I totally agree, the ECI is actually not a very strong instrument as the EC is not obliged to follow the suggestion of the ECI. Nevertheless, the EC has to write a detailed explaination why it doesn’t accept an ECI.

Launching a ECI initiative makes therfore just sense if you are able to put it in a bigger PR campaign. Just imagine: the European youth organization AEGEE launches an ECI that is somehow dealing with a democratic Europe and economic prosperity (defining an exact topic would be another difficult issue…) and somehow even succeds to get one million signatures in Europe. It would be a strong sign that the young generation in Europe wants a different Europe, an issue that all European politicians are talking about at the moment and a nice headline for some chief editors. Then the EC rejects the ECI for any reason. This would actually show that something with the current political system in the EU is not working.

Furthermore, a successful ECI, organized by a European student organization without national levels, would disaprove all theories in polital science that a ‘European Democracy’ is not possible. It would show that for certain policy interests there is something like a ‘European People’ or a ‘European Public Sphere’. The case would be very intersting for a lot of political scientists.

A rejection of the ECI by the EC could maybe become then a starting point for more drastic ideas and strategies for change. However, as a first step an ECI would give us the possibility to propose a new idea of European integration as young AEGEE people want. And it would make it possible to find much more supporters in politics and media. At the same time you can start to attrack people struck by the crisis, lobbyism etc.

The best thing would be of course to find some sarting point with which you could ‘rock the ship’ but this would also mean that you will get more antagonism instead of support. And if you could really change sth is the big question. Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian, tries this strategy out here in Italy. He won so much votes in the last elections that he could blockade the formation of a new government for a long time. The aim of his strategy was (and is) to let the whole Italian political system explode. For Europe I see three difficulties with this strategy: First, you don’t have any possibility to influence the European decision-making process. Even if an AEGEE-Party (for example the Newropeans) would would win the next European election and blockade the European Parliament, then this would not change much due to the weak position of the parliament. Second, I would doubt that enough people would join/ support such an initiative as they are not aware enough of the problems of European decision-making processes and the democratic necissity to let citizens participate in this process. With an ECI, embedded in a pr campaign, you could raise exacly that awareness. Third, with any strategy that explicitly aims to destroy the current political system (to create a new, democratic Europe) you risk to get support from the wrong side when you start to get successful. Anti-European movements could try to climb on our bandwagon, public media will start to push us on the right wing.

The crucial point is to define the topic of the ECI very good. It has to be somehow ‘sexy’, it should maybe even embarace the EC if they would have to accept this ECI. This way you could give the people the feeling that they can somehow influence European politics directly.

Of course, if you have any other idea then an ECI let me know! It is fore sure not the perfect instrument, just the best one that came to my mind till now!

Best regards

Thilo

As far as I understand Putnam’s theory starting the politics at the roots again requires to shake people to the core and afterwards open up possibilities in getting settled again in a more pleasant way. (This somehow remembers me of recently started local initiatives in Greece aiming for self-help.)
In that case – it sounds offensive actually – may it be a better sollution, on the long run, to rock the ship further instead of pouring oil on troubled water?
This could be passively: avoiding palliatives like f. eks. European citizen initiatives, since an initiative gives us the feeling that sth. is on the way (what may be a wrong assumtion, as Ivan already pointed out an initiative doesn’t demand a follow-up), the pressure is released from the boiling pod.
This could be actively: focusing the energy and eagerness of the people struck by the crisis, lobbyism etc. (esp. of young people in Southern Europe, victims of lobbyism…) on projects that actually rise pressure on certain points of the EU in order to enforce change. The latter has the disatvantage that we from AEGEE would actually “betray” the EU somehow – for a higher purpose, but still…
What do you assume to be feasable?

Greets
Armin

Thank you for your suggestions and ideas! As for me, I am in favour of doing something for increasing political awareness of the youth about the EU.

But on the other hand, I am quite skeptical about European Citizen Initiative, because even if you collect one million of signatures the outcome of the Initiative is not mandatory for the European Commission. EC can but does not have to take it into consideration.

As also Hannah Arendt argues, we need old republican virtues for our political life. That means the culture of dialogue, engagement and participation in politics. I believe that AEGEE could help young people to embrace these republican values and it is one of the fields where we can make a difference.

Regards!

Ivan

Thank you very much for your contributions, I am very happy to meet some people within AEGEE who are also worried about the state of the European Union as it is a very important issue.

However, before coming to your agruements I would like to present myself. I am an old AEGEE member, I was president of AEGEE-Köln from 2005-2007, at the moment I am a member of AEGEE-Pisa. After my studies in Cologne I was working for three years at the German Embassy in Rome. Since 2012 I am writing a PhD thesis at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa about the euro crisis, economic governance in the euro zone and European democracy. In August I will go for one year to the US to work on my thesis at Harvard University. I just joined the AEGEE-L again yesterday, because often during my work I thought that a lot of the topics I was dealing with could/ should be very intersting for AEGEE.

I am especially interested in the point that you mentioned, Armin, that we have to get people again (or for the first time) interested in European affairs and that they need the feeling that they can influence/ change something on the European level. Two years ago I met Robert D. Putnam in Rome, one of the most influencial political scientists and I was impresed by his presentation. Putnam invented the concept of social capital after having done research in Italy for 10 years. In his work he could show that local institutions in northern Italy work much better because northern Italian regions have much more ‘social capital’, that means – in brief – because people there engage much more in politics. When he went back to the US he found out that social capital in the United States was continously decreasing in the 1990s and descibed this in his famous book ‘Bowling alone’ (2001). However, he found out that the social capital began to rise again after 2001. The reason for this was 9/11: for the young generation it was the first politically molding event that that seared into their political consciousness. The question ‘how can this people do this to us?’ made the young generation more interested not only in global/ national politics but also in local politics. They started to engage themselfes more in politics. However, the ruling Bush administration did not really give them the feeling to be able to participate and influence national decision-making. One of Putnam’s students did listen very well to this: Barak Obama. All the ‘Yes you can’-Movement was based on this theoretical framework and its main conclusion: give the young people again the feeling that they can change something. They just had to support Obamas internet election campeign in 2008.

I am convinced that in a certain sense the euro crisis is for many young European people in the southern countries the ‘first politically molding event that that seared into their political consciousness’. They realize that European integration, as it is practized right now, is influencing, or even destroying their lifes (by being unemployed ect…) but they have the feeling that they cannot influence this process at all. So what we actually need is a ‘Yes you can’-Movement to give this people the feeling that they can influence sth. AEGEE could, if you find enough interested members, play indeed a very important role here.

I also think that we have to look in a completely different way on European integration in order to be able to explain it to the people in a way they can understand. Together with my professor I am therefore working in my PhD thesis on a new paradigm for European integration. We are proposing a ‘European Republic’ as a solution for the euro crisis. This is theoretically quite differnet of a ‘European Federation of Nation States’. Republicanism in the history of political thought focuses exactly on the point you mentioned: the political engagement of citizens. However, for this breve discussion here it is a little bit to complex to explain it in detail.

I think therefore that this ideas could be very interesting for AEGEE and AEGEE should really work on the field of the engagement of European citizens. Especially since we have a new instrument since last year to influence European politics (at least a little little bit): the European Citizens Initiative. If you collect 1 mio. signatures (you can collect/ sign online via a webpage program), you can force the European Commission to start a proceedure for a new European directive. Here AEGEE could become much more active. By the way, one European Citizens Initiative that could collect already nearly 1 mio votes is about the privatization of water supply!

If you find some other people interested in this topics we could really think about creating a ‘task force’, working group or what so ever to develop concepts for European integration that AEGEE could stand up for. It is really time to change something!

Let me know!

Best,

Thilo