Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-101"
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"en.20071128.16.3-101"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my view the biggest challenge facing the European Union at the moment is the total lack of democratic participation in the decision making process. The European institutions are increasingly distrusted – quite rightly in my opinion, as it happens – by our citizens who do not accept that many very important decisions which directly affect their lives are made in ivory towers which are no longer monitored by any means or person. No democratic basis, moreover, exists for these decisions. I will give two examples.
First example: the text of the new European treaties will soon be signed in Lisbon. Everyone knows that it is a barely-altered version of the European Constitution. Mr Zapatero himself has said of it that not one substantial component has been changed. Well now, that text was voted down by democratic referendum in France and in the Netherlands, but that has all been laughed off now. The best-case scenario, as it happens, is that we may perhaps get another vote from time to time to keep the Eurocrats happy, but actual democratic statements made by means of referendum are being thrown out with the trash. In this way, I fear that Europe is increasingly heading towards becoming a small club of the type which, if it governs a super-state, will tolerate no participation and consequently can no longer really be called a democracy. The same applies, as a matter of fact, to the way in which the possible accession of Turkey to the European Union is being handled. Our citizens do not want it, quite the reverse, as Turkey is not a European country – not culturally, not geographically, not religiously, not in any way at all – but, nevertheless, the Commission and the Council are taking no account of the opinion of the majority of our citizens on the matter. Instead of a debate about the future of the Union, we should have a debate about the convalescence of democracy in the institutions of the European Union."@en1
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