Will populism destroy the European Union?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The European Union was formed in the years after the Second World War to secure peace and promote economic progress. It aimed to achieve that by ensuring that countries worked together. But that optimistic vision has now been shaken. There is mounting anxiety about whether the EU can hold together. Some are even saying that the EU is facing an existential crisis. That’s because the elections in May are likely to bring in another wave of populist politicians promoting nationalist agendas. The Inquiry will detail the fissures that have been exposed in recent years. One cause has been migration from countries outside the EU and the pressures caused by free movement within its borders. The severe economic downturn has threatened unity too. Kavita Puri explores whether there are moments in the European Union’s history when, had different decisions been made, the EU might have hung together better.
Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones
Image: A shredded European Union flag flutters in the wind. Credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri. |
| 0:07.0 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:14.0 | In a glass circular building in Strasbourg, France is a vast room. |
| 0:20.0 | There are over 700 seats arranged in a semicircle. On each desk or earphones to hear a |
| 0:28.2 | cacophony of European languages. |
| 0:30.9 | Politicians from 28 languages. |
| 0:33.0 | Politicians from 28 European Union member states gather here to debate, review legislation and agree on a budget. |
| 0:42.0 | Decisions which affect a staggering 500 million people. |
| 0:49.2 | But it's now a new battleground. |
| 0:57.7 | Populism from both the right and left all across the EU is on the rise. In some countries they're in power and in the United Kingdom its effects were seen in the vote to leave. |
| 1:05.0 | The populist vision, anti-elite, anti-institution, anti-EU, |
| 1:11.0 | flies in the face of the founding values of the European Union. |
| 1:17.0 | Populists are expected to make big gains here in this Parliament in the May elections. |
| 1:24.0 | Throughout Europe people are asking if it's the beginning of the end for the EU itself. |
| 1:30.0 | So this week we ask, will populism destroy the European Union? |
| 1:38.0 | Part 1, an unfinished house. |
| 1:40.4 | I learned English quite young and I thought it's absolutely natural to live in another country and to travel back and forth. |
| 1:48.0 | Our first expert is Daniel Leshvartzer, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. |
| 1:54.0 | I actually started having a rather deep interest in understanding how all of this came together |
| 1:59.4 | after the Second World War. |
| 2:01.3 | Many millions had perished and economies were devastated. |
| 2:05.0 | Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill was one of many calling for unity to |
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