EU urged to 'interact' more with citizens

Improved turn-out in the 2009 European elections is “essential” in order to boost the EU’s much-maligned democratic deficit.

That was the key message from Dutch MEP Sophie In’t Veld at a conference in parliament on Thursday debating how the EU can improve the way it communicates with citizens.

The ALDE deputy, a keynote speaker at the event said, “It is essential that voter turnout improves in these elections, not least in my own country where, for example, less than one third of the population bothered to turn out to vote in the 1999 European elections.”

Voter turnout in the Netherlands increased to 40 per cent in the last Euro elections, in 2004 but she says there has to be further improvement.

In’t Veld added, “It is all well and good running communications campaigns and strategies which promote the EU but there has to be more to it than that.

“We need to actively engage EU citizens in what we are doing and interact with them. That is the way forward.”

The hearing was partly overshadowed by a furious exchange between British Eurosceptic MEP Nigel Farage and Romanian Leonard Orban, EU commissioner for multilingualism.

Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said that financial gain was one main reasons east European countries, such as Romania, wanted to join the EU.

Orban, who also spoke in the debate, branded the remarks as “outrageous” but Farage later stood by what he said.

“The problem with the EU is not one of communications but, rather, one of consent,” he told this website.

“It is little wonder that so few people vote in European elections because when they are given a chance to vote in, say, a referendum, they are ignored.”

 

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