Nope it’s not a football club, although the name could very well be used for one (maybe based in Brussels?). It is my perception of how the EU should move to the upcoming parliamentary elections.
European Parliament
On Monday, December 1st, social democratic and socialist parties adopted the PES manifesto for the 2009 European elections in a spirit of unity constituting a slap in conservatives’ open market faith, stepping on the current global crisis.
FT’s blog post successfully titled “Europe’s socialists fight under the banner: “The Free Market Has Failed”“
But this is not the point I’m trying to make. What I am trying to stress out here is how important is the reaction of the conservative, as well as all other grouped parties, across the EU and how important people’s reaction is towards elections.
It is a great opportunity to send a message to the new US administration, Russia as well as the waking powers (China and India). Despite the difficulties faced with the treaty of Lisbon, the EU should now more than ever demonstrate signs of unity. EU citizens should value the election of the parliament members equally (if not more important) to the national ones. In that spirit I would expect to see members of the conservative parties across the union acting in a similar manner, together. I would very much like to see pan-EU campaigns on matters that spread across all 27 member states (regulations on environment, health, immigration, education, economy, social care, defense, etc.) and the PES manifesto is a great start (e.g. the hot topic of minimum wages).
Moreover, I would like to see on a local basis (per member state) more debates on the aforementioned EU issues, arguments on how candidates are planning to act before and after their potential election.
As an example i will refer to a Greek candidate; I would like to hear them explaining how they would deal with regulatory issues on agriculture and one could pick any particular example in this topic. Starting from the campaign already I would like to see how well informed they are (I guess that’s essential), how they have already started building communication channels with candidates from other member states that share same or similar national interests (or perhaps ones that could potentially benefit from strategic alliances on particular issues -it’s a transaction, but that’s politics-), how they are planning to achieve a constructive balance between national interests, achievable goals -given Greece’s voting power- and interrelations with other members in the parliament. In other words, have a plan and promote one’s campaign framed under an EU platform of ideas, regardless of the ideological perspective (socialist, leftist, conservative, independent, etc.) instead of hiding under a local party’s umbrella which very broadly expresses wishful thinking.
Imagine that same Greek candidate expressing openly their support to a French candidate illustrating how they both share common ideas and how they could both cooperate within the EU parliament, thus activating the political groups (currently 7 existing groups) on a national level (this could be a catharsis for local national parties too). But that’s what the socialist did with the PES manifesto, that’s what the conservative parties will probably also do and we could indeed be moving to them being more and more active shifting from the national parties, why not?
The bottom line is that citizens of the EU member states should now more than ever focus on electing people expressing ideas supported by unity and cooperative spirit between members states backed up by realistic plans of actions. Especially in Greece (a neverboring part of EU), nowadays facing one political scandal after the other, people should not ignore the upcoming elections and should address them with even more consiousness than the national elections. After all, Greek laws and regulations on several issues are overrulled by EU regulations and directives (just like any other member state), therefore, it is important we stand up to our responsibility and cast our vote as EU citizens.
