European Alternatives: Daphne Büllesbach, Marta Cillero, Lukas Stolz (eds.) Shifting Baselines of Europe X T E X T S X T E X T S The supposed “end of history” long ago revealed itself to be much more an end to certainties. More than ever, we are not only faced with the question of “Generation X”. Beyond this kind of popular figures, academia is also chal- lenged to make a contribution to a sophisticated analysis of the time. The se- ries X-TEXTS takes on this task, and provides a forum for thinking ‘for and against time’. The essays gathered together here decipher our present mo- ment, resisting simplifying formulas and oracles. They combine sensitive observations with incisive analysis, presenting both in a conveniently, read- able form. European Alternatives: Daphne Büllesbach, Marta Cillero, Lukas Stolz (eds.) Shifting Baselines of Europe New Perspectives beyond Neoliberalism and Nationalism www.euroalter.com European Alternatives works to promote democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation state This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 (BY-NC) license, which means that the text may be may be remixed, build upon and be distribu- ted, provided credit is given to the author, but may not be used for commercial purposes. For details go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Natio- nalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2017 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Typeset by Mark-Sebastian Schneider, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-3954-4 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-3954-8 Contents Note from the editors | 9 INTRODUCTION Shifting the baselines Daphne Büllesbach | 15 Our European incapacity Etienne Balibar | 18 Our European capacity Which Europe do we want? Rediscovering Hannah Arendt’s concept of integral federalism Ulrike Guérot | 26 SHIFTING CITIES Introduction | 35 The magnet and the container A transnational space of expression for “Cities of change” through Europe Giuseppe Caccia | 37 The cities want them in For a revised common European refugee policy to revive the European Union Gesine Schwan | 42 Rebel cities are not utopia Interview with Luigi de Magistris, Mayor of Naples | 45 Institutions mean inertia Interview with Laia Forné, Barcelona en Comú | 49 Moment of confluence on the Atlantic coast Interview with Claudia Delso, Marea Atlántica | 57 This is how you win an election Stacco Troncoso in conversation with Victoria Anderica, head of Transparency, and Miguel Arana, director of Citizen Participation, City of Madrid | 62 Forerunners of Italian municipalism Interview with Renato Accorinti, Mayor of Messina | 70 Don’t let them d(r)own Interview with Dobrica Veselnovic and Ksenija Radovanović, Ne da(vi)mo Beograd | 74 Cities rejecting surveillance Renata Avila | 78 SHIFTING MEDIA Introduction | 85 The populist Challenge 2.0 How populism profits from social media Jan Rohgalf | 87 Contesting the shrinking media space in Slovakia Alena Krempaska and Peter Weisenbacher | 97 Fluid media landscapes Adam Ramsay | 101 Networked protest for a populist age Jakub Dymek | 105 Journalism in spite of everything Interview with Esther Alonso, eldiario.es | 109 We are the newcomers Interview with Ramy Al-Asheq, Abwab | 113 Our digitally mediated society Robin Mansell | 119 SHIFTING ALLIANCES Introduction | 131 A rigged economy in a rigged democracy Lorenzo Marsili | 133 Breaking with the rules that ruin the Union Lorenzo Marsili in conversation with Barbara Spinelli | 141 Social networks of influence in Europe – and beyond Dieter Plehwe | 147 Learning from Syriza Andreas Karitzis | 158 The commons as unifying political vision Sophie Bloemen | 167 Instructions for building a pan-European movement Interview with Pia Eberhardt, Corporate Europe Observatory | 174 Together means Razem Interview with Marcelina Zawisza and Maciej Konieczny, Razem | 180 The birth of a new civic platform in Romania Interview with Oana Băluță and Camil Pârvu, Demos | 185 The Rojava Revolution and the model of democracy without a state Sheruan Hassan and Jonas Staal | 189 Works by Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava and Studio Jonas Staal New World Summit Rojava (2015-2017) | 193 A revolution of life Jonas Staal in conversation with Salih Muslim | 200 ANNEX List of organisations in order of appearance | 207 List of contributors | 210 Note from the editors Since we started work on this book, a political earthquake has shaken the world. Coming from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the shockwaves have reached Europe as well. However we judge these events, they make the title of this book seem even more up-to-date than in the late summer of 2016, when the idea to this publication first came up in the aftermath of European Alternatives’ Campus “Shifting Baselines” 1. Having gathered 80 activists, researchers and artists from across the continent to develop strategies for an open and democratic Europe, we felt something essential to any political undertaking: optimism. By meeting other engaged citizens from within and outside Europe and getting to know projects from Poland to Portugal, we could see that there are alternatives already changing Europe. Struck by the remarkable and resourceful strength of the actors and thinkers of our network, we wanted to make these ideas accessible to a wider audience. We hope this book can amplify the optimism we felt when we met them. In our effort to shift Europe in a direction that we can define as forward, radically democratic, commons-based and catering to the needs 1 | The concept of shifting baselines has originally been developed in climate change research and later also adopted into social sciences analysis by the social psychologist Harald Welzer. The reference point is Daniel Pauly’s study: Anecdotes and the shifting baseline syndrome of fisheries in Trends in Ecology and Evolution 10 (1995) about attitudes to climate change by fishermen. Pauly explains how humans tend to be unimpressed by environmental changes because they do not perceive long-term changes in their entirety but only in relation to conditions they themselves have witnessed. In his study some fishermen fail to identify the ‘baseline’ population size of fish in the ocean and hence operate from a shifted baseline. 10 Daphne Büllesbach, Marta Cillero, Lukas Stolz of all, we gave this book the title and the structure of the Campus (Cities, Media, Alliances) because we see in these thematics a strong need and potential for political leverage. The phenomenon of shifting baselines means that the fundamental norms by which we judge what is acceptable are changing.2 They do so in a paradoxical way: on the one hand there is a lot of noise about the ‘populist age’, on the other hand, when it comes to the treatment of people fleeing war, to social security and solidarity, to what a good economic model is, what democracy and privacy mean, the shift is happening often gradually and going unnoticed. And in each of these areas there has been a shift, too often to the right, too often a race to the bottom. It would be fatal though, and also an incomplete analysis, to leave the picture like that. In the shadow of the big headlines, all over the continent, it is European citizens that every day keep the idea for a Europe for all alive through practicing it. By taking already existing alternatives into consideration and combining them with contributions of distinguished and well-known authors, we try to present a positive and pragmatic transnational left position. The ideas here are largely born out of the practice and experience of activists from throughout the continent. We also think that policy recommendations can and should be drawn from the thoughts and projects presented here, against the general fatalism and political depression. This book shows that we do have alternatives and aims to reach not only researchers, activists and students already participating in politics, but also those that feel uncomfortable with the status quo but are not yet aware of the alternatives already under development. We want to open the often narrow discourse on the future of Europe and criticise the false dichotomy between nationalism on the one hand and a neoliberal version of Europe on the other. We still believe in a third option: A Europe made by and for its citizens. After all, “Shifting Baselines” leaves open in which direction the shift will happen. 2 | Also the concept of the ‘Overton Window’ could be evoked here as a helpful concept that refers to a framework of what ideas are seen as acceptable, in this case in a public policy context. See Nathan J. Russel (2006): An Introduction to the Overton Window of Political Possibilities, published at https://www.mackinac. org/7504. Note from the editors 11 Acknowledgments We would like to express our gratitude to Alison Waldie and Sally Hole for their editing work. For their support, we thank everyone in the team of European Alternatives. For their inspiration and initiatives, we thank all European Alternatives members, activists and the participants of the Campus of European Alternatives 2016. And of course a special thanks to the contributors of this book. Notes before reading We decided to use essays and interviews for the content of this book. The team of editors formulated the questions for a number of interviews, while others were carried out by external contributors. External interviews are presented as conversations between two or more people, whose names are indicated at the start of the article. There are some pieces that have been published before in other outlets and for different purposes. The reader can find a note at the beginning of these texts acknowledging this.