Identity

Instead of bringing regional officials to Brussels, the EU needs to bring Brussels to the regions. Local and regional bodies need to debate EU issues at home. Heather Grabbe and Stefan Lehne propose a solution to narrow the distance between the EU and the individual.

Before investing excessive hope in radical participatory solutions we need to re-examine established beliefs about democracy and sustainability and their mutual relationship.

A Federal Europe cannot come about solely through disparaging national identity. Rather, a Federal Europe needs to be built based around concepts that are understandable to citizens: democratic accountability, transparency and a refrain from simple centralisation.

The EU cannot be conceived of as a democracy in the traditional sense and its methods of making decisions to date has been ineffective and brought about a crisis of confidence. As the EU’s powers have grown, this problem has become more acute. What is needed is a more transparent form of democracy, with European Citizens given a means of deciding between competing visions and policies.

We need a new social contract based on the ideals of the American and French Revolutions, says Pierre Rosanvallon, whose recent book La société des égaux has attracted much attention in France and beyond. Rosanvallon, professor at the College de France, delivered the Jan Pato?ka Memorial Lecture at the iwm in November 2011. This article was originally published in the Institut für die Humane Wissenschaften.

The European Project lacks any significant ingredient of emotional bonding. In the absence of a “European soul”, the existing rational, bureaucratic structure is doomed to remain a distant presence for the citizens of Europe.