The member states of the EU and the Council are the major problem in the negative narrative on the European Union, which is driving populist forces, said the President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Luca Jahier, during a debate on the future of the EU, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the institution on Thursday 24 May.
The major problem comes from the member states, and it comes from the narrative at the level of the Council, unfortunately, which is being spread in the member states, Jahier said, taking his turn to speak following the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, and the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Ramón Valcárcel Siso.
The EESC President believes that the letter and spirit of the Declaration of Rome adopted in March 2017 must be applied (see EUROPE 11754). “This agenda is the new narrative”, he said. “The new narrative is 'there are no problems, only solutions' and we are working on it and we are getting results”, he said.
Subsequently, referring to his programme 'rEUnaissance' (see EUROPE 12004), Jahier stressed the need to be inspired by the Italian Renaissance and how it was spread by traders and bankers, to fight populism and centrifugal forces.
To contribute to this positive narrative, those who took the floor agreed on the need to work through civil society and businesses, and therefore the voice of the EESC, but also through the regional and local authorities, through the CoR. “Where do citizens live? In their city, in their region, in their company! This is where we can do very important work”, said Lambertz. “Not in Brussels, not in Strasbourg, not in Luxembourg – Europe is at the citizen's home, the message needs to get to their heads and hearts”, he said.
With regard to this, the speakers welcomed recent surveys in favour of the EU (see EUROPE 12025), but remain on their guard. For instance, Juncker said that he does not trust surveys, warning the traditional parties against following “survey caprices”, which will force them into populist strategy and fatally playing to the herd mentality.
Citizens' dialogues
At the start of the ceremony, Jahier also warned against the fetishism of online consultations and participative digital democracy. “The mirage of a so-called digital participative democracy is increasingly popular amongst numerous decision-makers, who seem to blindly follow the erroneous belief that clicks and likes, online questionnaires, chats and the shift to digital in all domains constitutes a form of future post-modern democracy”, he said. This could be a reference to the vast online citizens' consultation launched by the Commission (with questions based on an EESC citizens' consultation) (see EUROPE 12018).
For his part, the President of the Committee of the Regions expressed concern at monitoring the various initiatives of consultations and dialogues with the European citizens. It is as important as what was said during the dialogues, he stressed.
Juncker acknowledged the difficulties in communicating about the Commission's successes and citizens' dialogues launched since the beginning of its term of office, hoping to be able to take stock of these rather than carry out an autopsy on them. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)