Europe is in an economic and identity crisis and politicians only do the minimum to contain it rather than making a serious effort to solving it.
Trust has broken down, between citizens and politicians as well as between politicians of the different EU member states.
The economic outlook is bleak. Unemployment is historically high. Especially the high youth unemployment is worrying as it is in danger of turning one of the best educated generations into a lost generation.
As the current discussion about the next EU budget shows, there is no will or power to turn the corner and invest in a common future. Instead the EU budget discussion becomes even more of a distribution battle than in past years. The crisis has strengthened national reflexes rather than forcing more common action.
And Europe's role in the world is sliding, economically, demographically and politically.
We need a Big Debate about the mess we are in, how to get out of it and where to go from there. This needs to be a real and open debate and not only between the small circle of politicians which meet regularly at EU Council meetings in Brussels. These meetings have not been able to provide confidence in Europe"s future and this may be a reflection of the fact that the participants do not seem to believe in this common future themselves.
Of course we have debates about Europe, daily, in all media and fora, in all directions. But these are national debates with national actors and principally fueled by national interests.
But the future of Europe is not just a sum of national interests. 57 years after signing the Treaties of Rome the EU can now only advance on the basis of a European Interest.
Creating the European Interest is no simple matter. It needs a serious, honest debate, but a pan-European debate.
Is such pan-European debate possible without a European public space?
Yes, the absence of a European public space is a problem. We only have a very thin European public space based on media such as the Financial Times, the Economist, European conferences and networks based on exchange programmes such as Erasmus. But this reaches at the most the top 1%.
Social media provides a new opening for creating a European public space, at least for those speaking English. But we are not yet there.
2014 will be the next European Parliament elections. This will be the occasion to having a real pan-European Debate about Europe's future. Let"s use it.
What a big debate can look like we could just witness during the US Presidential elections. True, it was messy, populistic, corrupted by big money and corporate interests, in any event supersized. But it was also a big and real debate with competing visions of the future America; an America of more equality and with a constructive voice in the world versus an America of and for the top 1% with an aggressive foreign policy outlook (I may of course be biased in my summary). This debate was theatrical, exciting and engaging. And it was followed by billions around the globe even though they had no voting right but still felt affected and attracted by it.
What I propose is to take the best of the US election theater, merge it with our European election tradition and make the next 20 month leading up to the European Parliament elections the Big Debate about Europe.
What needs to be done?
1) Make the 2014 EP elections real elections. In a parliamentary democracy elections determins which political party or coalition creates the government and the prime minister. So far this has not been the case with the EP elections. Independent of the EP election outcome the member states decided about the President of the European Commission and its Commissioners. This has made the EP elections worthless to the citizens, they did not understand what the purpose of the election was apart from creating jobs for MEPs.
In addition, the current procedure means that the member states have two ways to decide in Brussels, first through their vote in the Council (similar to the Senate) and second through the decision of who will be Commission President and Commissioners (the EU Executive). But this structure can change without changing the EU treaties.
2) The European political party families, e.g. the conservatives, the social democrats, the greens, the far right and far left, should nominate their candidate for European Commission President and run a pan-European election campaign with this front runner in all countries. The top candidates need to campaign in all countries.
3) Each European party has to have a distinctive political programme which competes for votes, e.g. the social democrats for minimum wage across Europe, the Green against any new nuclear power, the conservatives for lowering taxes across Europe. The top candidates compete with this programmes for the European votes.
4) Parties design, manage and finance joint and distinctive election campaigns around their single top candidate. Money for election campaigning exists and just needs to be pooled.
5) professional TV debates of top candidates broadcasted across Europe at the same time. How this can be done we know from Eurovision song contest and the Europe"s Champion League. And we should get a bit of this drama and theater too.
So, let's have this big, long overdue Debate about Europe. And let's have it in the most suited way, through parliamentary democracy.
An edited version of this article was published by Project Syndicate: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/initiating-a-pan-european-debate-about-europe-s-future-by-andre-wilkens
Copyright Project Syndicate - www.project-syndicate.org
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