Challenges of democratic transition

Organized by FEPS with the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity

The threats of increasing populism and populist nationalism in their various forms were recurring elements of the debates on the challenges for enlargement. This tendency is seriously problematic not only at the doorsteps of the EU, but also within the EU. However, this issue cannot be addressed effectively without examining its possible causes. The research programme Enhancing democracy pre and post EU enlargement builds on the hypothesis that the origin of these trends is the crisis of representative democracy. Hence, it aims to study different concepts of democracy, analyse the various forms in which the crisis of representative democracy manifests (specially focusing on populism and nationalism and their diverse definition), evaluate its effects on enlargement policy and develop progressive alternatives for reinforcing pluralism. The outcomes of the research programme will be collected in a book, which is planned to be launched in October 2014. The first  workshop was organised by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity (EFDS) and the Karl-Renner-Institut in autumn 2013 on the topic of defining democracy with view to revitalise the EU enlargement process. This second seminar is organized on the issue of challenges of democratic transition in conjunction with the PES Democracy and Society Network meeting on  promoting a culture of rule of law, with keynote speech Frans TIMMERMANS, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.