I. TOWARDS A PAN-EUROPEAN CIVIL
SOCIETY
Introduction
Democracy and civil society have become the losers of the continuing process of
European integration. After years of successful economic integration, the lack of
public involvement has now become a great concern. Opinion polls show that
only 50% of the EU population consider European integration a good thing, and
even a smaller percentage consider their country to have benefited from it.
Resistance against “Brussels” and the “Eurocrats” is increasing – the whole
European Union is seen as too bureaucratic, far away from its citizens,
ineffective and illegitimate. As a result, there is a serious threat that nationalist
feelings are rather enhanced than constricted.
It seems as if the very basic European value of democracy is not really applied at
European level. This democratic deficit comes down to a lack of civil society.
There is no public arena, there are no real European parties, and there are not
sufficient possibilities to control and influence political decision-making; or at
least existing chains of legitimacy are far too long. In addition, Europe lacks a
sphere of civil society organization or interest groups to complement national
politics. The absence of the covering of European issues in national media, not to
speak of European media, is both a cause and a consequence of this.
Another problem of the European integration process is that it is perceived as an
elitist project. Language barriers, as well as a general deficiency of knowledge,
prevent most Europeans from developing a sense of mutual understanding and
common identity. People cannot support what they do not know; instead, they
tend to be afraid of it. Yet, fear is anything but a good basis for solidarity, which is
needed to build a legitimate European Union. There is nothing like a panEuropean identity to complement national or regional identities. The upcoming
enlargement will exacerbate these problems by further increasing heterogeneity,
which makes a collective identity even more unlikely.
The situation described above can be dealt with through both civic and
institutional measures. It is time to create a European arena, to foster European
identity and to boost European democracy.
Democracy
We recommend the existence of autonomous European parties, in order to give
the citizen the possibility to vote for a party which represents his European
interests in that way. European elections will be the expression of European
needs, and not the (dis)satisfaction of citizens at national level. As we cannot
oblige political parties at this stage to form autonomous European parties, we
recommend “open” elections for the European Parliament. Every national party
should be given the possibility to be elected, and thus represent citizens of the
member states. In this way, parties with the same political values and thoughts
will automatically come together and at that point autonomous political parties will
be born. European elections should take place on the same day across all
Europe.
In order to give civil society real participation and enhance democracy, we
recommend the possibility of organizing a referendum. First, the organization of a
referendum should be mandatory in case of treaty amendment. Second, citizens
should be given the possibility to ask for a referendum. Therefore, a referendum
should be organized when a certain percentage of the European population asks
for it. If then a certain percentage of the Europeans do vote, the referendum will
be considered valid and will be taken into account.
European identity
It is not easy to find uniquely European values. However, without a sense of
European identity people feel distant from the European project. Also, it is
unlikely that European citizens will take part in the European project if the image
projected by the EU is that of member states who are there to benefit from the
Union; it is vital for the EU to communicate clearly the need to give up some of
these benefits in order to take the European project further.
A “company” approach to the EU was proposed, which pointed to the need for
PR and publicity measures that would make people aware of its benefits and
positive sides. The idea of a “branding” value system for Europe was defined,
including aspects such as a responsible environment policy, the welfare state,
education for the masses, a clearly defined, multiculturally-oriented immigration
policy.
As of today, there is no common European identity. The difficulty of defining a
common demos can be seen as a problem in the development of a panEuropean civil society.
On the other hand, there are several distinct values shared by most Europeans:
democracy, respect for human rights, appreciation of cultural diversity, etc. It is
therefore possible to talk about a common European value base.
A true European identity cannot be imposed upon people from above, but has to
develop from the bottom up, i.e. from the civil society. Besides, it is a necessity
for a democratic system that individuals have the opportunity to make their
voices heard through the channels of civil society.
International structures must be designed in a way that would enable the
European identity to develop gradually through the civil society.
In order to enhance the concept of European identity, multilingualism - for
instance - will be a major tool to enable coexistence and harmonization of cultural
diversity.
European arena
The European arena has an essential role in building a European identity and
solving the democracy deficit problem.
In order to improve the involvement of civil society in the European process, the
consultation of civil society organizations by EU institutions should be given a
legal base. The latter could provide a stable, more structured framework for the
consultation process which is not transparent enough at this stage. This legal
base would guarantee a certain regularity of civil society consultation. EU
institutions would thereby be obliged to acknowledge regularly the opinions and
recommendations of citizens. Furthermore, a legal base should guarantee that
civil society organizations are consulted at a very early stage of the decisionmaking process. In accordance with the democratic principle, civil society
organizations have to observe liberal democracy principles and human rights in
order to be consulted. However, there cannot be any other criteria for
participation in civil society.
There should be better communication and cooperation between civil society
organizations themselves, and these organizations and the EU institutions. In
order to establish this communication, a database on civil society organizations
should be created. This would enable citizens to get in touch with organizations
that represent their interests.
The European Economic and Social Committee deals mainly with economic and
social issues, but it is still an example of formal communication between civil
society and EU institutions. However, it is not working efficiently, as it is limited to
the issues mentioned above. In order to make this body more democratic and
efficient, the election of the Committee should be changed. At the moment, the
members are nominated by the member states and appointed by the EU
Commission. We believe that a more democratic way would be to make the
European Parliament appoint the members of the Committee. Furthermore, we
believe that the distribution of seats between the three representative groups –
employers, employees, various civil society groups – should be changed in favor
of civil society. Currently, each group gets 80 seats in the Committee, which does
not give enough space to the huge diversity of civil society organizations to get
involved. Ideally, there should be 50 seats for both employers and employees,
and 140 seats for civil society organizations. In order to guarantee that a diversity
of civil society organizations are involved, different bodies apart from the
economic and social ones should be represented in the Committee.
The important role of the media in creating a European Arena: Channels such as
TV and radio were discussed, since they have strong impact and generally reach
people who tend to pay less attention to EU politics and European issues in
general. The focus of coverage should be less on institutions, and more on
cultural programmes.
It was agreed that the concept of European culture is essentially artificial, but it is
important to expose people from one country to media programmes of another
country and thus facilitate the interaction between nationalities and identities.
This is not, however, a spontaneous, but a laborious process; bridges have to be
built between the different European countries.
We recommend the creation of a European-wide network of ‘Houses of Europe’
which would be used to serve the cultural interests of citizens. Aware of the
need to develop cultural and educational ties, we propose that part of the
physical space present in the Houses be utilized as an interactive space for the
promotion of national and regional arts, tourism, languages. This would have the
advantage of allowing smaller countries, which do not necessarily have the
money to operate cultural institutions, to promote themselves culturally and
linguistically. Existing European Info-Points would be incorporated into the
Houses. Citizens would therefore be able to find out about their rights, EU
institutions, and what Europe is doing. One way of bringing Europe closer to its
citizens means allowing citizens and elements of civil society to play an active
role in those decisions taken on the European level which concern them directly.
This means allowing for a meeting space to be used by all organizations and
individuals which have an interest in taking Europe forward by contributing their
ideas. Those Europeans who want to be exposed further to the possibilities,
which Europe offers, should have at their disposal an information centre on
employment. We believe that it is essential to promote worker mobility by
allowing citizens to have the possibility, not only to gather information, but also to
apply for jobs for which they are suited in countries which are not their own. In
keeping with the same logic, we actively support the creation of a European
Agency for Education and Information. Our goal is to increase student mobility
by making it possible for all Europeans who want to to spend part of their study
time in another European country.
To help promote our last point, and to encourage individual initiatives, we
recommend that the current grants for cultural projects and education be made
available through the network of Houses of Europe. While we realize that it would
be impossible for every city, town, and village to have a House of Europe, we
believe that they should nonetheless be accessible to all. We therefore propose
that, to start, each region of Europe be home to a House, most likely in the
regional capital. High-street kiosks would then be set up in smaller cities to act
as relays. Finally, buses or trains would be used much like they are now for
travelling libraries in rural areas to bring Europe to everyone. We are also aware
of the impossibility for the staff to be experts in all topics concerning Europe;
therefore, we favour the creation of several European-wide centres; one for
Rights and Employment, and another for Education and Information. Employees
of the regional Houses or of the Kiosks could simply refer to one of these centres
when the information asked is beyond their knowledge. In this way, they could
then still provide any information to anyone.