A transnational campaign Pt. 1

We rarely do transnational campaigns in Europe. No United Europe. No transnational lists. Only Volt can really campaign across borders and we should cherish every opportunity to do so, which means until our Bratislava General Assembly, I will visit local teams in countries we're active and do a transnational listening tour. Why? Because Volt should lead by example. Bringing Europe closer to citizens should also mean bringing Volt Europa closer to members and understanding their needs and expectations - from Cyprus to Finland. In this newsletter, I will share what I learn on the road.

Stories from the transnational trail: Warm-up

I have split my campaign into seven legs taking me through 33 countries (if all works well). Can I sleep in an overnight bus? Invite external speakers for panels? Pitch my tour to the media? A lot of questions that I wanted to answer on my warm-up stage.

Budapest, Hungary 🇭🇺

Volt Hungary is still small with members spread across Europe and only a small team on location in Budapest. I had a chance to discuss with many of them upfront and the atmosphere is currently very tense as a large part of the population is waiting to make a sigh of relief after 16 years of Orbán.

With independent pollsters seeing Fidesz trailing by up to 15% and party pollsters projecting Orban 5% ahead of the opposition leader Peter Magyar, nothing is certain less than a week before the elections - but for the first time in many years, there seems to be a real chance for change. This is visible in the streets where Orbán is omnipresent controlling advertisers and media and actually having to campaign, pulling all the stops trying to discredit his opponent.

We spent a few hours doing a "political sightseeing tour" of Budapest and discussing Hungary's future in Europe. I liked the idea of the country being pushed so far out of Europe, that a change in government can also push things far in the European direction. Hungary as one of the most pro-European member state? Something to think about. Also, a change in government will probably re-open the political space. Currently, there is basically only Orban's Fidesz and the Conservative Tisza of Peter Magyar. The political center and left are almost non-existent.

We passed by Hungary's Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), Orbán's think tank and well connected with media abroad. Change in Hungary will not come about easy. If you see how the Polish government is struggling to repair the damages to institutions from the reign of PiS (see below), Hungary's road back to democracy and into the heart of Europe will be rocky one.

After a stop in front of Parliament, where Orbán removed the European flag after getting elected the first time, I continued exploring the Budapest cuisine, before heading to my midnight bus to Prague.

Prague, Czechia 🇨🇿

The night bus was a drag and my earplugs failed their stress test, making my tired self not really falling in love with the Prague train station and 5am in the morning. But after a few coffees and with the sun rising, I set off to re-discover Prague, which I haven't been to since our Volt Europa General Assembly many years ago.

If you're looking for spots that resemble Europe, the place to see is the Freedom of Expression wall, which saw a first illegal painting after the death of John Lennon in 1980 and quickly became the place for voicing silent protest against communist rule. The wall continues to be the place symbolizing freedom of expression - something Europe should hold dear and defend within its borders and beyond.

I also caught up with Milan Rokos who I met many years ago in the metro with a Europe pullover during our General Assembly and have been in touch with since - providing the occasional commentary on politics in France for the Czech newspaper he used to work for. Later I met with the Volt Czechia team and a first small panel discussion on Czechia's role in the European Union and whether to follow a path of isolation or cooperation.

We managed to invite one scholar to our evening discussion and I learned the Czech government is turning a blind eye to any idea about Europa or federalism. One the one hand obvious considering the new eurosceptic government of Andrej Babiš, one the other surprising since popularity for stronger European integration remains high - also in Czechia. It will be up to civil society and pro-European movements such as ours to drive the narrative of what role Czechia could play in a more united European Union.

After the discussion, I made my way to the train station, this time, taking the night train to Warsaw. It was a smooth ride and I managed to catch up a bit of sleep if not for a bump at 3am which more or less woke up the whole train and had me almost falling out of my bunk.

Warsaw, Poland 🇵🇱

The bump did cause about a two hour delay, so I left the Warsaw central station with just enough time for a photo before heading off to the Volt Polska General Assembly at the outskirts of town.

It was already my second Polish General Assembly and I am happy to see a growing team and Poland making steps towards registering as a political party. We also had representatives from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Romania attending, allowing us to do a great panel reflecting on our different chapters development and challenges.

I had to leave a bit early to meetup with a journalist and we did end up discussing two hours about politics in Poland, the difficulties in overcoming the burden left by the Law & Justice party PiS in institutions and the current government dodging any mention of Europe for fear of being called out be the extreme-right Konfederacja. They are pushing the Polexit debate and with moderate forces afraid of speaking up and short on successes, it's not a given that the governing coalition will maintain a majority in next years parliamentary elections.

Next up was the "We Are Europe" (this one) event and I was running late already. I managed to sneak in at the very end and gave very impromptu speech (note to self: need to work on this) before we left to run in another demonstration of the Belarus community for a Free Belarus.

A busy day with a lot of great conversations and ... a hotel bed.

Bratislava, Slovakia 🇸🇰

Together with Fabian who joined me in Warsaw, we left for Bratislava to head to Vienna. Unfortunately we did not manage to meet the local team busy organising the General Assembly, so we ended up at the (wrong) train station relatively quickly to continue to Vienna. I will have to plan another event in Slovakia sometime before the General Assembly. Let's see if I manage.

Vienna, Austria 🇦🇹

The last stop on the warm-up leg was Vienna. Together with the team of Volt Austria we spent quite some time upfront contacting potential speakers for a panel and I was superhappy that we managed to have the author Robert Menasse and political scientist Tamara Ehs as speakers alongside myself to discuss if moderate parties are mediocre.

I very much liked Robert Menasse's assessment of the United States representing the "Europe of old" taking land, killing the native population and leading unification wars, whereas the "Europe of today" (and the future), grows by countries wanting to join, cherishes each others diversity and seeks to unite through cooperation. We should not talk about a United States of Europe just because of Donald Trump, but because Europe stands for a different idea, which we now need to fill with life.

It matched well with this article on the European identity being the sum of national identities and historic events. We should embrace our national identities as buildings blocks of our joint European identity and this way also remove wind from the extreme-rights narratives.

We finished in the early morning hours discussing "Neutrality" - a touchy topic in Austria as 60% of the population was not willing to aid a neighboring country in case of an attack. Austria is not Switzerland, and we finished the evening with the wish, that Austria would take its role within the European Union more serious, for example by helping to define European neutrality. Food for thought.

I arrived back home in Ljubljana with a lot of impressions, ideas and perspectives that I'm already looking forward to the rest of my trip. If I don't overdo it with overnight bus rides, it should even be fun. My next leg will take me through Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania. Stay tuned for another episode with insights from the campaign trail.

Thank you for reading 💜

Sven