On this Community it seems as if everybody is ‘Th!nking About It’: the upcoming EP elections. However, it is my belief that ‘Joe the Plumber’, ‘Jean le Plombier’ and ‘Johannes der Wasserinstallateur’ maybe know about the EU, but do not really care about it. A historically low number of voters is being expected. Therefore, in the run-up to the elections, I would like to present a number of portraits on my blog; trying to include a little bit of the ‘vox populi’ into the discussion, and maybe get them to think about it too…
Location: De Inktpot, Maastricht
Name: Desiree van Druenen
Age: 50
Occupation: Shopkeeper
Vote in the referendum on a European Constitution: yes/no
***Why the EU is good.***overall european harmonization of the rules*stronger competitive position versus usa and china*the euro*open borders***Why the EU is bad.***a lot of rules and regulations*loss of national identity and sovereignty*money flows from the richer, to the poorer member states of the union*too much bureaucracy*the european parliament continuously moving from brussels to strasbourg and back***
What will you be doing on the 4th of June?
Probably that is the day of the European elections. I guess the last ones were already five years ago.
What do you expect, will be the ‘hot issues’ of these elections?
To be honest, I haven’t really thought about it yet. I think the economical crisis will be high on all agenda’s; both national and international. And which countries will be admitted or refused to join the Union.
What do you personally think should be the ‘hot issues’ of these elections?
I think I have just mentioned the most important issues, I have not thought of any other issues that will be left out of the campaigns but are nonetheless important.
Who will you vote for?
I will vote for the Partij van de Arbeid.
Do you know who their party-leader will be for the EP-elections?
No… I have spoken to some lady from Amsterdam who was running, but actually I have not heard who was elected to become the leader in the end.
Do you know which viewpoints their programme contains?
I think… ehm… no. I do not know. I have not read it. I haven’t visited the website yet.
(22 votes, average: 3.45 out of 5)
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Nice subject Mats. I’m sure you will be able to collect many stories like this one. That may not nice from an editorial point of view, it does reveal the enormous gap between Brussels and Europe, or between politicians and living people.
Nice Mats - This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see more of on the platform. Do you think maybe next time you could bring a video camera with you and upload something?
It would be great to have her audio along with your transcript.
A series of 5 or so of these would be AWESOME!
Ruth, I do not have a camera, but I do have audio; also on this last interview although it is in Dutch. I will check if the quality is good enough to post it here.
Furthermore, I have also contacted a number of the European party leaders of the Dutch political parties with similar questions.
cool idea, Mats! for a shopkeeper she’s remarkably well-informed - not to be demeaning to shopkeepers incidentally.
Looking forward to multimedia versions of this sort of post! And as for camera: doesn’t your uni have some sort of service for this, where you might borrow something?