 Good afternoon, everybody. You're all very welcome indeed to this special webinar event hosted by the Irish Institute for International and European Affairs. My name is John O'Brennan. I hold the Jean-Manet chair in European integration at the Newth University, and I'm delighted to be joined today by our guest speaker, Ivan Kraste. I will formally introduce Ivan in a moment, but just to give you the format for this event. Ivan has kind of agreed to speak for between 15 and 20 minutes, and after that we will move to questions and answers. So I invite those of you who have questions that are prompted by Ivan's remarks to go to the Q&A function in Zoom, and those questions will be related to me and I will relay them then to Ivan once we get to the Q&A. A reminder that today's session is a formal one, both the contribution from our guest speaker and the questions and answers are both on the record. And as always, feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle for the Institute at IIEA. And now to formally welcome and introduce our speaker, Ivan Kraste truly needs little introduction. He has been an inspiration to many of us interested in themes around democracy, governance, and the European Union for a very long time. Ivan is the chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia. He is also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He is also a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a stalwart figure in journals like the Journal of Democracy. So he's followed the vicissitudes of democracy in recent decades as closely as any author could. He is the author of recent works, including After Europe in 2017 published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The Light That Failed, along with Stephen Holmes published by Alan Lane in 2019. And his latest book upon which today's talk is based a very provocative reading of the pandemic and its impact on Europe is a tomorrow yet paradoxes of the pandemic. So we are really, really grateful to Ivan for giving up his time to us today and I now invite him to address us, Ivan. Thank you very much and thank you very much for the generous presentation and the opportunity to talk. And I have learned that out of this Zoom conversations the most important is to be as brief and clear as possible so we can have a discussion. The book that you referred to, is it tomorrow yet, was written in 2020. It was after the first basically 100 days of the pandemic. So what I decided to do today is basically to comment on five or six things that I find puzzling about this pandemic. Because I have the feeling that when we try to see it from the point of view of what we find strange which we find unexpected probably this is going to tell us slightly more about certain changes that we're going to see. And when we talk about this place pandemics and I believe that now we can talk about never ending pandemic and the way we have been talking about the never ending course. One of the interesting thing is not simply to see what has changed, but also the changes that we were able to see the changes that have been there before. But in a way we have been blind for. And as a result of it. The first thing that I'm going to try to address as this puzzle says that you remember when the pandemic started one of the major question was, who is going to deal better with the challenge. The democratic government's authoritarian regimes. And now two years later, I do believe that most of us can agree that the nature of government turns to be a much less strong explanation for the success of the anti vaccine anti COVID policies, then we expect it when it started. You have a democracies that are doing fine. You have also some authoritarian regimes that are doing fine. But at the end of the day it turns out that some other factors explains better how the countries are doing and by the way one of the interesting story about pandemics is that who is doing better and who is doing worse. We should reevaluate every three months basically countries that you've been very much praised in the summer of 2020, then you've been very much in the bottom in the summer of 2021 and being in Austria now locked down. While Austria was perceived as doing quite well in the first year of the pandemic so success and failure. Also very much questionable Chinese a great example, how successful they are basically walking down the country totally opposing it. But nevertheless of what kind of qualifications we do that unexpected thing that came is that the nature of the regime is not the strongest predicator of how well you're doing. The fear that three other factors probably are turning to be more important. One of them is the general levels of trust in society. And you can see it on all level it is on the level of basically vaccination you're busy on the level of how confident the government was implementing one or the other policies. These kinds of levels of trust variety in a different societies and do not correlate easily with the nature of political regime. We have a democracy with a high level of trust and the navy and countries Germany to some extent that we have a very mistrustful democracy like the one from which I'm coming Bulgaria is from this point to be one of the place where we are not all performing contrast. The second is of course the efficiency of the institutions and not simply the public health system, but basically the institutions as a whole, what for example I saw in Austria was to what extent. For example, Austrian army was critically important for the success of Austria when it comes to testing the population. So this much more capacity issue and this capacity issue you can have also both in democratic authoritarian context, for example, Singapore, Taiwan, different regimes basically when it comes to the nature of the regime shows this type of capacities. And certainly there was this major distinctions between Asia and Europe, for example and Asia and the United States. Well of course we can try to go for a much broader cultural explanation, the explanation that I'm trying to offer is much more simple. The difference between Europe and Asia is that Asians had the experience is a similar crisis from the last decade. And this is a huge story to what extent you're prepared for this or not. I'm always going to remember some years ago, flying through Asia and seeing all these people with masks, sharing the feeling that you have landed on the moon. But it was also the result of some of the previous pandemics that went through Asia, and which basically make their governments much more prepared to many respects by the world's leaders. This was the first thing that struck me. The second was that when already in February, the pandemic was knocking on the door. The Italian philosopher Gambon basically made this important comment that he said the democratic regimes are just waiting for certain type of a crisis because they want to establish a state of emergency and basically try to normalize the state of emergency, as the way to deal with the problems of ungovernability of some of the modern societies. The problem is how true is this. And really the governments are so much keen to have this lockdowns to what extent the governments are really excited about coming with the policies that they're going to show their capacity basically of control. And here I'm going to give you two kind of examples that struck me as I told you, when you try to explain the striking probably you're going to see the obvious. One is why Russia is shying away from mandatory vaccination. Russia is not doing fine as a response to the pandemic. The figures are quite high. Basically, you have almost a million excess deaths in the country. And basically is affecting also the economy, even during the autumn Moscow had been closed for weeks. And you can see that President Putin, but even the Russian patriarch, everybody was strongly trying to push the population to But regardless of the fact that Russia has a vaccine of their own. The first one to have a vaccine that you've been very proud with this. So there is no the problem of the deficiency of vaccines. The population is not getting vaccinated. So if we think in terms of democratic authoritarian, we are going to believe that for Russian government which otherwise not shying away from using force when it comes to dealing with political protests and others. So this natural thing is going to be to go for the mandatory vaccination. Obviously, this is going to solve some of the main problems. But on the contrary, the Russian government is insisting that they never going to do it. And even more some people started to talk about the COVID federalism in Russia. And because of the COVID that basically the Russian government gave much more autonomy to the regions to deal with the pandemics and as a result of it basically, you start to see the differences one of the positive example was the very energetic response of the President of Russia, Mr. Sobianian, but on the other you basically see other regions failing. So why a much more authoritarian minded government is shying away. And here is my explanation I do believe that one of the biggest problem that those return regimes facing the situations like the pandemic one is that if you try to vaccinate obligatory, and if you're going to fail to do it. It's exposing your weakness and democratic governments can be legitimate even when they're weak, because part of the legitimacy comes from the way they have been elected. In the case of Russia basically part of the legitimacy comes from demonstrating how much you're in the control of the situation. So as a result of it you end up with a situation in which while you have quite high numbers of people dying you have infections you have a huge pressure on the Russian public health system. But the Russian government is not simply not coming with the idea of the mandatory vaccination but even more, they're trying to claim that Russia is a free country, exactly because they're not doing this. And usually enough, it is not the freedom of speech it is not the freedom of associations. It is the refusal to get people vaccinated that is allowing the Russian government to claim in front of the citizens that they're giving them the right to decide to get vaccinated or not, and I don't know how long this is going to do. I think this is very important because it goes against some of our major kind of assumptions in the beginning that you expect that authoritarian government are going to be much more decisive when it comes to things like lockdowns, closing vaccinations while basic for democratic governments because of the responsive nature of the regime is going to be basically less ready to do this. And the story why out of all places, Austria is basically locking down, and at the same time going for the mandatory vaccinations so are they not risking too much. And here is my argument why democratic governments contrary to what the government believes are not particularly excited about the state of emergency, because the state of emergency on one level is very much weakening the opposition is getting people out of the streets at least for a certain period of time. But then the government is starting to function in two modes which both of them are very difficult one is, if there is a dictatorship that existed for this two years in Europe, it was the dictatorship of comparisons. You all the time comparing what is happening in your country with the neighboring country and ordinary citizen basically is deciding on the performance of government based on how they didn't compare to the others. But secondly, in order to show to the people that they care about them that they want to protect them. I don't believe many of European governments went into a trap, which can have a long term implications for the way our democracy is going to work. Government promise to people things that simply cannot be fulfilled. We almost promise people that they are not going to die. When you're basically seeing also the discourse of some of the European governments, and don't forget we're talking about the governments that are governing over very much aging population. You have the feeling that this is treated as unnatural. So the idea that zero risk and total protection when it comes to human lives but also when it comes to the economic results created a very, very difficult situation for any government. And because this is something that you cannot simply do. And this is why I do believe that the Austrian government did it because this logic of trying to show the people how much you care about them was driving them in this direction. But in a certain point it can backfire and not simply backfire because many people don't like these policies, but because totally unrealistic expectations of what governments can do for the people in a major crisis can come from this. And I'm going as a result of it to the second to the second basically problem that we question that I cannot answer easily and this is the question. Why you have such a big gap in vaccination between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Listen, believe me, this is very much counterintuitive. European Council on Foreign Relations you've been doing survey in the summer in 12 of the new member states and what we discovered is that according to their answers, East Europeans declared that they much more you've been personally affected by the pandemic. When we have been asking people, did you personally experience in a severe way covered. Did any member of your family of course friends have died. Do you severely experienced the economic effect of covered majority of people in every single center in this European country said yes. At the same time, basically 70% of the Danish said no, none of this 60% of German said none of this 60% of French. So why, and if you see basically the figures Central and Eastern European countries now among the countries with the highest kind of death rates for 100,000 people and you know the numbers and the problems of the East European public health system so how it happened that countries in which people personally declared that they have been very much affected countries in which people basically have a very legitimate reasons to be hesitant about the capacity of the public health system to respond, why they do not vaccinate. Keeping in mind that during the communist period, we have a obligatory vaccinations for certain type of disease so all of us can be vaccinated by kids. And I know that people like to make a basically big kind of a generalization about this and the country is slightly different. But I do believe that there are four factors that are interesting to take into account when we answering these questions because probably this is going to help us also better to understand the politics of it all. The point is that it is now quite obvious that the countries that was most severely hurt by the first wave of COVID were the most negative accident. Spain, Italy. So this initial shock created the situation in which there is a broader public consensus that you should do it. This point of the center in Eastern Europe was not affected particularly strongly by the first wave, because also the movement of people in central European countries is not the most, the biggest hubs globalization general. So the provincial slightly nature of the center in this European society helped us to deal better with the first wave but of course now, for example, the second and the third wave we have been suffering a lot. But the absence of this initial shock, in my view, is part of the explanation. The second part of the explanation is that in some countries in Bulgaria, Romania being an example. The electoral process in Bulgaria we can see elections for this year because twice the parliament didn't manage the elected governments or we went for new elections created the situation in which there is not a single country and the single basically moment in which vaccination campaign was the most important campaign. It was always election campaign, and during the election campaign it was not that parties differ very much of what they stay on vaccination, but they were much more busy accusing others for not having results then basically pushing people to vaccinate. Certainly, we basically have a data to show that the level of consumption of fake news is much higher in Eastern Europe compared to other places, but it is also the nature of the media and this is quite interesting to see. To what extent the very nature of scientific debate in which in order for science to work. By the way the scientists should disagree between each other. This is how science works makes people very mistrustful because in a certain way the moment they see two doctors not sharing the same opinion. They're basically starting to lose confidence in science as a whole. And, but the two other factors that remind you have been underestimated when we're trying to answer the questions like all of us have been so less vaccinated than other is that you have an aging medical community. Many of the young doctors that graduated in our countries, went to work in Ireland, went to work in Germany as a result of it for this older generation, some of these new type of a vaccines will proceed as much more risky. They were less ready to trust them, and basically they were much less ready to push their own patients to go and to do it. So this is the crisis of the medical community, but not simply the crisis of the medical community says that they didn't manage to produce a single voice and to lobby of this, but paradoxically in Eastern Europe the expert community in general is much more weaker to influence decision makers. We have a much more politicized and much more polarized governments in which basically it is the governments that much more influences the position of the doctors than the doctors the position of the governments. So from this point of view, this was very clear that in places like Poland, the higher educated part of the population which now sympathize much more with the opposition were less ready to trust the government on medical issue, not simply because they don't trust science, you should believe that because of the education and we know a father surveys that there is a positive correlations there they should trust more, but because they believe that the governments are simply selecting the doctors that fit the political agenda. And the last and first probably the most important is the low level of trust in public institutions. When you trust nobody. You trust basically doctors, particularly when it comes like this. And I'm saying that this divide is quite important and also that from this point into COVID can have a very strong effect on our political systems. Because while there was this recent study by you guys and the Cambridge University showing that in the last three years. Because of COVID and COVID, we have the decline of the populist attitudes all over Europe. One of the important thing that is happening in which I do believe is still recognized by many is that populism did not benefit it in electoral terms of the COVID crisis for the moment just the opposite. But because of this crisis the populist party have made their ideological positions. And three years ago, when we talk about I have been Germany or the Freedom Party in Austria. We're going to describe them as political parties which are very critical to the existence system, and which are strongly advocating, much more authoritarian and decisive type of government. It was very clear during the migration crisis. Now suddenly, most of these parties position themselves as the defenders of individual rights. Very much endorsing anti-vax movements, very much saying that the government goes too far, be to lockdowns be obligatory. So as a result of it we don't know is this going to increase their vote or not, but in my view this is changing their relations with the younger generations. Because one of the things that you see here survey from the summer show very clearly is the younger people growingly see themselves as the major victims of an anti-COVID policies. So this is not about their life this about their way of life. This is about close schools both universities. This is also basically the freezing of movement in Europe. And for many of these young people basically the sense of freedom was very much related to the freedom to travel, and particularly to travel cheaply. So I'm saying this because as a result of it, I don't believe that necessarily the populist parties are going to benefit from this but I do believe that we're going to see a different type of a populist actors. So in this case is this kind of a rise of libertarian attitudes both on the left and on the right it was interesting the anti-vax movement basically adopted the slogan of the feminist movement. My body is my choice. This is changing European politics because suddenly now. What it means to impart is that they accused of being called retirees because of lockdowns because of vaccination and I do believe it's going to be the same because of the green policies telling you want to tell us what to do you're very much limiting our choices. And as you know that basically to finish because I see that I went much longer than it is. I'm going to speculate that we always at the end of the year, figure out which is going to be the work of the year I'll try to speculate which is going to be the year for 2022. And in my view this is going to be sovereign and the idea of sovereignty and sovereignty is going to be key work but understood in two or three very different ways. First all these populist parties are basically going very much to talk about the sovereignty of the individual and individual choices with respect to the governments when it comes to the anti-covid measures. And member states of the European Union are going to be very much talking about the sovereignty of the nation states versus vis-a-vis Brussels and to see this very much when you see what is happening in Poland or Hungary. But I do believe you're going to see many other places including France, and one of the interesting effect of COVID and the state of emergency is that the COVID related is going to be that governments and basically states are going to opt out of a certain policies declaring that this is a national emergency or national security issues. So suddenly nobody is talking about, for example, Poland or Hungary or I don't know whom exiting the European Union so this is not the Brexit type of a threat. But we're going to say Poland who said yes but we're not going to share European immigration policy. Hungary for example saying okay but we're not going to share common policies with respect to China or this or that. But this is going to be a new dynamic, a fragmentation of European Union that could be extremely important but certainly they're going to be talking about sovereignty of the European Union as a whole. So the idea of the strategic autonomy, very much favored by President Macron, because also as a result of the COVID, I do believe that the relations of the European Union with the rest of the world has changed dramatically. But let me stop here and during the conversation I'll be very much happy to develop some of these ideas and thank you a lot for basically inviting me for this talk.