At the end of April I began my quest. My aim was to interview all the persons who were heading the list of the European Elections and that of every Belgian party with a realistic chance at seats in the Parliament. I contacted Groen! (Flemish green party), Ecolo (Wallonian green party), PS (Wallonian socialists), sp.a (Flemish socialists), SLP (Flemish socialists with liberal touch) Open Vld (Flemish liberals), the coalition MR-FDF (Wallonian liberals), Vlaams Belang (ultra right Flemish nationalists), N-VA (Flemish nationalists), Lijst Dedecker (Flemish liberal nationalistic party), CD&V (Flemish christen democrats) and CDH (Wallonian christen democrats). Of the twelve parties eight replied with answers. What’s striking is that both the whole traditional liberal family (Open Vld & MR-FDF) en the christen democratic family (CD&V & CDH) didn’t reply. Open-Vld, MR-FDF en CD&V are all mayor players in the Belgian political landscape, their top candidates for Europe were all big names (Guy Verhofstadt, Louis Michel & Jean-Luc Dehaene), apparently they didn’t need the free publicity. My ultimate goal was to try and make some conclusion that’s why I asked all of them the same questions.
Six of the eight politicians that replied were Flemish, of that four are ex-members of Volksunie, a party which no longer exists but now lives on in two separate parties: N-VA(Flemish nationalists) and SLP(Flemish socialists with liberal touch). I was especially surprised to see that Bart Staes of Groen! also belonged to the Volksunie in the old days. It makes me kind of curious to know how many Flemish politicians have their roots in this party.
The youngest candidate I questioned was Kathleen Van Brempt of sp.a (the Flemish socialists) she was 39. All the others are round and about 50-years-old. It’s clear that the parties choose to put forward people with life experience and political experience, but not all have experience at European level.
On the question of what there 3 main goals were, there were no surprises. Socially orientated parties wanted to work on social matters, Greens on green matters, nationalist parties laid focus on issues connected to Flanders, …
Tomorrow, at the 7th of June there are also regional elections in Belgium. One of my questions was whether their regional programme was very different from their European programme. Almost every party replied that the topics were more or less the same, but proposals were applied to the European level. The PS, the Wallonian socialist, were the only ones to put forward an united European programme. They have maid the programme of the Party of European Socialists (PES) their European programme.
On the question why people must vote for them there were no real original answers: hard worker, a lot of experience and of course because of their unique programme.
I wanted to test how deep the parties’ love and hate relationship with Europe is by asking which principle of the EU should be changed and which can’t ever be touched. As suspected two out of the three nationalist parties answered that the principle of subsidiarity is holy but not yet enough applied by the Union. Another popular answer was multilingualism. Things they would change was to give more power to the European Parliament (twice), more attention for social matters, the abolishment of the veto right (twice), downsizing of the European institutions, the abolishment of the monthly move to Strasbourg, … all were expectable answers. But I was surprised to see that the demand for the abolishment of the monthly move to Strasbourg only came up once. We are in a financial crisis you would think that saving money would be more on their mind.
Some parties are radically against the entry of Turkey in the Union. Others are in favour but hold of until the Turkey meets all conditions that were put forward by the EU. None of the parties questioned were in favour of an immediate entry.
The one thing they all agreed on was that Belgians do underestimate the importance of Europe and its Parliament. The politicians blame the media because they don’t report enough about it but at the same time they admit that it’s also the fault of the politicians themselves. Because when the EU takes popular measures the politicians take credit for it, but when unpopular measures are taken they shove the blame in the shoes of the EU. Oddly enough no one blames the citizens for just not having interest and I think that’s part of the problem too.
Finally I asked all candidates who they wanted to see in the seat of Barroso when they didn’t have to take the election results into account. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (PES) is the only one who was named more than once. Not only Jean-Claude Marcourt from the Wallonian socialist party (PS) nominated him, but also Isabelle Durant from Ecolo (the Wallonian greens) favours him. A bit of a surprise because I would have thought she would chose Daniel Cohn-Bendit seeing that Ecolo belongs to the Greens / European Free Alliance (EFA) group. But not all were brave enough to put a face and name on their favourite candidate. I’m just glad that eight of the twelve were brave enough to answer.
(7 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)
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Hey, Eveline.
I just wanted to say that there is sometimes an inclination to include people under 30 within certain parties though. Of course, a lot of lists of consecutives (opvolgers) are pensioned people and (near-retired) officials. But there’s young blood and people in their mid-30 too if you have a look.
So, in a sense I don’t concur entirely when you state that ‘It’s clear that the parties choose to put forward people with life experience and political experience’. I think there’s a general lack of interst among certain lower social categories to engage politically. Some find it too time-consuming, or are downright skeptics who are sick of the political ‘theatre’ of half-baked promises and mud-throwing. It surprises me that a lot of youngsters (on the S-PL list for instance) are either well-educated social/political scientists or either pursuing an educational/pedagogical career (teacher, kindergarten tutor,…).
But I’m not saying I’m always in favor of this, considering the ‘political dynasties’ that are perceived at times (cf. JJ De Gucht, Bruno Tobback, Maya Detiège…) I was shocked to find out JJ De Gucht was in fact a directly elected Senator, as I was under the impression he was one of the 11 ‘co-opted’ Senators. Stunning what a support base some people ‘buy’ for themselves.
Did you attend a lot of debates too, apart from personal interviews? The European Movement (whom I’m a member of) organized some great debate nights all over Flanders.
Good luck on your journalism studies! One big word of advice: start on a book, it’s the only widely accepted way to gain authority within investigative journalism!
Groetjes
Also (if you’re interested), do have a look at my article series (3 parts) and perhaps confront them with your views and analysis? thanks!
http://we.thinkaboutit.eu/profiles/blogs/the-purpose-and-duty-of-the
Hi
I agree there are some people under thirty and in their mid thirties who have a lot of experience or/and a lot of potential. It would have been interesting to have a younger candidate with fresh ideas and fresh answers.
I’m also not a big fan of political dynasties, but I do think they deserve the chance to prove themselves. If they are not made for politics they wont last long even when you’re the son or daughter of a minister or the man with 800.000 preference votes.
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t attend any European debates physically. I know it isn’t the same but I did follow a lot of debates on the European elections on television and read articles on it. For instance I thought it was very funny when Annemie Neyts compared Europe with football in MO Magazine. She said: “If the media would report as little on football as they do on Europe, then no one would get that game.” I think the problem is bigger than that. The working of the European Union is more than a little bit harder to understand than a game were players kick a ball, run after it and try to score a goal. I think it was a lame attempt to put the blame on the media, while the politicians are also not totally free of guilt.
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