Margot Wallstrom and the concept of ‘debate’ October 12, 2007
Posted by franklittle in European Politics, European Union.trackback
Margot Wallstrom, is the EU Communications Commissioner. She is also, for me at least, a valued source of entertainment. Last July, we reported that she had started an initiative to ’structure the debate’ around the proposed EU Constitution, now renamed the Reform Treaty. She said it was important that the ‘Treaty’ not to be a ‘project for the political elite, citizens have to be there’.
This is a Treaty for the EU’s citizen-subjects who were never asked whether they wanted one. A Treaty drafted behind closed doors by officials no-one in their own countries, let alone Europe, has ever heard of who have had one too many lunches with the European Roundtable of Industrialists.
Some debate.
Wallstrom’s latest scheme is to have a co-ordinated ratification of the Reform Treaty. Not, I hasten to add lest people suspect an outbreak of democracy within the EU, through a Europe wide referendum, but “…for national parliaments – at least for some – to launch ratification procedures around the same times next Spring.”
Wallstrom thinks that by arranging for parliaments across Europe to approve a Treaty their citizens have not been allowed to vote on or consulted about this will “..strengthen awareness of European issues and interest and promote a true European debate.”
In reality, it’s nothing more than another EU gimmicky photo-op designed to, above all other things, avoid debate by pointing to shiney press conference centres and the release of balloons. As it stands, only Ireland is certain to have a referendum. Britain and Denmark remain outside possibilities. The citizen-subjects of the rest of Europe can take part in the ‘debate’ by watching Wallstrom’s carefully choreographed ratifications.
Lord help us, they’ll probably broadcast it on bebo.
I find your posts on this subject genuinely disturbing. I’m considerably more pro-EU than you, as you might have gathered, but… I actually find, not so much the votes, bad enough as they are, but the fluff around them as described by you as disturbingly lacking in any sense of just how far the gulf between citizens and EU actually is. It’s a real education.