Emily
O’Riley, the new European Ombudsman hosted an interactive event on 4th March
inviting citizens and European organisations to put items on the EU-wishlist,
issues to deal with during the campaign for EU elections and in the next
European Parliamentary period. She was joined by José Manuel Barroso, the
president of the European Commission and Martin Schultz, the president of the
European Parliament, candidate elect for EC presidency by the European
Socialists. Reacting to EPA contribution Mr. Schultz agreed on the importance
of calling out to parents with policy messages that supports the future of
children on family level to raise awareness.
In the framework
of this really interactive event - while we learnt that in Swedish the word Ombudsman is a gender neutral phrase - the participants raised a number of burning
issues including youth unemployment, the effect of the economic crisis,
immigration, minorities, enlargement, mobility and even the Ukrainian crisis.
Still the most deliberated topic was the democratic deficit as well as the
mistrust and ignorance towards EU institutions.
Both Mr.
Barroso and Mr. Schultz articulated their wish to stop the ‘blame game’ namely
nationalising successes and europeanising failure. It means that when there is
a decision on EU-level that is favourable for a given country or goverment, the
respective prime ministers and governments communicate it as a personal success
of national politicians while an unfavourable decision is communicated as a
result of incompetence of European institutions. The importance of the core
policy of subsidiarity was also emphasised, especially in the context of
building trust towards the EU should be accompanied by building trust towards
national institutions as well as not waiting for solutions from the EU for all
problems.
The
democratic deficit is likely to result in a very peculiar European Parliament.
One expert offered their research results that at the moment they measure that
29% of seats at the EP will be taken by Euro-sceptic or anti-EU MEP’s. This
ratio may even be higher as the German decision to abolish a threshold at
elections is likely to favour these kinds of parties.
One
instrument to increase trust was identified to be forcing everybody taking part
in stakeholder involvement activities to register at the Transparency Register
EPA has already subscribed to. Answering a question on transparency Ms. O’Riley
touched the delicacy of transparency especially when there is a heavy political
discussion going on, but concluded that because of the democratic deficit it is
necessary.
She also
highlighted the importance of having some kind of a positive personal
experience with the EU to have a positive attitude towards the Union.
Mr. Schultz
emphasised the peculiarity of the campaign on the forthcoming EU elections,
namely that institutions are trying to send messages on the importance of vote
linked to the importance of EU institutions. The same kind of mobilisation on
national level would be rather strange.
There was the
possibility to raise the voice of parents at the event reacting to this. I was
asking for messages towards parents on what MEP candidates and their European
political groups would do for the future of children as parents and
grandparents, about 60-70% of all voters according to my wild guess would be
ready to act and go to the polls for their own children. At the same time it is
very important to formulate the messages so that a voting parents can really
understand how the planned policy measures effect their personal efforts to
raise their children and not only to learn about some general concepts.
Martin
Schultz answered me by quoting the example of his own parents in the post-war
period when financial support was not available for families. He emphasised
that all people are ready to follow a lead and even to sacrifice if it is for
the future of their own children. In my interpretation he underlined my
argument very heavily.
I’m looking
forward to the messages of MEP candidates as well as EC President Candidates
that can be forwarded to parents so that they feel their vote will affect the
lives of their children by influencing EU politics. While as the only
representative of parents on EU-level EPA we are well aware of the importance
of the forthcoming EU elections, the only way to forward this message to
grassroot parents is to disseminate the plans of political groups that
influence the lives of different parents. As parents is probably the most
heterogeneous group of people in the world with different needs and issues, I
hope diverse political groups will have a colourful palette of issues that
parents can choose from.
Eszter Salamon
president
EPA
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