New Member States and Old Misunderstandings concerning European Integration

This paper examines the discourse of the European Union (EU) among political elites in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland as their governments were holding the rotating presidency of the EU. It analyzes how the core issues of European integration are discussed in the new Member States and focuses more particularly on the normative content of the elite’s vision for the EU. The analysis uncovers a clash between two main discourses: a traditional national civic discourse sustained by the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban and the president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus, and a new republican federalist discourse animated by the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk in the context of the Polish rotating presidency.