Strasbourg, 30/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - The internet and politics - a vast subject and the report the culture, science and education committee at the Council of Europe devoted to it does not claim to have covered everything. Nonetheless, it refuses to give up in the face of the complexity of an issue where different possible solutions appear full of future dangers.
During the debate on Wednesday 29 January, PACE members agreed that the internet is a marvellous tool but it also contains the worst in terms of dangers to fundamental rights, risk of terrorism, political manipulation etc.
Anne Brasseur, a Liberal MEP from Luxembourg, was the rapporteur on the text before becoming the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and she wrote: “We were warned that intervening by attempting to restrict freedoms on the web to safeguard these same freedoms is more dangerous than leaving the system, indeed the community of internet surfers, to find its own way of operating and the necessary correctives to tackle possible dangers. We also heard that control mechanisms for information flows and web content not only kill freedom but are also likely to be inefficient as a means of preventing real dangers. In a way, we will be faced with a rather unfortunate alternative where we either kill the internet or abandon any hope of controlling it and leave it as it is. I cannot accept this situation”. It was therefore from the Speaker's chair that she listened to the debate and left her Moldovan Liberal colleague, Ana Gutu, the task of defending a text, which no one opposed. Consensus was almost total in the chamber in calling for a report on an issue that fully corresponds to the philosophy underpinning the Council of Europe - democracy and human rights - and in voting heavily (108 to 3, with 7 abstentions) for the recommendation to the Committee of Ministers.
In this text, PACE highlights major impact on the internet on relations between parties, representatives and citizens, as well on the way in which we perceive participation by individuals and social groups in political life. Greater participative democracy was called for during the debates, although it does not yet appear possible “in the complex world of today” to replace universal suffrage with a model based on widespread e-voting. The recommendation adopted by PACE also highlights the European dimension that reflection on the internet and politics should include so as to “to build an appropriate environment” based on common values guaranteeing fundamental rights and privacy. In this context, the Parliamentary Assembly calls on the Committee of Ministers to draft a White Paper on “Democracy, politics and the internet”. PACE would like to be involved in this process, as well as all national parliaments, member state governments, political forces and even, if it is possible, the secret services. Major internet operators, the media, universities, human rights NGOs and internet surfers' rights groups should also be stakeholders in a project that, ideally, could be informed by civil society debate through the social networks. According to PACE, the European Union should also be involved in drafting this White Paper. (VL/transl.fl)