Miss Kolka

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What can Europe do? | 08 juin 2009

The sad flag.. like the union, it probably needs some wind beneath its wings.

A day after the European parliamentary election (which I have to admit noone in this household voted in) it's clear that Europeans could not care less. Well perhaps 40% less, but lets be honest, many people who did vote, often did not vote with European interest at heart. When anti-European parties that campaign to withdraw from the union are allowed to participate (such as BNP and UKIP in the UK) one wonders why this election is taking place.

What is the future of Europe?
We already saw how powerless the union is in the face of international crisis (be it war or of financial origin), Europeans in general do not seem to agree on much (some want the same currency, others want a common language - wait what was it again? That's right, Esperanto (!)) and with the enormous burocracy that follows the stiff institution, the future is bleak.

In France, people (from the right) saluted the "huge" victory of the power in place, the UMP. With less than 30%, I cannot see where the "huge" comes from. The other winners are apparently the green party Europe Ecologie (EE) with a few personalities on board such as Eva Joly and Jose Bové. They did fine (around 17%) and all attention brought to environmental problems is good. The conclusion that french voters voted for EE because the film HOME was on public television on friday is somewhat insulting though.

(The big frenzy around that environmental film goes over my head, saw some of it on youtube, ok the images are nice - many from Iceland and even from Nysted!- but I found the text cheesy and it could have been reduced to the last 10 minutes to have a better impact. Its good marketing though, as can be seen in how the sponsors (some high fashion companies) were linked directly to the name of the film at the very start. It gives the false impression that these luxury brands are somehow environmental conscious, very clever.)

Back to Europe. Is it possible that if consumer concerns had been better adressed and the leadership would have been tougher on financial institutions and had actually had a plan to help European citizens out of the crisis that people would have been more interested? I think so. The European parliament is not useless. But these elections are. We dont want a national debate about cross-border issues - we NEED international solutions. And they are certainly not going to come from parties that think inside their protective bubble, and only about themselves.

Publié par Kolka à 13:38:32 dans Miss Kolka | Commentaires (0) | Permaliens