EU Constitution - No Information

[Al Khalifah]

With a series of referendums approaching for several EU member states, it deeply troubles me how informed those who will make the decision are - the electorate. Research in France has shown that over 50% of the population are unaware of the content of the constitution and of those that are, the vast majority have only scant understanding.

Watching television in Britain and France recently, I am amazed at how little information is actually being dispensed by the news services. Every news article seems to follow the same format:
A referendum is coming... About 60 seconds on what it contains... 10 minutes on what both sides think it means, usually with two people (one for one against) squaring off and pulling each others argument apart. If not, there will be copious editorialising.
Why can they not just inform people of what the referendum actually means and do their job as a news service, rather than editorialising and providing a forum for overly subjective debate. People cannot make up their minds unless they sit down and read the constitution themselves, because the media is failing to provide an unbiased summary of its content. Rather people are making up their minds based on what each side says and voting on personality and prejudice rather than the issue at hand. All they have suceeded in doing is reducing the constitution referendum to the issue of: Do you like the EU?

In the UK it seems to be even worse, with nearly the majority of the population believing this is also a referendum about the Euro.

This is another example of the media failing in its duty to inform the population by digesting the vast amount of paperwork and procedure being produced by governments and providing a fair summary to their audience.

[doc_bean]

Misinformation is a huge problem for the EU, at least the US is pretty transparent and has a SMALL constitution, the EU one is a whole book.

Besides there isn't that much new in it either, it's mostly symbolic, so in a way, it's normal that this is turning out to be popularity poll for the EU.

I'm not against the EU, and would vote for the constitution if we were allowed to, but our wise government decided that we aren't, because they think we will vote against it.

I like how European politicians are finally recognizing that there is such a thing as a 'democratic deficit' in Europe. I certainly hope we don't get those nice ol' party politics on a (European) federal level, and please, no parliamentary executive either.

Maybe if the vote of the average person would impact policy just a little more, there would be better information, but I'm probably just hoping.

[Meneldil]

You clearly don't understand the problem.

Though some people will vote 'no' because they are told it's too much liberal (economicaly), or 'yes' because they are told it will protect workers, human rights and so on, the vast majority is just voting for or against the EU institutions.
Basically, a lot of people think that the economic issues in France (industries going to country such as China, Vietnam, etc. ; high unemployement rate ; agricultural difficulties ; mass immigration ; privatisation of some state services) are caused by EU, or that EU should have protected them from that.

Furthermore, every household was sent at least on treaty (We received 3 in my house) and be sure that a lot of people have read the text (probably much more than what was expected at first).
And yes, there are some errors being made by the media everyday, sometime because they have agenda (our channel "Canal +" is clearly against the treaty) or because they just suck.
Some politician are also guilty for this, as the far right wing always bring in the Turkey issue, while the far left wing always bring in the Bolkestein directive and economic liberalism.

There was a TV show yesterday, with 4 people for the 'yes' (Socialist party, UMP -Moderate right-, UDF (center/right) and Les Verts (environement party, left of the left ) and 4 people for the 'no' (Trotkist party, Communist, extreme Right -Le Pen's daughter- and another far right guy). As you may guess, it went pretty silly, with the 'no' guys using pointless or unrelated agruments.

In other countries, the issue is different : in UK, some people will vote no because they think the 'yes' will mean 'welcome euro or federal state' or just because they dislike EU, in Dutchland, they are voting against the euro (apparently life is much more expensive since the euro is effectively working)
I might post something about the whole EU issue someday, because it's quite interesting of what Europe is becoming. Etc. etc.

[Husar]

Basically, a lot of people think that the economic issues in France (industries going to country such as China, Vietnam, etc. ; high unemployement rate ; agricultural difficulties ; mass immigration ; privatisation of some state services) are caused by EU, or that EU should have protected them from that.

So people in Germany are not the only ones to think that....
Well, we blame our government, too.

Oh, and I have no idea about the constitution, if I were interested, I had to buy it, because our government decided to not give it to us and to not let us decide as well. That´s modern democracy.

[Meneldil]

The main problem is that our gvts keep saying "It's EU's fault" when they screw up something.

[doc_bean]

The amount of power that is given to the EU is often a problem for national governments, and things like the 'Bolkenstein' directive certainly limit their options.

A problem we are having recently is that our social security (medical aid) is becoming far to expensive, a possible solution would be to implent a system similar to New Zealand, only paying back the cheapest generic medicines. Unfortunately, that can't be done in the EU.

Their needs to be a clear balance of power between the nations and the EU.

I also perfectly understand the British, they are very different, in social views, in economy, in judiciary system, and in other ways from the rest of western Europe, that they stand to lose a lot when the EU becomes more powerful.

[Adrian II]

With a series of referendums approaching for several EU member states, it deeply troubles me how informed those who will make the decision are - the electorate.

That is nearly always the case in elections and referendums. Citizens are not as informed as you or I or some politicians would want them to be on certain important issues; on the other hand there are groups that want the public to be as little informed of those issues as possible. And then there are citizens who feel that you and I and many politicians aren't nearly as well informed as we should be about issues which they hold important...

Democracy is only the second-best system of government, the trouble is there is no first. All other systems have greater flaws.

The main reason why I think democracy is superior to authoritarian rule is that tyrants or ruling oligarchies make at least as many mistakes as democratic governments, but with the added disadvantage that their tendency to cling to power makes it unlikely that those mistakes will be undone, repaired, or even addressed. Whilst reading History, I never ceased to be amazed how immensely stupid many well-groomed, well-placed and well-educated autocratic rulers through the ages actually were; most were as stupid, one-sided, deluded and emotionally imbalanced as the least of the EU's present citizens is today.

The second reason why I think democracy is superior to authoritarian rule is that the cumulative experience, wisdom and intelligence of a people at least equals the cumulative experience, wisdom and intelligence of the ones who govern it. People shouldn't govern themselves; but they should appoint those who govern them, and hold them to account for their actions.

For these reasons every manifestation of the popular will or verdict must be respected, even if we feel it is based upon insufficient knowledge, because it is of a higher order than the will or verdict of rulers, bureaucrats and all the other lower vertebrae of a government or ruling caste. Yes, rulers know things that their peoples don't know or will never understand; but people know things that their rulers don't know or will never understand. The latter are in charge for good reason.

So we must respect these European referenda: they are the result of democratic procedures and themselves constitute a form of democratic scrutiny. Even if only ten percent of voters appear at the ballot box, we should accept that the other ninety have their reasons not to appear and that it would be foolish for any politician to ignore or belittle them.

This being said, I will vote 'Yes' because I think this treaty will streamline collective European decision making without challenging or prejudicing any of the basic legal tenets and future projections of the European Union as a democratic entity. Don't ask me where these developments will lead us in ten or fifty years time because I don't know; time, external conflict and internal experience will tell us who and what Europeans really are. But I'm willing to give the experiment a try.

[A.Saturnus]

Yesterday, the German parliament has accepted the EU Constitution with a two-third majority. The Stern, a major German news magazine (www.stern.de ) has titled the report about that as follows:
"49 percent for Constitution"
It then went on that the Constitution passed the parliament without immediate explanations how that can be. Later in the article it came out that the 49 percent are the part of the citizens of the EU that have no approved - via referendum or parliament - of the Constitution. The article did not mention how large the majority in the German parliament was. I invoke Heinlein's razor though.

[Meneldil]

That is nearly always the case in elections and referendums. Citizens are not as informed as you or I or some politicians would want them to be on certain important issues; on the other hand there are groups that want the public to be as little informed of those issues as possible. And then there are citizens who feel that you and I and many politicians aren't nearly as well informed as we should be about issues which they hold important...

Very true. I talk about the EU constitution with a friend yesterday, and he often told me "You just don't know what you're speaking about", and I was thinking exactly the same for him.

Another problem in France is the - quite silly - cultural attachement to the Revolution myth. A vast part of the population think that the Revolution created a great social system, while its real aim was rather economical.

I don't know any other country where the word 'liberalism' seems to be an equivalent to 'nazi' or 'The Real Evil Thing That Must Be Fought At All Cost'. Far (far) leftous guys always use that word when something is going wrong, while in fact France its crippled by its public health system and other social policy.
(Do not get me wrong here, I'm all for social (being socialist myself), but these kind of policy just can't work without a valid economy, and right now we (France, Germany) don't have a really effective economy.)

On the other hand, far left (and far right) have a great impact on the public opinion, while most of their ideas are totally outdated. This is just making me sick of my country. A few months ago, I found communists to be pretty funny, but now, I just hate them for what they are doing.
The fact that they pretend they'll teach all european countries how they have to behave is also rather disgusting (basically, their arguing is : "Once the NO wins in France, people from all Europe will understand that EU is a bad thing, and everyone will agree to re-start Europe from scratch, based on our -totally outdated, silly and unrealistic - socialist point of view).


I can't really explain how I feel shameful for my country. While most french brag about how good and democratic they are because they are discussing a critical issue, I just see a lot of people lying, screwing up my country and using false arguments to serve their own interests.

[BDC]

I think the issue here is NO ONE knows exactly what's in it or what it means. Even the people who wrote it don't fully understand it. It's a mess.

[doc_bean]

France keeps surprising me, especially with the recent attacks on wine importers. How low can you go ? I don't think there is more protectionistic country in the world (France is also mostly to blame for the EU agricultural policy, which is worth several threads of its own).

But similar things are happening all over western europe, how do we expect to survive, as fist world nations, when we are chasing the industry away, and are breeding generations of workers that don't want to work more then 38h a week, at a cost of 20-30€ an hour (I think this is about the lowest possible pay rate in Belgium, for a campany).

Bleh, socialism works, but we need boundaries !