Site of the Month:
“EULEX Kosovo” is the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo
European (general)
As the media officer for the Independence/Democracy Group in the European Parliament I was delighted to be invited to provide a discourse on precisely that question. OK, so you are in the European Parliament the most avowedly federalist of the European institutions and you, as a group set your face against further integration. Aren't you barking up the wrong tree?
According to the world’s biggest on-line encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, "Euroscepticism has become a general term for opposition to the process of integration". This definition reflects quite well the general misconception floating around the word "euroscepticism". "Eurosceptics" are found to be leftists, rightists, ecologists, libertarians, nationalists and even federalists. It is not rare, indeed, to hear critics about a lack of transparency or democracy in Europe among the very pro-European group of federalists.
27 March 2007
Last weekend (24-15 March) it was exactly 50 years ago that the Treaty of Rome was signed. While national leaders of the European Union members countries celebrated this in Berlin (see: http://europa.eu/50/), many other events were organised at the same time. One of these was the Conference on the Future of Europe, aimed at more involvement of citizens, initiated by different organisations in combination with individual members of national parliaments; another was the first EU Youth Summit, held in Rome.
Political populism is on the rise. Traditional divisions between left-wing and right-wing parties grow increasingly blurred, and in their stead the division between the people and the political elites becomes ever more important for the understanding of political dynamics. These processes are particularly visible in some of the new Eastern European member states, like Bulgaria, Poland, and Slovakia, where the parties born in the first ten years of the transition period gradually give way to new-comers, who put personal charisma, nationalistic vigour, and anti-corruption rhetoric in the place of traditional party programmes and ideologies. Is this development dangerous, and if so, which aspects of liberal democracy will be most affected by it?
If you want to subscribe to our free newsletter, fill in your e-mail address here