Fide’s collection of papers on the economic, legal, and political challenges that arise from nationalist, populist, and identarian movements both in Spain, the EU and Latin America, as a whole is expected to be published before the end of the 2021-22 academic year.
Yesterday, the group of cross-border experts (lawyers, academics, economists, businesses and scientists) that have been working on these conclusions met in Madrid to recap the advances made by each Working Group and to define the final conclusions for the paper.
Led by Christopher Muttukumaru, Chair of Fide’s International Academic Council and Cristina Jiménez, President of Fide, Fide has organised a series of groups of experts from diverse academic and professional backgrounds who, since early 2021 have been researching and working on these papers.
All the Working Group members and leaders met at Fide’s Congress in Oxford in early April of 2022. The congress was organized under the auspices of Fide’s International academic Council, and turned out to be 3 days of productive and constructive debates and talks. Ever since then, the WGs have been focused on delivering adequate recommendations to approach populist and nationalist movements from legal and economic perspectives.
After yesterday’s deliberations, all WG leaders and their members have entered the final stage and will soon turn their definitive conclusions for their publication in late June or early July.
The conclusions paper will also include expert pieces on EU refugee externalisation policies, climate change issues (with specific reference to the outcome of the Conference of the Parties (COP) 26 in November 2021 in Glasgow), and misinformation and free speech in modern democratic societies, as well as aspects of the impact of nationalist/ populist policies on the funding of South American pension schemes where there have been unexpected calls on funds to deal with the effects of COVID-19.
Afterward, Fide’s editorial team will seek to ensure coherence, not least by developing complementary themes. Even now, several themes are readily discernible:
- in a few areas of possible EU-level action to address the populist concerns, radical reforms are going to be proposed for EU competence.
- the EU and the Member States have grappled with the implications of “more EU”, not “less EU”. That inevitably raises the question of whether that will fuel populism. It also raises the question of what role the principle of subsidiarity will play. By contrast, it may increase the focus on solidarity.
- where it is accepted that there is a role for regulation at the EU or International level, regulation ought to comply with Better Regulation principles.
- the teams are very conscious of the need to offer real change and not more of the same panaceas which have failed in the past.
- the future is bright. Governments and international institutions will need to change their mindsets toward populism and communicate better their ideas. The recent French election, through its votes for a populist candidate, may on one view show the scale of the challenge
To learn more about the topics and members of each of our Oxford/22 Working Groups, please follow the links below:
- Working Group: Nationalism, populism and the economy >>> See TORs
- Working Group: Nationalism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic >>> See TORs
- Working Group: Nationalism, populism, and the economy
- Sub Group 1: Globalisation and Populism >>> See TORs
- Sub Group 2: The Future of the EU Project >>> See TORs
- Sub Group 3: Populism and Inequality >>> >>> See TORs
Other relevant reading materials:
- Oxford/22 Congress Website >>> See Website
- Opening Congress Statement by Cristina Jiménez >>> Read
- Opening Congress Statement by Christopher >>> Read
