CORE, a project running from 2024 to 2027, is dedicated to promoting European Studies as a multidisciplinary research field and deepening people's understanding of Europe and European issues in Hungary. Its objectives include supporting multidisciplinary research endeavours, connecting experts of European Studies, developing practice-oriented and critically engaging high school and university courses, and involving broader publics, particularly in Hungary's most disadvantaged regions. Thus, the project's target groups are quite diverse, ranging from academia to university and high school students, as well as influencers and media representatives.
The work of CORE is organized into the following six Work Packages (WPs):
WP1) European Narratives and Identity
WP2) Deep Integration; Economic and Monetary Governance
WP3) Foreign, Security Policy and Defence Policy of the EU
WP4) Enlargement, Normative Power Europe and Europeanization
WP5) Democracy and the Rule of Law, Political Culture
WP6) Sustainability and Energy Policy
In the second half of her lecture, Koller gave a more in-depth explanation of three of these working groups. She began with WP1 "European Narratives and Identities". The working group focuses on the historical narratives of Europe and the different phases of European integration. It aims to explore how shared memories, myths, and symbolic representations contribute to shaping collective European identities. In an upcoming article, for instance, researchers in this WP will compare discourses surrounding the "coalition of the willing" with earlier European defence narratives.
WP3 "Foreign, Security Policy and Defence Policy of the EU" concentrates on defence collaborations and the formulation of joint strategies both within and outside of the EU. It also examines how these affect the future of the integration and the sovereignty of the individual member states. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, including literature reviews, interviews, interpretive policy analyses, discourse analyses, and case studies of specific defence cooperation initiatives such as the "coalition of the willing" and the European Defence Fund.
The third working group Koller discussed in her presentation was WP5 "Democracy and the Rule of Law, Political Culture". Its main goal is to thoroughly assess the effectiveness of the EU's preventive and restorative measures when a states is already a member of the integration. The research pays special attention to key tools such as the annual rule of law reports.
Further information on the CORE project is available here: LINK
As part of the pti memo series, we publish short blog posts about the Speaker Series events of the HUN-REN CSS Institute for Political Science, expanding the accessibility of fresh and socially relevant political science research. You can find more information about the Institute’s upcoming events here.
Author of the blog post: Dominik Rákos
Date of publication: 29 May 2025