Lecture by Dr. Ileana Marin
University of Washington EU Democracy & Security Educator Workshop
August 11, 2026
Guntis Smidchens: Welcome to podcasts hosted by the Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle.
The following lecture was hosted by UW’s Jean Monnet EU Center of Excellence, funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only.
On August 11, 2026, we invited Dr. Ileana Marin to speak at our annual Educators Workshop with a lecture titled European Union Security, Democracy, and Institutional Resilience. Dr. Marin teaches interdisciplinary courses at the University of Washington, Seattle, and at the Center of Excellence in Image Studies of the University of Bucharest, Romania.
Ileana Marin: Thank you, and thank you all for being here and for your interest in EU issues.
I believe that the more informed we are about other places in our globalized world, the better it is for society as a whole.
I am also grateful to the previous speakers because they gave thoughtful presentations. I will touch on several of the issues they have already addressed, but from the perspective of how these elements interconnect.
I will start by saying that I was surprised when I read the July 6 issue of Time magazine, where Thiago Ventura, Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science at Georgetown University, contributed a short piece on Ukraine’s steps toward joining the European Union.
At first glance, the article might seem out of place amid a celebratory focus on American nationhood. In my opinion, however, it was not.
Why? Because the future configuration of the European Union will shape foreign policy and generate economic, social, and military effects far beyond Europe’s borders, including in the United States.
Reviewing major changes in the political landscape of the EU’s twenty-seven member states, each of which must unanimously approve the accession of a new member, Ventura underscored the significance of Viktor Orbán’s recent defeat in Hungary by the pro-European challenger Péter Magyar.
With the only head of government openly opposing Ukraine’s accession now removed from office, securing the necessary votes in the European Council becomes significantly easier. This shift also creates a more favorable environment for advancing the process in the European Parliament.
This does not, however, imply that Ukraine has a free ticket into the EU. Rather, it means that Ukraine must intensify its efforts to meet the EU’s accession requirements, organized into six clusters.
Let me briefly review them.
Fundamentals addresses civil rights, justice, financial oversight, and the effective and ethical functioning of public administration.
Internal Market includes nine chapters establishing the principles of a free market that protects labor, investment, capital, intellectual property, and consumers.
Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth covers taxation, monetary policy, culture, education, research, employment, and industrial policy.
Green Agenda and Sustainable Connectivity addresses environmental protection, climate change, trans-European networks, transportation policy, and energy resources.
Agriculture, Cohesion, and Regional Development focuses on budgetary provisions, regional coordination, food safety, and agricultural and rural development.
Finally, External Relations encompasses foreign affairs, security, and defense policy.
Together, these six clusters include thirty-three chapters, with additional requirements that must be negotiated before a country can be approved for membership.
Once a cluster is opened, each chapter must be examined, negotiated, and unanimously approved one by one. This exacting process underscores both the rigor and the political complexity of EU enlargement.
As has already been mentioned today, according to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, admitting Ukraine to the European Union would strengthen peace, security, and prosperity in Europe.
Ukraine is one of nine states currently seeking EU membership.
What I would add is the year in which each country applied. North Macedonia applied in 2004, Montenegro in 2008, Albania and Serbia in 2009, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2022, and Turkey much earlier, beginning its accession process in 1987 and later receiving candidate status in 1999.
Turkey’s case is distinctive. Although it was a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1950, became an associate member of the European Economic Community in 1963, joined the Western European Union, and established a customs union with the EU, it was formally recognized as a candidate only in 1999.
Several developments slowed or even reversed earlier progress. One example is the 2016 refugee crisis, during which Turkey faced accusations of human rights violations and insufficient adherence to the rule of law, issues that directly affect its ability to meet EU accession criteria.
The dates I mentioned do not indicate the beginning of accession negotiations. In most cases, five or more years pass before negotiations even begin. From the moment of application until negotiations start, the process can take a very long time.
Why? Because during this period, applicant countries must demonstrate a functioning market economy, a stable democratic system, and the capacity to adopt the EU’s increasingly stringent policies.
Even this brief review of accession criteria underscores the extent to which the EU prioritizes robust defense capacity, democracy, respect for human rights, strong institutions, economic and social stability, institutional cooperation, green energy, and adherence to the rule of law.
Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, and especially following statements made two years later by the then U.S. presidential candidate and now President regarding a possible U.S. withdrawal from NATO, the European Union, which overlaps significantly with NATO membership, has accelerated investments in defense and territorial security.
This leads me to my first major point: security.
According to recent research by Hanna Back, Berit Eide, and Erik G. Nielsen on European responses to potential NATO withdrawal scenarios, attempts by U.S. presidential candidates to mobilize support around foreign policy promises constitute highly credible signals to both allies and adversaries.
The authors frame their analysis by recalling the moment ten years ago when NATO was described as “obsolete,” prompting Angela Merkel, then Chancellor of Germany, to respond:
“The era in which we could fully rely on others is over.”
European countries were forced to rethink aspects of their foreign policies and reevaluate their alliances and partnerships.
European governments have generally responded in two ways. The first emphasizes deeper European defense integration while still relying on NATO support, effectively envisioning a more European-led NATO. The second emphasizes strengthening national defense capabilities.
Public opinion surveys conducted since 2018 indicate continued support among EU citizens for a common security and defense policy. Many believe the EU should adopt a more independent approach from the United States in security and diplomatic affairs.
Although the EU has nearly doubled its membership since 2000, two scenarios outlined by Julian Howorth, Professor of European Politics at the University of Bath, remain plausible.
The first is that the EU continues to depend on NATO while increasing its own defense spending, effectively duplicating capabilities that the United States has traditionally provided.
The second is that the EU pursues strategic autonomy by investing in the capacity to address its own security challenges, either independently or with only limited NATO involvement.
Regardless of which scenario develops, decisions on defense policy ultimately fall to the Council of the European Union. Yet the Council cannot act without unanimous agreement among member states.
Since the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in 2009, EU countries have pursued several common military objectives, including coordinated investment in high-priority defense research and measures designed to strengthen the Union’s overall defense framework.
The idea of a common European defense has deep historical roots. Originating in the 1948 Treaty of Brussels, it became an important force driving what would eventually become a larger and more integrated European Union.
When West Germany and Italy joined key European security arrangements and NATO, existing provisions required revision in response to the pressures of the Cold War. Ten European countries subsequently created the Western European Union, which assumed responsibility for aspects of European security while operating in close partnership with NATO from 1955 until 2011.
With the accession of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and as European integration deepened, security responsibilities were gradually redistributed between NATO and emerging EU institutions.
Eventually, the Western European Union’s functions were largely absorbed into the EU’s developing defense structures through the European Security and Defence Policy, the European Defence Agency, and other institutional mechanisms.
What appears on paper to be a solid, democratically adopted EU security system is now being tested by two simultaneous crises: the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia on the one hand, and the escalating conflict involving Iran on the other.
On July 25 of this year, Ukraine reportedly attacked an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea after Ukrainian intelligence reported evidence of Russian support for Iran.
The volatility on both fronts confronts the international community, and the EU in particular, with a difficult conundrum. While the EU did not support the American strike on Iran, it has continued, and even intensified, its military assistance to Ukraine.
The question now is whether American support for Ukraine will continue following Ukraine’s strategic strike on the Iranian vessel.
From the outside, this attack may appear less like an act of war and more like a strategic alignment originating beyond EU borders, yet occurring in close proximity to EU territory and consistent with the EU’s stance toward Russia.
Under such circumstances, the EU has learned a valuable lesson about security. A unified response demonstrates that a leverage-based strategy can be effective even when powerful external support is at risk of being withdrawn.
Moreover, when it remains consistent with international law, such a strategy presents the EU as a coherent, credible, and resilient actor whose defense strategy relies more on diplomacy than on military force, while not excluding military intervention when it is appropriately justified.
At the same time, through the European Peace Facility, the EU began channeling €120 million to Moldova on July 13 of this year to enhance the country’s air-defense capabilities, according to Reuters, citing the EU Council.
Along NATO’s eastern flank, Romania and Poland have equipped themselves with AI-driven American drone-defense systems, further reinforcing regional protection.
It is this coordinated effort between the EU and NATO, combining financial support, technological modernization, and shared strategic planning, that may ultimately secure the region.
This means that European security rests on several interlocking elements: preventive diplomacy, a strategically networked economy and trading system that follows World Trade Organization rules, and military readiness through a capable force prepared to intervene directly in conflicts deemed threats to Europe.
The most recent developments connected to the conflict involving Iran, specifically the Iranian drone strike on a British air base in Cyprus, triggered a coordinated European response, even though the United Kingdom is no longer an EU member.
Democracy and the European Democracy Shield
You have already heard about the European Democracy Shield. What I would like to add is that European security is not designed solely to protect EU members against military threats to their sovereignty. It is also intended to defend democracy and safeguard the institutions that uphold it.
Even the name chosen for this initiative, “European Democracy Shield,” invokes the language of military defense. Democracy, like territorial sovereignty, requires protection against less visible adversaries such as disinformation, manipulation, election interference, and corruption.
The EU’s strategy for civil society emphasizes that democracy is weakened when the information space becomes unsafe and respectful dialogue can no longer sustain an ethical exchange of ideas.
A secure democratic environment therefore depends on protecting the informational sphere as rigorously as territorial borders.
Drawing on a long tradition of political philosophy that warns against deceptive rhetoric, sophistry, and deliberate falsehoods, the European Union, through the European Democracy Shield, places strong emphasis on the integrity of information, which is now largely shaped online.
This is one reason why, in 2022, the EU adopted the Digital Services Act in response to the spread of online hate speech, terrorist messaging, and other harmful or unlawful content.
According to the authors of the article Platforms, Online Surveillance, and the European Union, the DSA expands governments’ technological capacity for lawful surveillance in the name of strengthening what is called “digital constitutionalism.”
Digital constitutionalism has been defined as an effort to adapt the values of contemporary constitutionalism to digital society.
At the same time, personalized algorithms often keep users confined within narrow information bubbles. Content moderation, performed both by automated systems and human reviewers, seeks to identify cyberbullying, disinformation, and hate speech.
France, for example, has taken a leading role in regulating online platforms. However, these efforts have generated concerns among international organizations and even within the French Constitutional Council regarding possible infringements on freedom of expression.
The difficulty of defining harmful content remains a major obstacle to broad acceptance of such laws.
Germany has also intensified efforts to combat unlawful online content, despite criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In 2021, Germany passed legislation enabling police action against far-right extremism conducted online.
Italy began monitoring online content as early as 2018 through a specialized police unit and user-generated reports, including a simple “red button” system for reporting fake news.
In each case, UN officials identified significant human-rights concerns.
Nonetheless, Spain, Austria, and Hungary have likewise criminalized various forms of fake news and disinformation. These measures were implemented even though they did not fully align with EU legislation and raised serious questions about civil liberties.
The extent to which such regulations threaten democratic principles remains an urgent and unresolved concern.
At the same time, the expansion of online life into nearly every aspect of politics and society makes free and fair elections, independent media, robust civic engagement, and strong institutions all the more essential to sustaining democracy.
Because AI-generated content, fake news, and misinformation can directly undermine elections, the European Cooperation Network on Elections provides guidance for addressing these challenges, even though each member state remains responsible for organizing its own elections.
In addition, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observes elections both within EU countries and around the world to help safeguard electoral integrity as part of a broader system of democratic checks and balances.
The EU has also used financial instruments to defend democratic standards.
In recent years, for example, both Poland and Hungary had EU funds frozen for failing to uphold the rule of law, address corruption, or protect fundamental rights.
Consequently, in 2022, the EU blocked Hungary’s access to €6.3 billion and Poland’s access to €107.3 billion in cohesion funds. These funds are intended to reduce regional disparities and support infrastructure development.
It is through strong EU institutions that such measures can be implemented.
Institutional Resilience
This brings me to the final part of my presentation: institutional resilience.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marked the beginning of the end of communism in Europe, Germany began the process of reunification, and Europe began its own effort to reunite a continent that had long been divided.
In 1989, what would become today’s European Union consisted of only twelve member states, all in Western Europe. This highlighted how much of the continent still remained outside the project of European integration.
It was the political will and coordinated diplomacy of two leaders, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterrand, that set in motion the post-Cold War enlargement of the European Union through the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.
The treaty articulated the Union’s core objectives: consolidating the European Community and common market through a single currency, establishing a common foreign and security policy, and deepening cooperation in justice and home affairs.
While building a strong and secure European Union required creating effective institutions, former communist states spent decades navigating difficult transitions from dictatorship to democracy; from state-controlled economies to free markets; from one-party systems to competitive elections; and from Soviet domination to sovereign statehood integrated into global markets.
EU accession offered Eastern European countries not only recognition as valued partners but also substantial support in confronting the legacies of communism.
Above all, these societies needed to overcome deeply rooted expectations that the state would provide for all citizens, a mindset reinforced over decades. Such expectations often stifled individual initiative, complicated the exercise of legal freedoms, and created instability during political transition.
Meanwhile, Western Europe, already at the center of the EU project, faced institutional challenges of its own. Yet its commitment to enlargement provided a powerful incentive to find common solutions.
During the first two decades after the fall of communism and the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, the EU established numerous institutions and programs to facilitate eastward expansion.
Among these were the Committee of the Regions in 1994, which gave local authorities a voice in European policymaking; the European Central Bank in 1998, which managed the transition to a common currency; and specialized funding programs supporting transportation, agriculture, and rural development in candidate countries.
In 2002, Eurojust was created to coordinate judicial cooperation throughout the EU and among accession countries.
That same year, The Guardian journalist Timothy Garton Ash described the European Union as a potential superpower alongside the United States and China, but not yet fully realized as such. He argued that the Union remained constrained by provincial ambitions and an inability to articulate a bold common vision.
In his view, the EU had not fully succeeded in cultivating a sense of unity capable of rising above national and cultural interests.
His critique culminated in a memorable question:
Twenty years on, the question before us Europeans is this: Can we leave it to others to shape the world while we retreat into our national homes and pretend there are no giants striding overhead? Or can we recapture some of the strategic boldness and historical imagination of 1989?
This dilemma highlighted the gap between Europe’s ambitions and its institutional capacity at the time.
As enlargement continued over the following twenty-five years, each new wave of accession further tested the resilience of EU institutions.
Following the major enlargements of the 2000s, the Union increasingly struggled to reach consensus. This prompted discussion of relying more heavily on qualified majority voting, currently requiring 55 percent of member states representing at least 65 percent of the EU population.
The EU has also adopted a revised and more flexible accession methodology organized around the six negotiation clusters discussed earlier, including a reversibility mechanism that allows negotiations to be paused or suspended if a candidate country backslides on democratic reforms.
Yet challenges have not come solely from candidate countries or newly admitted members. Long-standing members have also generated institutional strain.
One major example was Brexit.
In 2016, 52 percent of British voters chose to leave the European Union, largely motivated by a desire to regain control over immigration and economic policy.
Brexit must be understood within the broader context of the 2008 global financial crisis, migration flows associated with the Syrian civil war, and the EU’s austerity policies.
As Paul Whiteley, Professor of Government at the University of Essex, has argued, austerity slowed economic recovery and intensified Euroscepticism.
Whether misguided or not, Brexit has cost the United Kingdom billions of pounds.
Because the EU lost the UK’s net budget contribution, remaining members were required to increase their contributions while the Union simultaneously reduced expenditures to compensate for the shortfall.
A decade later, in 2026, journalists and economists continue to argue that the UK lost significantly more than it gained, while the EU absorbed the shock with relatively limited long-term damage.
The UK now faces increased migration from non-EU countries, major changes in its labor market, weaker trade relationships, persistent inflation, and higher borrowing costs.
As several economists have observed, Brexit has become one of the most significant natural experiments in modern economic history.
The question is no longer whether Brexit has been costly, because it clearly has been. Rather, the question is:
How much of that cost is Britain still prepared to bear in exchange for regulatory autonomy it has often chosen not to exercise, and for sovereignty that has not delivered the changes many voters expected in June 2016?
While Brexit demonstrated that EU institutions can continue functioning after a member state’s departure, it also revealed how political decisions can generate long-term consequences.
Brexit, on one side, and the 2015 migration crisis on the other, tested the Union considerably.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s temporary suspension of the Dublin asylum rules during the Syrian refugee crisis, implemented in response to an urgent humanitarian emergency, allowed refugees to move beyond their first country of entry into the EU.
This decision produced significant political repercussions, fueling anti-immigration sentiment across Europe and strengthening arguments later employed by Brexit supporters.
The Brexit lesson for EU members is clear: the Union’s institutional cohesion, its ability to negotiate collectively, coordinate policies, and absorb shocks through shared mechanisms, offers benefits that generally outweigh the uncertain gains of acting alone.
It also underscores the importance of democratically negotiated collective decision-making rather than unilateral actions that may unintentionally place strain on European cohesion.
To conclude, I would argue that the European Union’s strength, tested by successive enlargements, Brexit, global economic shocks, the Russia-Ukraine war, and recent energy crises, rests on its consistent application of the rule of law, its defense of democratic norms, sustained investment in security, and the continued consolidation of its institutions.
Thank you.
Guntis Smidchens: You have been listening to a lecture by Dr. Ileana Marin on European Union Security, Democracy, and Institutional Resilience, recorded at the University of Washington in Seattle on August 11, 2026.
This lecture and podcast were produced by the UW Jackson School of International Studies with support from the European Union.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the speaker alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Washington, the European Union, or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency.
Neither the University of Washington nor the European Union can be held responsible for them.