'European political leaders have blind spots that illustrate the difference between principle and reality of EU's Enlightenment ideals,' says report's author
Voting behavior, “whiteness,” and a lack of youth engagement are putting the EU at risk of drifting into a xenophobic understanding of Europeanness that threatens the European project, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The report, titled Welcome to Barbieland: European sentiment in the year of wars and elections, published by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the European Cultural Foundation, pointed to three key "blind spots" across the bloc that have come into focus over the past 12 months.
The "whiteness" of the bloc's politics, low youth engagement, and lukewarm pro-Europeanism in central and eastern Europe could undermine "the health of democracy inside the bloc," it argued.
"European political leaders have blind spots that illustrate the difference between the principle and the reality of the EU's Enlightenment ideals," warned Pawel Zerka, the report's author.
He argued that the European Parliament election this June and the aftermath of the war in Gaza exposed the "under-participation" in Europe of groups such as non-white and Muslim Europeans, central and eastern Europeans, and young EU citizens.
- ‘Excluded, uninterested' in EU
The report said a growing number of people feel "excluded" or "uninterested" in the EU, especially people of color and Muslims, and people in central and eastern Europe.
"The EU's 'whiteness' – which some observers have critiqued for some time – was on full display," he noted, referring to the candidate lists in the EP election which failed to reflect the diverse character of European society, and anti-immigration rhetoric among political campaigns in some EU member states.
Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the council, said that for many non-white or Muslim Europeans, this would have exacerbated existing worries, including about discrimination in the wake of the attack by Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7.
The report also said Europe's youngest citizens, the under-35s, show signs of being "unconvinced" by the EU of today.
It said that many young Europeans did not turn out to vote in the EP elections and, "when they did, they often opted for far-right or anti-establishment alternatives."
The report said that some did show increased activism during the student protests against Israeli bombardments in Gaza.
"The question here is whether increasingly normalised xenophobia in the EU is not driving some young people away from the European project, while at the same time habituating others to an ‘ethnic' conception of Europeanness – and thus easing their path towards supporting the far-right," it said.
The report recommended that pro-Europeans should "urgently acknowledge" these blind spots, give voice to underrepresented groups, and reverse the drift towards an "ethnic" conception of Europeanness by reconstructing a "civic" spirit that upholds the foundational values of the EU.
