather hinder and threaten their aspirations?

In 2013, Rui Tavares, then Portuguese Member of the European Parliament among the Greens-EFA group, put forward a report that investigated the threats to fundamental rights that Orban’s government had given rise to in Hungary since 2010, and proposed mechanisms for a common European response to such actions, both in Hungary and potential future similar cases.