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Politeia Newsletter 40 - December 2005
The national debates that determine European policy making are often hard to follow for outsiders. Do we know why France turned down the constitution or what people in Ireland think of Turkey’s accession to the European Union? We are quick to assume anti-European tendencies behind the French ‘Non,’ and xenophobe responses when it comes to Turkey’s possible EU-membership, but are such assumptions warranted? In this issue of Politeia, we learn that the far right in France actually opposed the European constitution because it allegedly failed to adequately protect ‘the European identity’, while the far left was campaigning for a ‘pro-European no.’ And in Poland, the question of Turkey’s accession proves to be perceived of as a mere spin-off of the debate about EU-membership for the Ukraine. While the national debates on European issues might be a bit invisible at times, the European public debate is almost completely non-existent obviously. Politeia might have a role to play there. In the second section of this issue, we look back with one of the founding fathers of the Politeia network on what the past might be able to teach us, and we look forward to what the future might have in store for us.
Krijn Peter Hesselink, Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, Amsterdam
When President Chirac announced the date for the referendum on the constitution of the European Union in the beginning of March 2005, many of the politicians regarded this a mere formality. The constitution would be of technical interest for experts and specialists only. After a public debate of unprecedented dimension and intensity and a turnout of voters of nearly 70%, the referendum was won by the ‘No’ side with a comfortable 54.9% support on May 29, 2005. How did this new enthusiasm of the French people for the topic of the European Union develop in only three months?
Important decisions in the European Union are often taken without much public debate. Only when the consequences of such decisions are being felt by the public do they suddenly start protesting. Thus, hardly anyone outside of Brussels seemed to care a bit when the decision was made to swap most Western European currencies for the Euro, but when the Euro was actually introduced it met with great resentment. And much of the opposition to the European constitution focused on previous treaties that hadn’t aroused much interest when they were first formulated. We wondered whether the same might happen with the accession of Turkey. Therefore we asked some European partner organisations about the issue. We wanted to know to what extent there was a public debate on the matter in their country. What are the prevalent views? And are public views reflected in government policy? We found out that the debate is not very heated generally. But the arguments for and against are quite surprising at times. Who would have expected the Ukraine to be of any importance in the matter, as proves to be the case in Poland?
Turkey should enjoy a ‘privileged partnership’ with the European Union claimed Angela Merkel. She made opposition to Turkey’s membership the flagship of her foreign policies during the election campaign. The scepticism about Turkish membership of the European Union is not only manifested through the German Christian Democrats. Germany’s citizens point to insurmountable cultural differences and diverging historical perspectives too and claim these could make integration of the new member state impossible. Sarah Schaefer, Greg Austin and Kate Parker have tried to analyse the matter in their recent report Turks in Europe: Why we are afraid?
The discussion about the apparent need for a European identity is generally conducted by people with a strong European focus, that is by people who have already developed a distinct European identity for themselves at least professionally. They tend to treat the necessity of the European project as a given, the main challenge for them being how to involve the European people, with their still predominantly national identities, in the project. By contrast, people with a more national focus tend to simply ignore the whole issue. As a consequence, the various national perspectives on the supranational European identity have been somewhat overlooked until recently.
Since a successful conference in 1995, the Politeia Network for Citizenship and Democracy in Europe has been active in the field of (European) citizenship. The partner organisations of Politeia jointly organised quite a few conferences since then and have been active in the maintenance of the website www.politeia.net and this Politeia Newsletter. However, the remaining members of the board of Politeia decided earlier this year to formally dissolve the network in order to be able to revitalise it or build a completely new one with (new) partner organisations.
As one of the founding fathers of Politeia, Ruud Veldhuis believed initially that the network might be able to help its member organisations in acquiring EU projects. Now that he has left Politeia, he has to admit the network has never really succeeded in fulfilling that promise. Meanwhile Ruud himself has obtained quite some European experience. He tells about two projects for which he sought European funds. One was a success. The other was a failure.
In Germany and in Austria for the coming spring is planned an action to introduce to citizens a wide range of projects about political education, human rights education and other themes connected with democracy.
Editors:
- Ivo Hartman (Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, the Netherlands)
- Judith Baltus (Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, the Netherlands)
- Krijn Peter Hesselink (Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, the Netherlands)
Contributors:
- Klaus Bachmann (Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Poland)
- Paula Clancy (Thinktank for Action on Social Change, Ireland)
- Georgy Ganev (Centre for Liberal Strategies, Bulgaria)
- Christoph Lietmann (Humboldt University, Germany)
- Chantal Mairesse (Humboldt University, Germany)
- Katarzyna Mlynczak (Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, Poland)
- Ruud Veldhuis (the Netherlands)
- Ladislav Venys (Center for Democracy and Free Enterprise, Czech Republic)
Contributions for the next issue can be sent (preferably by e-mail and in Word) before the 1st of March 2006 to:
Politeia Newsletter, Prinsengracht 915, 1017 KD Amsterdam
tel: +31 20 5217600, fax: +31 20 6383118
e-mail: info@politeia.net, Internet: www.politeia.net
Next issue: March 2006
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