Published Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 14:31
by
yoan.abiven 
in New Social Europe (732 views and 1 comments)
The hopes for a better European future are stalling.
In that context, what are the urgent matters that need dealing
with?
First and foremost, the European Union can measure its legitimacy by its usefulness. In order for Eurosceptics, starting with the French, to think of Europe as indispensable, Europe must become indispensable once again.
In the short term, if Europe wants to be 'desirable' again, it needs to tackle social insecurity. European citizens will renew their vows with the EU once the Union finds a coherent and effective answer to their present rightful claims to a protection of their way of life. This is not just a matter of communication or better explanation of its policies. The European construction suddenly stumbled precisely over the social dimension, at a time in which the century-old pillars of our social welfare were crumbling down in the apparent indifference of our political elites.
Today, in our search for a wide consensus over Europe, we should perhaps think that in order to deepen the Union, we should enlarge its mission to the social field as much as we should review its institutions.
This is all the more important that the European Union has a certain degree of legitimacy because it is such an example to others. The European Union is unique in its...
read morePublished Monday, March 3, 2008 at 14:30
by
yoan.abiven
in European democracy & diversity (1179 views and 4 comments)
At long
last, France has joined the group of sensible nations to have
ratified the Lisbon treaty!
This time though, it chose not to risk asking the French people
either through a vote or a referendum. Thus President Sarkozy
kept his electoral promise of choosing to go the parliamentary
way. And as if nothing had changed since the French rejection of
the constitutional treaty in 2005, all the 'narrow-minded
Frenchies' of back then rose up in arms more or less exactly as
last time. The campaign for the French presidential elections and
the 'forced' bipartisanship of that particular moment in time had
silenced them for a while.
The Socialist Party lost itself in its own contradictions,
thereby illustrating the old saying that if there is no solution,
then maybe there is no problem. This may account for the rebirth
of a true political centre in France. The Left has at least
remained united on one thing: it called for a new referendum,
some of its members so that they can relive the great feeling of
having said yes the first time, the others, of having said no, I
guess, but beyond that all Socialists have remained good friends
and comrades.
The tricky thing about this whole story is that those in favour
of a referendum are not totally wrong from the perspective of a
good democratic...
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