DEMOCRACY the missing topic here
Wed, 17/12/2008 - 00:14
DEMOCRACY the missing topic here
Of all the themes given for debate, why is European democracy missing? After the public disquiet about the way poltiicans have stifled the debate on the treateis, this seems an extraordinary attempt to manage public opinion. There are 20 or 30 topics listed but no request for reaction about how three countries can rejectin referendums what is practically the same document called either the Constitutional Treaty or the Treaty of Lisbon In many of the otehr countreis public opinion is rather negative about the attempted take-over by politicians to refuse to allow public opinion to be expressed. This is totally counter to the founding fathers attitude when they had major debates. (see schuman.info).
The politicans react as if nothing is happening. In fact both treaties will move the control of the European institutions further away from the citizen and place them in the hands of poltiicans and especially into the closed headquarters of party political machines. They will beenfit from extra funding. This is an antidemocratic move and should be discussed. These treaties will radically change the key institution of Europe, the Commission. It was the main innovation of the founding fathers. If the citizens are to give up their eligibility to become members of the Commission and ONLY party politicans are going to be allowed to become members some form of public debate is required. And a means to say Yes or No to moving from the present system to a political oligarchy is needed.
Quite right. And what's also missing is the necessary corollary of democracy, ie liberty. In the UK we not only suffer from the destruction of our civil liberties by our own government, we also have the EU imposing its restrictions upon us.
The EU is not simply undemocratic, it is positively anti-democratic. It lays down laws and regulations for itself which it then ignores when it suits. Hence the disgraceful behaviour towards Ireland with regard to the Lisbon Treaty.
And being specific on this point, why are we to be subjected to Soviet-style surveillance via Directive 2006/24/EC, the data retention act, which requires all ISPs to log and store details of all our telephone and internet activity? Does this not have relevance to privacy, freedom, business confidentiality, etc?
This 'consultation' will prove worthless if it doesn't allow room to discuss issues that are fundamental to the whole project.
I absolutely support this post and it's message.
If we are to have a constitution and president that people accept as their constitution and their leadership then we should be allowed to vote on their adoption and we should be allowed to have a say at the ballot box. Without them neither the EU nor any president or constitution they propose will never have any ligitimacy.
The Lisbon Treaty is undoubtedly a well crafted and probably effective document but it is a 400 page legal document than no-one will read other than legal experts and politicians.
We need democracy within the EU and we need a president and a constitution that we can all support.
Stephen Barrie Watters
I support this. The topic "Democracy" is missing, and should be added ASAP.
For some reasons, though, the button "Submit this as a proposal" does not do what I would expect of it (instead it asks me to create a new proposal - Bug? Feature?). Sadly, again, there is no contact information for this website...
And I got a "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_DOUBLE_ARROW, expecting ')' in /mnt/ha/webdisks/www/uk/sites/all/modules/htmLawed/htmLawed.module(125) : eval()'d code on line 1" on previewing this - the code of this web presense has some bugs in its intestines that need to be worked out, too.
Treczoks
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I am sorry you are experiencing difficulties in submitting this as a proposal and thank you for flagging this problem up. We are currently looking into it.
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You can find contact information in the "Who are we" section via the front page:
http://www.european-citizens-consultations.eu/uk/content/who-are-we
Dear Webmaster,
Thank you for looking into this. I had already found that "who we are" page, but I did not consider this the right address to contact the webmaster. I'd suggest that a "contact the webmaster" address or form should be made available to adress technical problems with the site.
Regarding the Bug: All "SUBMIT THIS AS A PROPOSAL"-Buttons on this page link to http://www.european-citizens-consultations.eu/uk/node/add/bs_proposition...
Dear Treczoks
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Thank you. If you have any further problems please email ecc09@involve.org.uk
Democracy is not just missing - what we have in its place is a sham.
It really is time for te european parliament to take a long hard look at what it is doing - replace the commission, and then become a real government that pursues democracy openly..not behind closed doors.
The EU is completely against democracy. The politicians who are pushing the EU know that if the people of Europe were given any say in how it evolves it would not have gotten past the stage of being the EEC. Economic co-operaton is fine, but political union? No.
Looks like we can all agree that the system is flawed. How can it be fixed when so many politicians regard democracy a threat to stability?