A book presentation conference and roundtable discussion entitled Europe of Nations and the Future of Europe – European Panorama: Identity, Freedom, Discrimination and Prosperity will be held on September 21, 2021, in the ceremonial hall of the National Civil Service University. We asked Dr. László Gábor Lovászy, Ministerial Commissioner for Government Strategic Research, about the recently published European Panorama, which he edited, and Tuesday’s conference.
The conference, entitled “Trends in antisemitism and the fight against antisemitism in the EU” will be presented by Dániel Bodnár, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Action and Protection Foundation; but there will also be lectures on migration, European identity, human rights and the economic and social vision of the Franco-German axis.
What inspired the publication of the volume and what gives it its relevance today?
On the one hand, the relevance of the book was given by the fact that when the rule of law debate began in the European Union, it became clear that that there is virtually no single database that would be available on the basis of criteria developed in the same way or in a coherent way with criticisms from all EU, US and major international NGOs. On the other hand, the case law of the various human rights courts and the judiciary of the European Union has led to more and more complex judgments, which affect European values and, ultimately, the fundamental features of the European way of life.
Who has been involved in compiling the volume in recent years?
We basically started compiling the volume with the doctoral degree specialists and historians of the Prime Minister’s Office, including myself; later, László Trócsányi, former Minister of Justice and president of the Hungarian Bar Association, and his excellent staff, who hold PhDs or are doctoral students at various universities and the European Parliament were also involved in this work.
László Trócsányi, László Gábor Lovászy: European Panorama (Európai körkép), Ludovika University Press, 2020
Who do you recommend the book to and what presentations can visitors expect at Tuesday’s Europe of Nations and the Future of the EU book launch conference?
Basically, I can recommend the book to two target groups. On the one hand, to those working in science, creators or practitioners, as this is a basic research work, as more than 14,000 pages of documents have been processed and more than 4,500 footnotes have been made, and there is not a single line in the book that is not referenced to a specific document. So this can be a valuable work for the scientific sphere. On the other hand, it can also be valuable for the lay reader, even though we are talking about a hefty volume, because the book is so structured that it is easy to find all similar information for the different EU Member States, as each chapter, each country, is based on 120-130 keywords, for example, on the subject of antisemitism; information gathered from seven major sources on this is located in a similar place for all countries.
The volume also deals with the future of the European Union, so let me take this opportunity to ask you what your opinion is on the writing of Tamás Fritz, entitled “Time to Talk About Huxit”, published on Magyar Nemzet? Do you think this debate should continue?
We see that support for the European Union is very high in Hungary. It is among the highest, and if we look at which country has more opposition or greater dislike for the European Union, we have to say that there is sure to be such resentment among the French and the Dutch, as it was in these two countries that the European constitutional referendum in 2005 rejected the need for the European Union to have a common constitution.
Conference details and registration are available here.
