On December 3, CIR expert Eugeniusz Smolar spoke at the annual meeting of the Governing Council of the Community of Democracy.
He focused not on procedures or international political structures such as the Community of Democracies, the Council of Europe, or the European Union, as they can only play a supportive role: focusing governments’ attention, mobilizing, or shaming those who violate democratic principles. The most important processes are those in individual countries, where citizens, in their own language, tradition, and culture, respond to the political offers of individual parties. The quality of political parties’ functioning, their conceptual and mobilizing capabilities, determine the quality of democracy and citizens’ decisions not to entrust their future to radical, anti-European populist sovereignists.
