Originally posted on LSE Engederings, available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2016/10/26/beyond-symbolism-the-eu-enlargement-and-gay-politics/ On the occasion of the book launch of The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on Rights, Activism and Prejudice (edited by Koen Slootmaeckers, Heleen Touquet and Peter Vermeersch), Koen Slootmaeckers reflect on the contributions the book made to the growing literature on the Europeanisation of LGBT rights, and raises critical questions for future scholarship.
Over the last decade, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their rights have become an ever more salient and controversial topic in international politics. In recent years, LGBT rights have become an important part of the EU enlargement process. In the context of the EU’s new fundamental first approach to accession process, LGBT rights have been declared in the 2013 Enlargement strategy. Moreover, the protection of LGBT rights and pride, in particular, have been used by EU actors to gauge the ‘Europeanness’ of candidate countries. For example, when the Belgrade Pride returned in 2014, Member of European Parliament Tanja Fajon said: ‘After three last-minute bans over the last three years, this year, the Serbian government will have the opportunity to right these wrongs. The values of tolerance and diversity that will be highlighted this Sunday are European, and Serbia fully belongs in Europe.’ A little over a decade since the first Eastern EU enlargement, we believe it is high time to analyse the impact of this process in the recent member states in Central Europe as well as to take stock of the lessons learned for the Western Balkans. In our recent edited volume, The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on Right, Activism and Prejudice, we and our contributors aimed to disentangle the symbolism from the actual advances on the ground and to determine more exactly the influence of the EU on LGBT rights in former or current ‘enlargement countries.’ In particular, we asked the following question: What is the impact of the EU enlargement on the political and legal contexts in which LGBT people live and claim rights? Analysing the impact of the EU enlargement process on LGBT politics in Poland and Slovenia, the book, contributes to the body of literature examining the Europeanisation of LGBT rights by contextualising the impact of the EU within domestic politics. Both of these case studies in the book have demonstrated that although the EU accession process can indeed shape the domestic political field in which LGBT activists manoeuvre, LGBT politics has never really Europeanized, i.e. advantages and backlashes in and against LGBT rights remain predominantly shaped by domestic political calculations. To illustrate, analysing 30 years of same-sex marriage debates in Slovenia, Kuhar and Mencin Ceplak, argued that domestic filtering of international norms on LGBT rights through the external and internal dynamics between parliamentary political parties in Slovenia share explanation for the delays and inconsistencies in the debates. Indeed, whilst early advances in the Slovenian same-sex partnership law was not used as a catalyst for or against EU accession, it was used as a part of a domestic political power struggle in an attempt by conservative forces to hijack the issue to serve its goals. Also in the case of the Western Balkans, the book analyses how the EU accession process has contributed to advances in LGBT rights on the ground, whilst drawing attention to some of the unintended consequences of the process. For example, whilst the EU pressure has contributed to the return of the Belgrade Pride in Serbia, Bojan Bilic raises important questions regarding the event. In his chapter, Who’s Pride?, Bilic speaks to the more critical scholarship on EU enlargement and LGBT rights and argues that the EU’s current reliance on symbolic politics might negatively affect the goals of anti-discrimination it seeks to pursue. Such critical questions invite us to think about the future of the LGBT rights in the EU and its enlargement policy and introduce us to an important new research agenda – one that focuses on how to deal with the unintended consequences of EU pressure on the experiences of LGBT people in candidate countries. In sum, the edited volume is part of the quickly developing literature on the interplay between EU enlargement and LGBT rights and hopes to invite critical thinking around the impact of the enlargement that goes beyond the symbolism of LGBT rights in European politics. It aims to draw attention to contextualise the role of the EU within the domestic political field and to move observers away from an overreliance on EU-centric frames on the study without completely discarding the opportunity structure created by the EU accession process. All in all, we hope this book is to become part a much wider discussion on the European LGBT politics and how these play out in EU’s near neighbourhood.
1 Comment
Originally Published on Balkanist (http://balkanist.net/belgrade-pride-2014-where-there-is-a-need-there-is-tolerance/) After this year’s peaceful Pride Parade, it will be difficult for the Serbian state to cite “security risks” as a reason to ban it.
On September 28th, it appeared that Belgrade finally shook off the violent images associated with the 2010 Pride Parade. Unlike that year, when the Pride was followed by riots that destroyed significant parts of the city, the 2014 Belgrade Pride – the first of its kind after three consecutive years of last-minute bans – went on without any major incidents. In a peaceful and colorful bubble protected by 7,000 riot policemen, a group comprised of one thousand LGBT people, their friends and allies took to the streets. With the mayor of Belgrade, some opposition politicians and four ministers present, it may have been tempting to conclude that the tide had turned for LGBT people in Serbia, that the organizers of Pride, after three years of struggling, had finally won over the Serbian political elite, or to put it in the words of EU Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle, that the Pride was “a milestone in the modern history of democratic Serbia, [which marked a] substantial improvement towards the effective exercise of LGBTI rights”. However, it is more likely that the Serbian political elite does not see the point of the Belgrade Pride parade, which deeply divides Serbian society, and that they would rather the event not happen at all. As politicians’ views have not changed significantly in the last year, the question remains, “what makes 2014 different? Why can Serbia have a secure, ‘peaceful’ Pride, where it failed to do so in previous years?” One answer to this question is that Serbian politicians (and by extension its so-called “hooligans”) “tolerated” the 2014 Belgrade Pride with an eye on the bigger political goals of Serbia, i.e. its path to the EU. Throughout its history, the Belgrade Pride has always been dependent on the sensitive calculations of the political elite to balance Serbia’s EU perspective with domestic political goals (the Kosovo issue in particular, but not exclusively). After two failed attempts in 2001 and 2004, Serbian LGBT activists were encouraged enough by the adoption of EU-required anti-discrimination legislation to retry organizing Belgrade Pride in 2009. However, after threats of violence by extreme right groups and despite state assurances that the Pride Parade would receive the necessary police protection, the state decided 24 hours before the event that Pride could not happen in the center of Belgrade and should be moved to the periphery of the city. Activists interpreted this government decision as a de facto ban of Pride and a state capitulation to the extreme right, and consequently decided to cancel the event. As this first ban was met with criticisms from the EU, the pro-EU government in 2010 needed to show Serbia was serious about its “path to the EU”. The focus on security issues in the debates surrounding the 2009 Pride, furthermore, created a domestic need to maintain the Pride Parade. The government needed to regain public support by illustrating that security was being taken seriously and that the state was able to protect it citizens. The final push in favor of the 2010 Pride Parade was the fact that the government was able to use the EU pressure to externalize responsibility for Pride: it could blame the EU for the event and its consequences domestically, while in the international arena it could claim credit for allowing the Parade, which was quickly labelled the first successful Pride in Serbia. The next few years, the benefits of staging a Pride Parade did not outweigh the costs for the Serbian elites. With conflicts at the Kosovo border in 2011 and upcoming elections, the political elite did not see any benefit in supporting Belgrade pride. At the international level, the EU signalled with its positive opinion on Serbian application for membership and the prioritization of the normalization of Serbia-Kosovo relations in the enlargement strategy, that for the time being the EU would turn a blind eye to bans of the Pride Parade — as long as progress was made in other, ostensibly more important, areas. Similar calculations were made in 2012 and 2013. The EU responses to bans of the Pride Parade were rather mild, and within the enlargement process, Serbia was rewarded for it progress on the Kosovo issue, with the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina (April 2013) and the opening of accession negotiations with Serbia (January 2014) as the key turning points. Why did the Serbian government opt not to ban the Pride this year? In many ways the political situation compares to that of 2010, however, some difference on the domestic level can be discerned. At the international level, we find that just like in 2010, there has been increased pressure from the EU to proceed with Pride. After the Brussels agreement and the EU’s decision to open accession negotiations with Serbia, the European Commission for the first time explicitly condemned the Serbian government’s lack of political will to go ahead with the Pride Parade in its 2013 progress report. Additionally, in the 2013-2014 enlargement strategy paper, the EU identified LGBT rights (along with the Pride Parade) as a key priority area in the assessment of fundamental rights in candidate countries for the first time. With these two documents, European pressure on Serbia to maintain Pride in 2014 increased substantially. The attack on the German participant of an LGBT conference in Belgrade two prior to the Pride Parade intensified international focus on this year’s Pride Parade. Domestically, the political situation was favorable for a Pride Parade as well. With a landslide victory in the May elections, Prime Minister Vučić did not have to worry about any upcoming elections or any other immediate costs associated with the Pride Parade. Furthermore, the three previous bans – based on security risks – again raised questions as to whether or not the state was capable of protecting its own citizens. Contrary to 2010, when the Pride Parade was framed as an EU requirement, Vučić made this year’s event about security. Days before the event took place he said, “I respect the constitutional obligations of the state and it is my obligation to guarantee safety and security to all citizens.” Rather than externalizing responsibility for the Pride parade, the current PM made sure a successful pride would be regarded as his victory, a showcase of his ability to make Serbia a country that respects its constitution and the rule of law. At the same time, however, Vučić made it clear – most likely to reduce the political damage the Pride might have caused – that he did not necessarily support the event, emphasizing that he would not attend it and that there were more important issues for Serbia (e.g. the recent floods). The final difference between 2010 and 2014 is the lack of violence. Apart from some minor disturbances (the attack on B92’s offices and the torched bus were the worst examples), the streets of Belgrade remained peaceful. Even the protest walk after the Pride happened without any incidents (apart from homophobic and nationalistic chanting). The lack of violence again raises questions (which I cannot answer here) about the link between the Serbian state and so-called hooligans, which are used by the state as an informal security apparatus and a tool to pressure the EU. Whilst the outburst of violence and the threats to national security were beneficial for the Serbian state to pressure the EU to give Serbia more leeway on other issues (such as Kosovo; see Nielsen [2013]), such violence would not have benefitted the state this year. And indeed violence remained largely absent. Whereas Dveri (one of the right wing organizations) warned the government in May that Pride might lead to “war on the streets of Serbia”, their protests last weekend remained peaceful. 1389, another right wing organization associated with previous anti-gay attacks, even explicitly called upon protesters to refrain from violence this year. Although there is no hard evidence linking the state and these right-wing organizations, the reduced security threats and the fact that Vučić thanked those opposing the Pride Parade for refraining from engaging in violence and for their understanding of Serbia’s position in a press conference after Pride. This does suggest that the state was able to “convince” these right-wing, patriotic groups that violence would not be beneficial for Serbia or the groups themselves. (For more on this topic, see Rory Archer). In summary, it can be said that rather than allowing the Belgrade Pride, both the state and the so-called hooligans “tolerated” it for the sake of Serbia’s interests, i.e. its European Path. While this might mean that the factual victory of the Pride organizers over the State and their aggressors is only minimal, the symbolic gains are far more elaborate. In the years to come it will be difficult for the Serbian state to cite “security risks” as a reason to ban the Pride parade. The precedent created by this year’s event and continued scrutiny on the part of the EU during the accession process have de facto taken away Serbia’s only legal argument to ban Pride Parades. Therefore, it is quite likely that the Belgrade Pride will gain momentum and become a recurring annual event; that is, as long as Serbia stays committed to its EU path and the state remains capable of keeping these so-called hooligans under its control. |
Dr Koen SlootmaeckersSenior Lecturer in International Politics at City, University of London. Writes about LGBT politics In Serbia. Archives
September 2022
Categories |