Europe stands on the brink, Europe is about to collapse! Populists across the continent fight against the European idea, they want to destroy the legacy of the founding fathers and … well, what do they want exactly? Do they want European countries to fall back into nationalism, barricade themselves against each other and go to war? Of course not! Do you want to know what Euroskeptics really want?

For her dissertation at the University of Helsinki, the Estonian researcher Katri Vallaste analyzed how Estonian, Finnish and Swedish newspapers report on Euroskeptics. Her findings: “My research shows that the arguments of the Euroskeptics are rarely discussed in the editorials of major newspapers. Although the newspapers argue for greater public debate in the EU, they stigmatize Euroskeptics as a problematic group of people: They are focused on their personal qualities rather than their arguments, thus preventing a fruitful discussion on EU issues.”

The media describe Euroskeptics, as her research shows, as ignorant, uneducated, poor, radical, irrational, stubborn, backward looking and uncooperative. Europhiles, however, are portrayed as informed, educated, wealthy, moderate, reasonable, constructive, open-minded, progressive and cooperative.

Roughly speaking, it can be summarized like this: The wise Europhiles who do everything for Europe fight against the stupid Euroskeptics who due to their ignorance try to break up the continent.

Too many Europhiles



But should we really believe that someone like Timo Soini, head of the Finnish Euroskeptic party “True Finns” who studied political science and wrote his thesis on populism, has no idea what he’s talking about? Can someone like Bernd Lucke, head of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Hamburg, really be so ignorant and stupid? Where does this negative portrayal come from?

One reason could be that most journalists are rather Europhile than -skeptical – with the exception of the UK. But there might be another reason that is often neglected in the public debate: The EU is not Europe. And Europe is not the EU.

The media and politicians are often quick to treat the political union and the continent synonymously. “If the Euro fails, then Europe fails,” the German chancellor Angela Merkel argued. But this is simply false: If the Euro fails, the Eurozone can fail, and –possibly– even the European Union – but Europe as a whole? Europe includes Switzerland and Norway. And they are not in the EU.

The formula “Whoever is against the EU or the Euro is against Europe” prevents a rational debate: Euroskeptics are no enemies of Europe, they are critics of the European Union. They don’t want to destroy Europe; they want to change it.

The Euroskeptics are for the EU, what the Republicans are for the US: Republicans fight the federal government passing laws in distant Washington, and Euroskeptics fight the European Commission, issuing directives and regulations in distant Brussels. Both Republicans and Euroskeptics believe that many issues should not be regulated by a central institution but by many smaller units, in institutions that are closer to the people. In the US, these are the federal states, in Europe the nation states.

Plato, Kant and Hegel would turn in their graves!



Many Europeans – especially Germans– would likely raise red flags by the sound of this. This smells like nationalism! And especially the older generation has seen where this can lead to. But just like the equation EU = Europe, the equation Nationalist = Nazi is plain wrong. Just because Euroskeptics are against the current organization of the EU, they don’t want to build the Wall back up again. And just because some parties demand more national sovereignty, they don’t want to gas Jews.

No surprise then that the AfD has written in its party program: “We are committed to ensure that unconventional opinions in public discourse are discussed open-ended, as long as the opinions do not violate the values of the [German] Basic Law.”

Euroskeptic parties feel under-represented and not taken seriously. But they provide the only real opposition in the EU that criticizes not only certain laws, but also the EU institutions themselves. The great European philosophers such as Plato, Kant and Hegel would all turn in their graves for this despises their idea of dialectic: Through discussion of thesis and antithesis debaters try to find out what is right. But when the antithesis is booed and tabooed, there is no discourse – thus: no progress.

Europeans don’t have to be of the same opinion, but at least they should know the arguments of the other side. But as long as media outlets copy the arguments of established politicians such as EU = Europe and Nationalism = Nazis and as long as they present Euroskeptics as ignorant and stupid, citizens may not participate in a neutral, rational debate, as Euroskeptic opinions are stigmatized, shouted down or not taken seriously. True democracy is different.