Commissioner, I have some concerns about the organisation of the meeting but I was impressed by the quality of the discussions, one of the experts said “If you take people seriously, they respond seriously”.
Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission
Exactly
I also had several people tell me that, since they got involved in the consultations, they’re taking more interest in the news, in politics.
This is our experience of the previous consultations. At the beginning of the meeting you could tell from their body language that they were reluctant and you could sense them thinking “What am I doing here?” but in the end, everybody got involved and it was a very successful enterprise, to show that it is possible to bring people together, people who had never met before to discussions about the EU and they are fully capable of setting their own agenda.
I thought the standard of interaction was very good and saw that people were actively listening to each other. The difficulties I have really come from the second day and it started off with the document that was a distillation of the previous days discussions and recommendations. I thought it was not a good record of what I had seen and some delegates said “I don’t recognise it, I don’t recognise this debate”.
Has it been politicised too much?
I would say the reverse, that it had been sanitised. This document was just handed out, I thought it would be appropriate for the organisers to ask the delegates if they accepted it.
I thought that had been done. I was counting on that being done.
It seemed to me that there was a certain amount of political manipulation or massaging by some of the organisers and the panels. I think Pat Cox wasn’t that good as a moderator because the moderator’s job should have been to present the citizens views to the politicians and make the politicians respond. It appeared to be ‘here are my colleagues that I’ve known for many years’ and made it sound like a little club. Immediately the debate went into a party political debate.
I share those views, I just think they lost it, the politicians. They started to discuss ’second reading’ in the Parliament and ‘third pillar’ issues and they just forgot where they were and it was all a party political debate, an election debate, not responding to the citizens. This was a reminder of the gap between politicians and the citizens so it illustrated that perfectly and I hope they regret what they did. It was good that someone reminded them what they were meant to do.
I thought the highlight was, the moment that showed me that the consultations were important was when a Polish delegate asked them to stop squabbling and fight ing and discuss the issues citizens were raising. I thought it significant that someone had the confidence and courage to say that.
Absoultely
And she got the biggest round of applause of the day. I just thought that the politicians, in particular, showed themselves to be constitutionally incapable of listening to people. They were hearing what they wanted to hear.
They had their own agenda and they used this as part of their election campaign. This was abosolutely clear. It was just another platform for giving election speeches. They didn’t really respond to what people were saying and I don’t know if they were truly aware or understood where they were and who these people were, who they met, so they turned it full of jargon immediately and this was not right. There is a lesson here for them to learn.
You’ve had a big struggle to get this forum off the ground
It’s been a struggle, but it has been very successful. It’s been very well organised in all the member states and very positively received, but you have to learn from experience and next time we have to organise it in a different way and you need a tough moderator who can make people answer questions and not give election speeches.
I’m not sure how to put this, but the editing of the results of the citizens discussions left something to be desired. People were complaining that a lot had been left out.
It’s important to pass this on to the organisers.
Now you’re facing a second fight, against people who want to use the consultations for their own agendas. I would suggest that in future the organisers and facilitators are independent, not from European think tanks.
This is where it’s very important to have a good moderator and it’s also a matter of finding a good format because at the moment we’re trying to squeeze a very unusual exercise into a traditional format, but we have to think about new platforms, why not using a cultural event? We need to think and look for the future because I want this to continue. To be fair to Pat Cox, last time he was a very good moderator, but that was not with a political panel. We should have somebody who is not a politician to handle this dialogue.
If we can move the process onward and give the citizens a chance to really speak and be properly listened to, this process could really be something important in a few years time.
I think so. it’s possible and now we have to work on all the details and exactly how to refine it into something that can complement the normal political process.
Where are you going from here?
That is part of our legacy, we have other of initiatives and I hope to pass it on to the next commission in one way or another.
How have attitudes to the consultations changed since it’s inception?
I think this was a turning point because the President himself came and not everyone was convinced about the Plan D proposals, but it’s proven its value and we have to decide on the follow-up, and it’s up to the next commission to decide. We also need public support. But without positive recognition it will be more difficult. We will be following up and making sure that things that are discussed will be passed on to the decision makers.
