Europarties: Yes to primaries for EU Commission President 2014

Conor Slowey (Eurocentric) drew my attention to the campaign for the Party of European Socialists (PES), to which he dedicated a thoughtful post on The European Citizen blog: PES primaries and a Parliamentary EU.



This made me reread the blog entry by Jon Worth as well: Campaigning for a PES primary.



This time around, I went a little bit further. I checked the Campaign for a PES Primary website, launched by Desmond O’Toole, as well as the Facebook campaign page.

A short while ago, the Facebook Campaign for a PES Primary group had already gathered 590 members, among them a number of top Eurobloggers and citizens keen to build a more democratic European Union, such as Jon Worth, Valéry-Xavier Lentz, Laurence Modrego, Martin T. Teubner and Conor Slowey.

The campaigners make the following demands:

WE want to be involved in selecting the candidate who will lead our party in 2014.

WE want to make European democracy a reality for ordinary citizens.

WE demand the holding of primary elections, involving PES party members across Europe, to select our candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission.

I hope that all the activists of PES and members of the national social democratic and socialist parties join the Facebook group, and that the campaign is successful.

However, the party loyalists who framed the call limited the scope to members (“our party”).


As an independent outsider I hope that all constructive Europarties field candidates for the presidency of the European Commission ahead of the European Parliament election in 2014, and that they nominate their candidate through primaries.


I still value my independence to treat the political parties without second thoughts, while waiting for one Europarty (and its political foundation) to show enough leadership in EU affairs and interaction with citizens.

Although I do nothing to hide my belief in the need for a democratic and federal European Union, as a lawyer I serve entrepreneurs and individuals of all persuasions, so a party political label is not necessarily on the top of my personal agenda.



The invitation to join the campaign was one of my first experiences on Facebook, where I have taken my first tentative steps, having participated actively on Twitter for a few months before that.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.

European Union: Reform before enlargement

A little while ago this blog argued in EU: Enlargement fatigue? (1 April 2009) that the Lisbon Treaty may be an improvement compared to the Treaty of Nice, but it does not create an effective or democratic union.

In my opinion, the main fault of the French and German governments is not that they put a brake on EU expansion, but that they do not envision reform beyond the limited Lisbon Treaty.



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Busek interview

EurActiv’s 17 April 2009 interview with Erhard Busek illustrates the problems: Busek: Western Balkans should join EU as a block.



Busek finds that it is now difficult with 27 members to come to decisions: with 32 or more it will be even more difficult.

If the countries of the Western Balkans accede, their number of votes in the Council and the number of MEPs will be much greater than their proportion of the EU population.

Busek names this as a problem. But he sees that in this way, pressure is created for changing the systems in the European Union. Personally he is convinced that the current voting weight repartition, as well as the lack of qualified majority vote in most of the situations, is the real background of these hesitations. It has nothing to do with region, because it's completely clear for all member states that all the Western Balkan countries should become members of the EU.

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The Busek interview underlines the need for effective decision making and it at least touches upon one important aspect of democratic and fair representation, namely with regard to population numbers.


Ralf Grahn

European Union: Holy Alliance or robust and democratic?

The European Union stands at a crossroads. It can continue to emulate the Holy Alliance or it can transform itself into a robust and democratic union.

For the briefest of outlines on the Holy Alliance, read the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Alliance

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Robust means a union able to reform and to decide, without being frustrated by its own liberum veto (unanimity).

The tragicomic history of treaty reform shows how the European leaders have almost invented the ‘perpetuum mobile’, an unending sequence of failure.

Institutional reform is not navel-gazing, because it is a precondition for the ability to deliver common public goods still outside the effective reach of the European Union, for instance security.

Democratic means giving the citizens of the European Union the power to vote the legislators into and out of office and to set the course for the union in all questions European, through the composition of a politically accountable government.

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Perhaps the paternalistic order of the Lisbon Treaty deserves to fail, until the ‘Copernican revolution’ of democracy dawns on the European Council.

See the Wikipedia article ‘Copernican revolution’ on the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which placed Earth at the centre of the Universe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_revolution

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Two paradigm shifts to save the European project: Robust rules with the EU citizens at the centre.


Ralf Grahn