Creating the European public sphere - Europeanisation of the political party system: our task for the coming years.

Today’s challenges deserve a coherent response from the Institutions that govern the world’s largest internal market. Euro-barometers show that voters also demand European action on climate, energy and security.

The EU is the level to address these challenges. National parties should be honest about the fact that it is at that level where solutions should be found. We believe political parties should organise themselves at the level where major political issues need to be solved.

The recent EP-elections showed a low turnout of voters. Voters have little enthusiasm for the political level that is responsible for the solution of their key problems. We believe this turnout was caused by national political parties campaigning with two struggling souls in their breast: one soul that knows that we need to Europeanise to solve today’s problems and the other soul that tries to stick to its national focus. The resulting campaigns lack a convincing message to inspire voters.

While the national political sphere is losing relevance, we see a slow development of a European public sphere matching the increasing relevance of the European Union. How can we develop a European public sphere?

The European political party system is fledging. Rather an informal grouping than a formal system of disciplined structures. We believe this is a missing link in European integration, that needs to be faced. Steps in this regard have been made, more should be made.

A major step was a reference to European political parties in the Treaty of Maastricht. A second step was the introduction of an EU Regulation on funding European political parties and foundations. National liberal parties should use this opportunity to strengthen the bonds within the European liberal family.

Europeans face hard times. They need political parties that work on solutions at the level where solutions need to be found. That is why we need to develop European parties.

European voters should be informed. Sharing of political thinking should not be held back by national boundaries. Voters deserve to be informed about liberal views. ELDR and its political foundation, the European Liberal Forum, address this deficiency by cooperating with national parties and liberal think tanks and by conveying the liberal message to voters, even in those countries where there are no liberal parties.

A next step should be introducing a trans-national list for a portion of the seats in the EP. Liberal MEP Andrew Duff will submit a proposal, which would create the possibility for all EU-citizens to vote for a European list.

Will it be possible to create a pan-European democracy in a European Union with so many languages? We believe it is! There is much more Europe than the skeptics are aware of. The internal market is already so much part of our life! Europe amazes when we notice young people studying all over Europe! In Europe, what seemed impossible, has often become possible.

European political parties should come about. If the proposal for European lists is adopted, a new impetus could come about. We campaign for pan-European political participation. Please, join our campaign and let’s create European political sphere.

By: Miguel Duarte, Lisbon; Thomas Kleininger, Bucharest; Emmanouil Manoledakis, Brussels-Athens; Roel Martens, Rotterdam; Alexander Plahr, Düsseldorf

If you’re interested in the idea of the creation of a European public sphere and/or would like to support this initiative by individual European liberals, please contact Roel Martens

Thanks to the European Commission for the use of the image

Tags: democracy, European public sphere

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 11:31 and is filed under Campaigns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.