What's the story? Narratives of EU reforms in parliaments and the media

This event explored narratives of EU reforms in the European and national parliaments and the media.

In the first session we presented the key findings of an analysis of debates on the future of Europe in 11 national parliaments and the European Parliament between 2015-2021 presented in a report “What future for Europe? Political actors’ narratives on European integration and democracy in national parliaments (2015-2021)”, edited by Magdalena Góra, Elodie Thevenin and Katarzyna Zielińska. The launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe on 9th of May 2021 has initiated an intensive process of consultations on reforms of the EU with citizens. However, the Conference is situated within the broader context of debates on the future of Europe (FoE) that has been taking place with various intensity since 2015. Parliaments (national and European) have been playing a special role in such debates as they form arenas where Members of (European) Parliament negotiate ideas, opinions, policy proposals representing interests of their respective (national) constituencies and political parties and as such mobilize mass support.

The second session was kicked off by a presentation by Henrik Müller, one of the co-authors of new research analysing the discourse around European reforms in three European business newspapers (Handelsblatt, Il Sole and Les Echos). They find that, despite a more relevant role of Europe in the public debate, when it comes to European reforms news are often framed with national lens and follow a cyclical pattern where the attention on a topic is high during a crisis and then subsides in normal time. Finally, from the study a common narrative on European reforms emerges, with reforms deemed to be necessary but unattainable.

This event was organised as part the Horizon 2020 research project EU3D.