PES Manifesto

An EU representing our people and not our States

Publié jeudi 22 mai 2008 à 09h23
par carlosmoret (vu 652 fois et 0 commentaires)

Europe, this beautiful experience of a better place to live in.

We inherit the word 'democracy' for our political system, and heritage is what Europe is all about. The word comes to us from the Republic of Athens, but modern day democracies took a different form.

There was the DDR and there is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Is that what we want? A chorous will answer 'no!'

It is the "democracy" of member states that we inherit.

Is the Mao-Mao war or the indepencence wars of Madagascar or Algeria what we want? The Warsaw ghetto? No, although that is our heritage. Is it sending our troops to foreign lands to impose 'democracy' with missels? Is Abou-Graïb or Guantanamo the way we want to reach domestic peace?

The principles of Modern Democracy are probably good, but in practice, 'La Raison d’Etat' those reasons that the ruler invoques when it abuses of it’s power, puts aside our fundamental rights for a superior interest, that of the State. And it trickles down to petty abuses of individual rights in the hands of a street policeman.

Fortunately, the EU has rather clean hands, not so the individual Member States that arrive with blood stained hands. And I don’t just mean those who joined recently, I also have in mind the Founding States.

In the aftermath of WWII, that last battle of the European Civil War, the European experience starts whith the will to finish with war. War is the opposite of peace, and today, domestic peace is what we want.

Can’t we imagine an EU in which democracy means the utmost respect of human rights? A place in which Big Brother watches only to make sure that those rights are respected?

Europe must be an example. We don’t want to impose our values through force, but by simply creating the desire of others to join us in our ways.

To start with, we have to work hard to democratize our European decision taning institutions. The new treaty goes in that direction, but it isn’t enough:

What do we need the Council for? It was created when member states were mostly sovereign. Doesn’t the Parliament fullfill the legislative needs?

We need to have a Commission that represents the European people, not the European nation states. The new treaty goes in that direction, we should take it further:

a. A head of the Commission democratically elected.
b. A High Commissioner of Foreign affairs so that Europe speaks of one voice in international affairs.
c The trade commissioner is already in place.
d. All other commisioners to be elected, representing the idelogical balance of the Parliament, not a balance of member states.

We should act in order to democratize World institutions so that the will of people is represented and not that of Nation States. To start with, in the UN, we should have a European representation, not that of individual member states. We already have one in the WTO.

By having a democratic European Union, we can set the example so that the World follows. By making Europe a better place to live in, we can set the example so that the World follows.

Tags: citoyens, démocratie, ONU