Critical Europeans in an Age of Crisis: Irish and Portuguese Protesters' EU Perceptions

Abstract

This article examines Irish and Portuguese protesters' perceptions of the EU in the decade since the European debt crisis. Building on EU politics, social movement and protest literatures, we ask how domestic protesters in both countries perceive the EU during its age of crisis protest timescape. We find that critical Europeanism, which rejects technocratic and neoliberal Europe and works towards an alternative, social Europe, has travelled beyond austerity/bailout protests into women's rights and housing protests in both countries, although to varying degrees. We suggest that the expansion of critical European perceptions in these traditionally Europhile member states forms part of the social and political legacy of the European debt crisis, but also contributes to the continued Europeanization of the European social movement space. It could have positive impacts on the EU's legitimacy deficit if EU institutions engaged meaningfully with critical European voices.

From Protesting Against Troika Bailouts to Pro‐EU Governing in Greece and Portugal: Europeanisation and Institutionalisation Processes

“…Our interviews, carried out with three field activists (labour, housing and environment) show that, in varying degrees, they can all be considered as Euroalternativists, or critical Europeanists, with no one showing Eurosceptic attitudes. A similar finding on the case of Portugal is also shown by research carried out by Moore and Trommer (2020), who stress that, ‘in terms of the evolution of domestic protesters' EU perceptions in the age of crisis, we find that critical European perceptions have expanded from bailout/austerity protests’ (p. 3). 4Activist Trajectories Towards Critical Pro‐European Positions …”

“…When looking at the claims, the picture is even clearer: they never address transnational matters. Recent studies arrive to similar conclusions (Carvalho, 2022; Fernandes et al, 2020; Moore and Trommer, 2020); particularly, Fernandes et al (2020) showed that amongst the targets of Portuguese protests between 2010 and 2017, state institutions (including local governments) represent the 61.9%, whereas transnational actors only the 1.6%. 2Players' Interactions, Contentious Governance and the Reconfiguration of the Portuguese Left …”

“…In this context, besides the strong transnational dimension of many austerity measures taken by Portuguese governments, different authors have showed that the main protests' target were national institutions (Fernandes et al, 2020; Moore and Trommer, 2020). Moreover, if Euroscepticism at the mass level increased substantially during the Troika period (Freire et al, 2014) with the economic recovery, positive attitudes reached again pre‐crisis levels (Lisi, 2020).…”

Gender Equality Mythologized? Depoliticization, Discourse, and Policymaking in a Post-Crisis European Union

“…The eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 served as the beginning of the EU's "age of crisis" that has encompassed the debt crisis, the migration crisis, the Brexit crisis, and the COVID-19 health crisis spanning from 2009 to the present day (Dinan et al 2017, 1;Moore and Trommer 2021).…”

“…Syrian civil war), which then became a central issue in the 2016 "leave the EU" campaigns of Brexit 1 and the continuation of crises surrounding "European" commitments and identity. The crisis of United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) was beginning to subside by the end of 2019, with the British exit scheduled for January 2020, however the COVID-19 pandemic initially presented in Europe at the same time (January 2020) marking the continuation of crisis in the EU and the emergence of the current health crisis (Moore and Trommer 2021). The "trend towards gender equality" that the EU had established before the crisis was affected by the post-crisis climate of uncertainty (European Commission, 2017).…”