As first post I’d like to share a few quick thoughts about the controversy about the European elections which will most likely be more about national issues than European ones.
Well, I say, what did you expect? Is it so strange that exclusively national parties, registered with national laws and with members elected with national rules pursue only national interests instead of the European ones? I don’t think so.
This is the natural consequence of the fact that people can vote only for representatives from its own country, coming from the very same national parties, with the same symbols and agenda.
It’s crystal clear that in a situation like this the stage will be all for national issues, that people hope will be protected in Brussels. Only a few determined bunch of people (and candidates) is really committed to the European dream, pursuing not the agenda of its own country, but what’s best for the European Union.
Even the European Parliament groups are a sort of fake. The PSE, for example, reunites serious progressive parties from northern Europe with post-communist parties of southern Europe (take Italy as an example). Can you believe there’s an identity of ideal? I don’t.
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But is this positive? Shouldn’t it be different? Isn’t it our task (if there is something like this) as European bloggers to denounce this attitude of parties running for European elections with more or less national agendas?
Of course it’s not positive! My intent was to underline the fact that it’s pointless to discuss whether the elections are run on a national or european agenda, because it’s clear that’s national!
What we can do as bloggers is to promote a genuine European feeling among European citizens so that they request different voting rules for the EP.
I don’t know; should we force a European feeling upon the people, where there isn’t any?
The EU, for want of a better word, works. There are certainly far more secretive and probably more abusive supranational organizations out there. The principal reason why nobody knows anything about the workings of the EU is because it has yet to make a blunder so big that people would really care.
The common European identity needs to grow organically, we shouldn’t invent one because we feel it should be there. I, for one, am far more interested in seeing whether the member states can coexist in a loose confederation. So far, only the people with a true interest in European affairs get to talk about the EU, which is a valid state of affairs.