Public debate

For the last couple of days, winning over those sceptical of such democratic innovations as deliberative polling (assuming such innovations are valid, of course) has been my chief concern. But, with EU-centred innovations, we also still have the Eurosceptics.

I've already mentioned the dominance of eurosceptics in the online English language debate, largely due to the influence (and traffic-boosting transatlantic links to the closely-knit network of right-wing American blogs) of EU Referendum, independently run by two associates of the highly eurosceptic Bruges Group thinktank, one of whom also used to work for the UK Independence Party, before turning his back on them for being too amateurish (or so I believe).

However, due to the fleeting and superficial coverage of Tomorrow's Europe in the mainstream media - some TV coverage, the occasional short article, but nothing overly in-depth - it will be to the web that most people will look in the weeks and months to come. Amongst the online coverage now will be found EU Referendum's assertion that "what is delivered is a number of findings that are both pointless and irrelevant, except that they will be treated with undue reverence by the EU commission and its lackeys, who will cite them as evidence of what the 'citizens of Europe' think and want."

Here we come to the fundamental problem with the EU's drive for democracy - getting true representativeness is seemingly impossible in a body as vast and diverse as the European Union. Even ensuring fair representation for the member states is well nigh impossible - let alone ensuring that smaller than national-level groups are also represented. There will always be complaints: where are the German Turks? Where are the French Basques? Where are the Russian Estonians? Where are the Afro-Carribbean British?

The claim for the Tomorrow's Europe poll was always that it was going to be a "scientific sample" of the whole of the EU. Yet - as with the European Parliament - the forced inclusion of member states with smaller populations in such a sample instantly makes it look odd. Based on population size, a truly scientific random sample of 3,500 people from the whole of the EU should expect (on average) to contain just 2.5 Maltese - yet the Tomorrow's Europe sample, thanks to the member state weighting, contained 80.

From a PR point of view, this is understandable - ensure every member state is represented, the chance for media coverage is greatly increased. But, at the same time, it makes selling the poll as "scientific" rather harder.

A genuinely random poll of 3,500 people from the whole of the EU? Fine. One weighted to ensure the inclusion of someone from every member state? This sounds less random, more likely to contain some selection bias, and therefore less convincing.

As we continue to ponder the issue of representativeness, Paul Davies - formerly of the Electoral Reform Society - continues his series looking at the EU's only democratic institution (Part 1, 2, 3, 4):

Last time out we had a quick think about what it is that the European Parliament is, or rather should be, actually there for. In this, the final instalment of this particular group of posts, we look at how this purpose can possibly be achieved, or even brought within range of a very powerful purpose-spotting telescope.

That every member nation should be properly represented within the Parliament is without question. However, what the word 'properly' means in such a context is a mammothly moot point.

Were MEPs to be distributed in exact proportion to the relative populations of the countries they represent, Malta may as well not bother, for their share of the European Union's population wouldn't even be enough to claim a spot crammed in by the toilets behind the cheap seats.

As it is, seats in the European Parliament aren't organised like this.

With polls showing around 75% supporting a referendum on the EU reform treaty, the Conservative party repeatedly using the referendum as a fresh stick with which to beat Gordon Brown, and newspapers like the Sun and the Telegraph campaigning for the people to be allowed to have their say, in recent weeks British eurosceptics have been getting really rather excited. It has long been assumed that the UK tends towards euroscepticism, and the growing support for a referendum seemed to confirm that anti-EU types are in the majority.

So with the battle not yet won and referendum calls still reverberating around the country to apparent popular accalim, it's entirely understandable that the organiser's of Saturday's Referendum Rally in Westminster were expecting attendance in the region of several thousand. After all, if pro-foxhunting rallies in Cardiff could draw 6-10,000 a few years back, when a majority of the population were against foxhunting, surely something where the majority are in favour taking place in more easily-accessible London would do even better?

Nope. The final turnout has been estimated at somewhere in the region of just 3-500. Yep - that's three to five hundred. I'm not missing a zero, and that hyphen is not meant to be a comma.

So, you're a multinational political party made up of 33 national parties from every member state of the EU. To gear up for the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, which will for the first time be fought by (some) parties EU-wide, rather than merely nationally, you reckon "why not get the people involved and ask them what we should campaign about?"

And so the Party of European Socialists launches a major new online consultation, designed to get up a proper debate about their policies and the future of the EU, following the reform treaty's expansion of the European Parliament's powers. "Hurrah! That's just the sort of initiative we need to give the public ways to get involved in EU decision-making!", we all cry.

Tomorrow's Europe was part of the European Commission's "Plan D" ("for democracy, dialogue and debate"), launched in October 2005 with the aim of getting the people of Europe discussing the EU.

So, two years on, if you did a Google search for "EU debate" you'd expect this to come pretty high up, wouldn't you? People hunting for somewhere to discuss the EU would be likely, after all, to enter those terms to look for a forum for discussion.

But what actually comes top when you search for "EU debate" - with or without inverted commas? Erm... A three-year-old post by me at my personal blog's old home...

As the Tomorrow's Europe deliberation was designed to encourage debate as much as anything, it was intriguing to see this analysis of the current state of the EU debate in the UK over at A Fistful of Euros:

"More than ever before, the entire tone of the debate about Europe in the UK seems deranged. But this time out, it also seems to be increasingly recognised that this is so.

"In a sense, the whole row has become conventionalised to a degree where it is a mere set of gestures. I recall the debates about the Euro in the late 90s and early 00s, and on the various treaties of the same period, to say nothing of the Maastricht ratification, the daddy of them all. This has had none of the same fire, despite the Sun reaching new heights of linguistic escalation and new depths of journalistic debasement."

As we continue to ponder the issue of representativeness, Paul Davies - formerly of the Electoral Reform Society - continues his series looking at the EU's only democratic institution (Part 1, Part 2, part 3):

Having already established that the European Parliament is one of the world's true bastions of barmy democracy, it's time to consider how to make it a little less ridiculous.

Before we start on that, however, there's an important extra step to be considered - one often glossed over by the current architects of the Union. Simply drawing up plans for making the European Parliament saner or more fit for purpose begs the question of what that purpose actually is (or maybe should be) in the first place.

As it would appear that even after three days of deliberation on the EU some participants in the Tomorrow's Europe poll still didn't know the role of the European Parliament, Paul Davies - formerly of the Electoral Reform Society - continues his series looking at the EU's only democratic institution (Part 1, Part 2):

Last week we looked at the technicalities of how MEPs are voted in to their positions, but what lies behind the systems - how and why do people choose their MEPs in the first place?

Once in, MEPs supposedly divide their time between Brussels, Strasbourg and their constituencies, attending various meetings and hunting around for people that know what it is they do. They also split themselves up into groups.

Nothing strange about that, of course, politicians - like voters - define themselves by the groups they choose to represent. However, regardless of the systems used in the voting, the votes themselves are more often than not cast along national party lines and often influenced by national issues; yet MEPs are grouped not by nationality but by interest. And if few people can name their MEP or their MEP's party, even fewer can name what group within the European Parliament their MEP operates in.

Which would appear to make the whole process something of a mockery of democracy: vote for a vague unknown on the basis of something only tenuously related to the role that the elected party will undertake and have absolutely no idea what the elected party does after the election.

The 27 foreign ministers of the EU met in Luxemburg on Monday, to thrash out final details of the EU Reform Treaty - note not a 'Constitution' in sight - before their bosses put the finishing touches to it later this week.

Well, that's the theory.

The Tomorrow's Europe project is supported by 22 research institutes, thinktanks and non-governmental organisations from across Europe. Their interests span the themes of public affairs, foreign policy, European integration and more.

So what exactly do they see as the value of deliberative polling? Chris Littlecott here provides a perspective from the environmental organisation E3G, one of the Tomorrow's Europe partners.

The European Union is in a difficult position. It has never been more needed, but does it have the ability to act?

Deliberative polls are an unfamiliar concept. As they are designed to create a representation of what the public would think were they to have access to all the information and a chance to debate freely amongst themselves, there is always the danger that the public at large will respond to their results with a resounding "what? Who are you to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about?"

In a sense, of course, deliberative polls are a bit like juries with the need for a unanimous decision removed. The major difference - and one that cannot be overstated - is that we all understand the concept of juries, and accept their verdict (well, unless the trial involves OJ Simpson, at any rate...)

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to keep track of mentions of the Tomorrow's Europe poll in the press and world of blogs. It hasn't been difficult - there's hardly been any. Supposedly the BBC's flagship current affairs show Newsnight is going to be attending to produce a report, and no doubt the results of the poll may attract a bit of attention, but in the run-up there's been hardly any coverage at all.

And herein lies one of the EU's fundamental problems: people simply aren't interested in the European Union. It's not a sexy subject and it rarely holds much excitement. This is why the only time the EU tends to feature in the news is when there's some supposed crisis - usually some apparently ridiculous new regulations (usually wildly misinterpreted).

Oli Henman was Co-Ordinator of the European Citizens Consultation held in York in March 2007, and covered extensively by openDemocracy.

As we prepare for the Tomorrow’s Europe deliberative poll, let’s compare this process with the first Europe-wide participatory process, the European Citizens’ Consultations (ECC) that was held earlier this year.

Both of these processes come under the European Commission’s Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue & Debate, supported by Commissioner Margot Wallstrom; and they both attempt to provide new ways for European citizens to relate directly with the European Union, towards greater participation. This reflects a change at the European level, a recognition that it is time to engage in a more open debate; no-one would have predicted that in 2007, there would be not one but two Europe-wide opportunities for citizens to have their voices heard!

So how do the two processes compare?

As Poland seems on the verge of yet another clash with the rest of the EU, Warsaw-based journalist and blogger The Beatroot takes a look at the ongoing difficulties of reconciling conflicting local, national and pan-European interests.

Is it recent eastern enlargement that is pushing a slightly disorientated and isolated Brussels into the arms of experiments with Deliberative consultation?

When Poland and the other ex-communist, central and eastern European countries signed up, the European Union got more heterogeneous overnight. And that means many more interests to cater for.

If the aim of Deliberative methods is to make it easier to transcend individual, local, sectional and national interests, then the job has got much harder in a 27 nation state club with wide economic and social differences between the new and old members.

Creating the EU in microcosm is one of the claims for the Tomorrow's Europe deliberative poll - bringing people from all over the EU together to deliberate amongst themselves. It sounds ades moderately fair description of the process - one of the straplines is even "all Europe in one room".

However, today comes the preliminary results to the stakeholder consultation on the European Research Area Green Paper. It's hard not to see some of these - responding to just one small area where the EU thinks it can help make things more efficient - as representing the attitudes of many towards the European Union as a whole.

Following the sterling defence of EU democracy by Labour MEP Richard Corbett, Paul Davies (formerly of the Electoral Reform Society) takes a closer look at the role of the European Parliament, currently the EU's only democratic institution:

As I mentioned in last week's introduction, on the whole we don't know a great deal about the European Parliament or the people that sit in it. We also have only a vague notion of how they got there in the first place.

The former is the British government's line on the new Reform Treaty, the latter the view of the Commons' European scrutiny committee (see BBC). This is a committee very rarely heard from, and that rarely lives up to its name, despite being the only body in the Commons officially tasked with keeping an eye on EU legislation - legislation that can, in some cases, override that passed by parliament. (It's normally the far more efficient committee in the House of Lords that does the real work.)

For the last three decades, the issue of subsidiarity has been at the heart of debates over the future of the EU. Following the revisions forced by the initial Danish "no" in the June 1992 referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, the concept has been entrenched - and remains a part of the proposed text of the new Reform Treaty. Maastricht eventually phrased the concept as follows, following the October 1992 meeting of the European Council:

"Decisions must be taken as closely as possible to the citizen. Greater unity can be achieved without excessive centralization. It is for each Member State to decide how its powers should be exercised domestically... Action at the Community level should only happen when proper and necessary."

This, one might assume, is more than explicit enough to assuage fears of the bureaucratic superstate. But no - as that article in the FT Weekend amply demonstrates, the EU machine still seems to have a tendency to try and legislate on all kinds of areas where one might assume that pan-European regulations are entirely unneccessary.

The design of the future EU Council Presidency is deemed to create confusion among European citizens. The forthcoming IGC can still do better without reopening the fundamentals of the new blueprint. Clarifying the notion of "EU presidency" could help safeguard the EU's founding principle of shared leadership, argue Director of the European Studies Centre at St Antony's College Oxford Kalypso Nicolaïdis, and Simone Bunse, Assistant Professor of Politics at the INCAE Business School. (See also Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

"Rotation is dead: Long live rotation!"

We believe that the IGC can still do better without reopening the fundamentals of this new blueprint. We need to address both demands for more permanence and fears of concentration of power. We can - by presenting or labelling the current arrangements for rotation as the rotating presidency of the EU, a presidency for the EU as a whole that would put rotation not only below but also symbolically above the European Council. At the same time, as envisaged in the current Reform Treaty, the European Council would get its permanent chair and the EU would acquire its High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Hence, the essentials of the existing bargain are left untouched.