A Constituent Assembly for a new Europe: bringing civil society politics up to the European level

Occupy Europe: a supranational front of progressive forces is needed to refund the European Union

Excerpted from a proposal and argument by MONICA FRASSONI:

“We need to orientate some of the energy of the civil society movements and that of some of our best politicians towards the fight for a better EU. We have not only to replace Merkel, Rajoy, Monti forthwith and encourage Hollande. We have to get rid of Barroso and Van Rompuy as well.

Indeed, it must be very clear that “democracy” at EU level will not fall from the sky and that today “the will of the majority” is not always going in the direction we want. We need to build a proposal in which a deep, democratic reform of the EU goes hand in hand with policy changes; and of course we have to get the necessary consensus to actually make them real. Otherwise, we can see ourselves accepting “democratic” delivery in the next few months of a really nice group of governments in the EU Council even more heavily influenced by parties like the True Finns, the Lega, Fidezs or the Dutch Party for Freedom than they are now. And in 2014 there could be a majority of euro-sceptics in the EP: which, combined to the current procedures which leave most powers on economic and monetary policies in the hands of national governments deciding unanimously, could prove a far more devastating situation than the break up of the euro.

There are a few very concrete and useful steps that we could envisage taking in the next few months. First, there is gathering consensus around the realisation that an EU of imposed austerity is a recipe for disaster. But what to do instead? Many parties, movements, intellectuals, citizens are actively working on this issue all over the EU. People and institutions produce hundreds of debates, documents, papers and appeals. But little is done to put all this in a (relatively) common basket; we need to give to all these ideas and faces behind the ideas the visibility of a ‘European’ campaign supported by a large number of people (and voters). We as European Greens are very interested in the building of a large alliance around three simple titles: regulate and shrink finance; a green new deal, that is to say invest in the ecological reconversion of the economy and society; and political integration of the EU towards an open, democratic federal system (which has absolutely nothing in common with a bureaucratic super-state).

We have to pursue and deepen the work we started with the Forum in Brussels on June 28 “ another road for Europe” and try to build a large European debate about what are the concrete proposals to govern the EU, by linking them to the worries of peoples at national or local level.

At the same time, we have to take the initiative into our hands on the “constitution” of Europe. The June European Council Conclusions say that member state governments are the “owners” of the treaties. They have entrusted Van Rompuy, Barroso, Draghi, Juncker, four conservative men, to come up with proposals of changes to the economic governance of the EU in the autumn, completely bypassing the European Parliament, national parliaments and civil society in the process. We already know what they will come up with: too little, too late and simply wrong.

We should enter this process. The European Parliament has the powers according to the Treaty of Lisbon to come up with proposals to reform the EU, but it seems to lack courage and vision. We have to push it to wake up and act, opening its doors to the ideas and initiatives of organised civil society and working as the defender of the interests of we Europeans. The proposal to create transnational lists [1]for the next EP elections lies forgotten in a drawer waiting for better times. We have to encourage MEPs to adopt a new electoral procedure making it possible to create a real ‘European’ constituency soon: otherwise the calls for ‘European democratic politics’ will forever remain empty words. 2014 advances on us, and we have to make of the next European election campaign not a boring mega-pool on the level of consensus of each national party or an open field for euro-sceptic forces, but an opportunity to counterpose competing options for Europe and to mobilize voters on choices that will assuredly directly touch their everyday lives.

We have to open a debate about the need for a new Convention or a Constituent Assembly as the right way to reform the EU, taking away from governments acting behind closed doors the “ownership” of the European project. It will not be easy to convince many parties and organisations to start acting as if taking fortress Europe would be a much more important challenge than winning national elections. But it is the only chance we have to save the EU, the euro… and us Europeans.”

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