On-line journal no. 4 – July 2012 - Modelling the New Europe

On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe
Issue no. 4/2012
constitute a veritable European public space. A space, where citizenship is tied to residence
and not to origin, and where the European people can enjoy complete civil rights (the right
of referendum for adopting or rejecting a law and the right of initiative to propose a law).
The European political parties must acquire more importance and the election process and
their programs must be European not national. The main source of the European legitimacy
crises is created by fundamental political elements like the lack of a European public space,
a space where European issues can be debated at a European level.
A first manifestation of the European public space is understanding that the different
national public spaces represent the foundation. The configuration of a public space for the
European Union requests a series of particular conditions, considering that in the
international law, it possess the statute of an international governmental organization:
- inside the European Union, liberty, equality, the citizen’s fundamental rights must be
guaranteed by the Treaties or by a Constitution; the concept of common citizenship must
be used. Thus, it is necessary to establish, like in the national states, a state of law or a
union of law.
- democratic forms and structures are necessary to characterize the life of the European
society. The citizen must be able to react to the legislative, executive, and judicial
institutions (the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Court of
Justice)
- the European Union must be able to use the competences given by the member states
concerning different common policies.
- the existence of NGO’s and political parties giving to citizens that share the same ideas,
the possibility to discuss and articulate a common opinion.
Jean-Marc Ferry (2000) sustains that the condition for building a European public space
resides in the articulation of three principles: civility, legality, publicity. These principles
constitute the patrimony of the European civilization in the measure in which the legality
conditions the base structure; the civility assures the continuity of daily practices where the
results are opposable to the parties captivated by the publicity of debates, in virtue of the
non-violent constraining force of the public opinion.
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