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Alex Orr - Behind the Headlines



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Published Date: 28 August 2008
THE European Parliament, currently comprising 785 MEPs, is the only EU institution directly elected on a strictly European mandate, but voter turnout has consistently fallen – from 63 per cent in 1979 to a new low of 45.6 per cent in 2004 – and calls into question the ability of EU politicians to reverse the trend for the 2009 elections.
A number of reasons have been suggested for this decline, and a number of solutions have been proposed to reverse it. Since 1979, the directly elected European Parliament has gradually and consistently increased its political powers, and this trend w...



The full article contains 565 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
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  • Last Updated: 27 August 2008 8:42 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 28/08/2008 22:06:55
There is no need for this so-called European Parliament, which is neither European nor a parliament, especially since the EU is the smallest of all the main European organisations. It could quite easily be replaced by the same system that is used by the much larger Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where delegated members of national parliaments form the legislatures - and, unlike the EU, with genuine powers of decision. Its only real function is to act as one of the trappings of a European sovereign state, which a stubborn hard core of activists are determined to realise with the EU as its centre.

We must get away from the idea that the European Union is to be equated with "Europe". It is only one of a number of European organisations. That bureaucratic monster has long since drifted away from the original concept of a united Europe. The Lisbon treaty, in the manner of its introduction as well as a large part of its content, was an obscene gesture in the direction of the European Ideal. There is much that is positive in what the EU has accomplished and is accomplishing, but it is not the beginning and end of "Europe" in any sense.


 

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