by Jessica Reed (still reporting from the European Citizens Consultation)
Daniel Debomy is the director of OPTEM, the opinion search agency who was in charge of selecting the ECC participants throughout Europe. He gave a speech, en francais, about "what Europeans think of Europe?", and narrowed the whole, gigantic problematic to a couple of main issues - he only had ten minutes to give his speech!
- Is there such a thing as a European identity? Debomy says that whenever Europeans are asked this qustion they often look startled and disconcerted, thinking about the differences between our countries and cultures first and foremost. But then a few common traits come to mind: a common history, a common love for heritage and culture, a dep seated respect for the environment and diversity, and (you saw it coming) a growing gap between the "North American" perspective and ours.
- Common expectations: All europeans are worried when facing the challenges of globalization, and usually feel protective of the social European model.
- How do EU citizens feel towards Europe? Quite happy, but a bit confused: an awful lot of them feel they don´t understand quite well its Institutions, from which they expect more transparency. They also want to see more results from common action, which they feel are not visible enough.
