After the elections of the new board, our first debate took place.
The first topic’s main question was whether a monetary union can exist without a common fiscal policy. The main outcome of this part of the debate was that a monetary union without a fiscal union is like one ship with different steering wheels.
The biggest part of the debate concerned the rise of nationalism which helped the participating IPWG members to understand each other and to learn about the history of different European countries. This plays an important role in the level of nationalism.
The participating members were from The Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, and Greece which gave us the opportunity to examine the problem from different poin of views.
Outcomes
The Netherlands
In The Netherlands, nationalism is connected to populism which is fed by the growing number of immigrants and their cheap workforce. Dutch nationalism is not directed against a specific nation, but is against immigrants and other cultures which are not historically connected to the Dutch lifestyle.
Slovakia
Slovakia is a really young country where nationalism and populism are part of the daily politics. According to the Slovak IPWG member, Slovak people are very aware of foreigners and Jews, Germans and other nationalities slowly disappearing from society. At this point, the main targets of nationalist consist of (verbal) attacks against Gypsies and Hungarians.
Hungary
In Hungary, there are two kinds of nationalism. One is the healthy patriotism with the acknowledgement of the great history and achievements of the nation. The other one is a populist, revisionist radical nationalism, aiming at gaining back the lost territories of the country with the millions of Hungarians living there under oppression.
Greece
Greek nationalism has it roots in history, being one of the first European cultures and the craddle of democracy. Greeks felt superiority, a sense of inferiority, primarily mistrust for their neighbours and for foreigners in general.
Today, nationalism is a mixture of pride about a glorious history and sadness about the current situation and the two of them can hardly be compared. Untill today they raise nationalism towards populations that inhabit terrority which used to belong to Greece once upon a time.
Attention: The outcomes here reflect the opinions of the members of the debate, which is independent from the official position of IPWG and AEGEE-Europe.
The Board of IPWG would like to thank all the members present during our first debate and expressed their opinions and topics that concern them.
Yet, the main reason for such debates is to see how similar we are and how the worries are rather the same across Europe. The sooner and more precisely you identify a problematic situation, the better you can face it.
We are here to work for our rights and our right is one united Europe without the fear of immigration and the stereotypes of populism controling our lives.
Written by the IPWG Board