The participation of civil society, in all its different shapes and guises, in the reflection on the future of European construction is underway. All the analyses proved that public opinion had been distanced from Europe and so it was logical that the EU, with the unanimous consensus of its institutions, did its uttermost to listen more and listen more closely than in the past. While sharing this orientation, I underlined two dangers that needed to be avoided: pressure groups and sectional interests should not prevail over the general interest (decision-making should therefore remain in the hands of elected representatives at both European and national levels); listening to civil society should not be justified by a parade of personal theories and wild individual imaginings (see this section in bulletin 9181).
Civil society's new spirit. My comments provoked a number of different comments. For example, Philippe D. Grosjean pointed out on behalf of the “Permanent Civil Society Forum” that representative democracy made up by elected representatives has to ask itself “how it organises its links with those it represents”. Without questioning the principle of it being up to the representatives to have the last word, Mr Grosjean believes that citizens “do not just want to be considered as being allowed to choose their representatives”. They increasingly want to be recognised as actors that can “formulate proposals that can help contribute to the definition of the common good”. Mr Grosjean concludes, “the deepest sense of the demand, increasingly affirmed by civil society, is for more participatory democracy. This does not mean replacing the representatives but setting up a dialogue with them before they make their decisions”. He “regrets the reaction of resistance from these representatives” faced with this demand. Citizens interpret this resistance as “a desire to maintain an advantage in the situation through the exercise of a power which we too often forget should be exercised at the service of voter-citizens, in dialogue with them and not on the sole basis of a blank cheque given without any accountability for four or five years”. It is in this spirit that Mr Grosjean published, with four other members of the Permanent Civil Society Forum (which includes Jacques-René Rabier, former collaborator of Jacques Monnet and former Director General for information at the European Commission), the plan for “changing European governance” including a road map for getting out of the crisis (our bulletin has been assessing progress).
Respecting majorities. Mr Grosjean's position is indicative of the way in which civil society wants to be listened to and also demonstrates what it understands by direct participation in the reflection period. But listening to civil society, which has in the meantime multiplied and diversified, often reaches contradictory positions. This is quite normal, as everyone has the right to express themselves: just as the Euro-sceptics do in their support of an inter-governmental Europe and the federalists do in support of European economic governance and a common foreign policy - so do the liberal tendencies who believe that Europe's ills are due to insufficient competition, just as opposing tendencies do who consider that Europe is suffering from an excess of economic liberalism. We therefore come back to our starting point: only representative democracy allows, despite its shortcomings, for the wishes of the majority of the people to be determined: we all know, as did Winston Churchill what the worst of regimes is, with the exception of all the others. When the EU is successful in obtaining in its majorities support for compromise (to cite two recent cases) the financial perspectives for 2007-13 and the opening up of the services market, while safeguarding the social aquis, we should accept them, even if they do not correspond to what one or other party would have preferred. Improving how we listen to civil society and increasing this process, yes, but leaving it with the faculty for decision-making means would mean conferring power, according to the case in question, to those who are best at getting themselves heard, or those who demonstrate the most street violence or those who dominate the media.
It should not be forgotten that the EU has a body which officially represents civil society, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and that both workers and employers alike, namely the two main horizontal corporations and not (sectional), have always been represented in Brussels by their respective organisations. The EESC is already operating a synthesis of different trends from civil society (its opinion on the reflection period is remarkable). Each current in civil society is always convinced that it is right but it is in fact the elected political representatives which have to decide, even when they sometimes get it wrong and then change their minds.
(F.R.)