Abstract:  EU integration has opened new controversies in making sense of democracy. This article studies how discourses on democracy in EU integration open spaces to hijack the concept of democracy, using a novel empirical dataset on proposals for reforming EU democracy formulated during the rise of the “EU crisis” rhetoric between 2015–2022. The analysis focuses on 131 proposals from Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia as sources with the rationale to present forward‐looking claims on EU democracy. The three EU member states have struggled with post‐1989 democratic consolidation. Between 2015–2022, fundamental tenets of democracy continued to be undermined in Hungary with implications for the decision‐making and legitimacy of the EU institutions. The analysis finds limited conceptual innovations in references to democracy in the proposals. Moreover, it shows how illiberal actors, identified by conceptions of democracy reduced to (state‐level) majority rule, present conventionally antidemocratic ideas as embodying the spirit of democracy. In all three countries, democratic actors broadly failed to counter these hijacking attempts. The findings underscore the impoverished discourses on democracy in the context of EU integration in the small Visegrad countries. They also call for enhanced public representations of views on the EU in an inclusive manner.

Keywords:  Czechia; de‐democratisation; democracy; European Union; Hungary; illiberalism; intellectuals; national governments; political parties; Slovakia

Published:   13 August 2025

Issue:   Vol 13 (2025): Debating Europe: Politicization, Contestation, and Democratization (In Progress)