Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen,

I feel very privileged to be asked to speak here tonight on this very interesting and important topic. I suppose that I am in a good position to try to answer this question, as we had a very active public debate in Ireland last year about the EU during the campaign before the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. In my opinion, based on the observations I made during that debate, the main problem relating to the issue of European democracy is the fact that many EU citizens feel alienated and disengaged from the overall political project.

What are currently the most profound challenges for European citizens on the way to a European democracy and how did we get here?
To begin with, they do not understand its complex institutional architecture and how decisions are arrived at within its institutions. They are unfamiliar with most of the EU’s senior politicians and officials, and therefore the human or personal dimension of EU politics is lacking. And so the remote, impersonal institutions of the EU fail to command the trust or the affection of citizens in the way that national politicians and national institutions do.
EU citizens are also suspicious about the EU’s overall purpose and aims. There are fears that the project eventually aims to create a single European Superstate which will result in the effective disappearance of the nation-state as they know it. As many citizens are very attached to their national identities, they are resistant to the idea that the EU may be attempting to usurṕ the nation-state and to replace it with new European federal structures.
Another difficulty faced by the EU is that it often does not take credit for or publicise its many achievements or the benefits that it confers on citizens of Member States. As a result, citizens tend to take these benefits for granted or to attribute them to their national governments.
Fourthly, many EU citizens appear to believe that the EU institutions are remote and distant from them, and that they are not able to influence the EU’s decision making. In general, they feel that the quality of the ́́European democracy they experience is inferior to the democracy which they enjoy at the level of the nation-state.
And if we are honest, we will have to admit that the EU has, from its inception, been a political project driven largely by  a political and academic elite. While it is clear that the EU would probably not exist today were it not for that elite, there is now a need to connect the project to a much greater extent with the citizens. The Treaty of Lisbon described the EU as a “Union of States and of Peoples.” To date, the EU has been much more of a “Union of States” than a “Union of Peoples,” and I believe that this has to change, and for good reason. As we know, there has been a breakdown in trust between citizens and their politicians in the West, which is due to corruption and other scandals. While the representative democracy is still the dominant political model, at the same time a new paradigm of participatory democracy is beginning to emerge. Citizens are less willing to leave it to their elected politicians to advance their interests within the political system, at least not without greater levels of scrutiny and oversight. Citizens want a much greater level of direct involvement in influencing policy-making within the EU institutions and in monitoring the decisions taken by those institutions.
Who are we?  What are our resources, strengths and capabilities on which Europeans should rely and which can be mobilised?
Firstly, the EU is a community of nations with a shared or common set of values. These values were very clearly set out in the preamble to the Lisbon Treaty and they include democracy, freedom, the rule of law, equality (including gender equality), and respect for minorities and for diversity. These values are very powerful forces around which EU citizens can be mobilised.
Secondly we are a political community that has been characterized by a commitment to a strong “Social Model” and high levels of environmental protection.
We are also a political bloc that exercises considerable influence on the global stage. We are the world’s largest trading bloc and will certainly play an important role in any possible reform of the global financial system, WTO, UN and IMF. We also are the world’s largest donor of international aid, therefore we can exercise considerable influence over the countries of the developing world.
We belong to a political community which has decision making structures that facilitate coordinated political responses among 27 Member States. This is a big advantage given the new global challenges that face us-climate change, humanitarian disasters, energy shortages, etc. We also are a political community with a shared history of conflict and warfare which should inform our engagement with the rest of the world and help us to avoid repeating old mistakes.
Finally we have a citizenry which enjoys high levels of literacy and education, health, mortality, prosperity, security and freedom of movement.

How can we move forward and what do we need to do?

1.            We need to give citizens more information and education about the EU and how it functions. I believe that a specific EU Information Service should be set up in each Member State to fulfill this function. In order to ensure that the information/education is transmitted in a way that respects the cultural specificities of each Member State, a reputable body within each state should be given this responsibility rather than one of the EU institutions, such as the Commission.

2.            An EU-wide cultural programme should be designed and implemented which would emphasise the European values on which the community is based, as well as cultivating a sense of European identity and how this reinforces rather than replaces national identity.

3.            We need to develop an inspiring narrative about Europe and help citizens to identify to a much greater extent with the aims and purpose of the European Union. Opportunities should also be provided to citizens to engage in debate about where they would like to see the EU go (i.e. its eventual destination).

4.            We need to mobilise EU civil society and give it an opportunity to enjoy a level of democratic participation in EU policy-making that is not available through national structures (i.e. online policy consultations, EU-wide plebicites, citizen initiatives, EU-wide referenda, etc.).

5.            We need to hold more EU-wide elections.

6.            We need to give EU institutions a more human face and ensure that senior EU officials regularly appear in front of national parliaments and/or their committees, appear at public events, etc.

7.            The remit of public service broadcasters needs to be broadened so that they provide an agreed and balanced coverage of EU affairs. Incentives could be given to commercial broadcasters to provide a similar level of coverage of EU affairs.

8.            EU institutions need to publicise their achievements to a much greater extent.
Clearly we need to use a lot more imagination to help EU citizens to connect with the political project that is the EU, and we need to move towards promoting much greater opportunities for democratic participation by citizens in the life of the Union.

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European Affairs by Deirdre