EU Society: Last Meeting (May 30, 2023) > EU Society at KUGSIS

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Before starting the last presentation of this semester’s EU society, Erko greeted the members and remembered everyone that this is the last meeting of this semester and announced that there will be a new EU society leadership from next semester. He encouraged people to apply in summer to become president or vice-president.

The last presentation was about populism in South Korea and Poland in the years from 2015-2021 presented by Szymon Paczosa. To start the presentation off, the presenter explained the terms of populism and how this term came to be. In modern times, there were different waves of populism with different characteristics. That’s why the theoretical framework of when populism occurs and what kind of characteristics it has is important. 2015 marked an important year for populism worldwide. Szymon mentioned the characteristics of Korean populism and how this is connected to the protests in 2016. He then went on to mention that the following president Moon Jae-In had slight populist tendencies. The case of Poland was different but also started in 2015. There were presidential and parliament elections in Poland in 2015 where a rise of populism could be seen. Two out of the three biggest election winner parties became more populist and the president who got elected was a populist politician. The presenter then introduced populist topics within Poland that became prominent in the last few years e.g. judiciary reform, homophobic propaganda. To finish his presentation, Szymon pointed out the differences of the impact of populism in Korea and Poland. While it helped in Korea to defend and strengthen its democracy, in Poland populism led to the undermining democratic values and institutions within the country. Szymon also went on to mention recent developments in polish politics and how this impacts the life of the citizens.

The discussion round dealt mainly with questions about the similarity of populism in Poland and the USA. But Szymon pointed out that the populism in both countries is different and developed differently. While the populism in the USA is currently not in power, Poland is still governed by a populist government and recent elections in Poland kept the populist party in power.

After the discussion, members of the EU society were invited to have dinner together.

This concludes the last EU society meeting of the spring semester 2023.