#EAPC Polaris Aawards 2017: Interview with George Papandreou, president of #SocialistInternational

'Rising Populism and The Role of Political Consultants' was the main theme of the 22nd Annual EAPC Conference  organized on 28-30 May in Brussels. The conference managed to provide a unique, in-depth examination of political consulting in the Capital of Europe - a city that is the headquarters of the European Union and NATO, writes Margarita Chrysaki.

One of the keynote speakers of the conference was the President of Socialist International, George Papandreou. In view of Trump’s visit in Brussels on 25 May and his comments on further NATO contributions, Papandreou said to EU Reporter: “Of course there are NATO countries like Greece that respect the agreement on financial contributions. Certainly, Trump’s visit in Brussels raised concerns on whether he would go off script on the question of Article 5.”

“However, this is a chance for Europe to understand that must develop security and defense power to protect its borders. A collective identity for Europe will contribute to what is called the ‘European idea’. Only then, the citizens would feel safety, stability and peace within a European environment.”

He continued: “Also, it is very important to reconsider what are the necessary conditions for democracy. People are often looking for leaders with a strong presence and voice but at the end they only strengthen their ego doing nothing about the society.”

With regards to the migrant crisis, Papandreou concluded: “Societies that can absorb many cultures are becoming even more creative. People that crossed into Europe will learn our values such as democracy and freedom and politicians should now combine policies that will secure Europe on the one side but also benefit the migrant populations on the other.”

EAPC is also organizing this year the Polaris Awards and Marko Rakar, the president of EAPC, said: “The reason why we give these awards is to recognize all the political professionals who are doing outstanding working political campaigning.”

“The award itself has a number of different categories ranging from billboards to TV spots and internet campaigning. There is a whole range of different categories where you can submit your work and this year an international panel of 24 judges is invited to judge by online panels. This panel will judge the quality of production, what kind of tools you used to create a campaign all the way to measuring the impact of it which is also significant of this success. So, there are a number of criteria.”

“It is a truly unique international award for political consultancy and we plan to expand it to have even more categories for next year.”

With regards to the role of the political consultant, he added: “The political consultant is the kind of person who will propose you what kind of campaign you lead, to structure your talk, the messages. Therefore we believe that fighting against negative populism starts with us. There is a huge responsibility of us to stress that some things shouldn’t be allowed and try to create compelling, truthful facts which are acceptable and deliverable to the voters.”

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