What's the meaning of voting on June the 7th?

Published on May 25, 2009

Athens

Here in Greece, the political parties announced their candidates almost two weeks after PM Karamanlis announced that the Parliament will end its sessions because of the european elections- a move which provoked a lot of discussion because of the corruption scandals which dominate the political life of the country. It is sad that in Greece, the european election race will be held based on the national agenda - nothing about Europe was said from the parties until now..Very few debates were organised up to now, so that nobody knows what each party represents about Europe. Within the Greek political system exist a consensus over Greece's position within the EU. Except of the Communist Party, no other party has ever questioned that it is for good that Greece participates to the Union, no matter the different visions over the european project that each party has. This phenomenon is not only apparent in Greece. A greater political consensus has been created in the european level as well. The two big political parties of the Union, the European Popular Party and the European Socialist Party are agreeing even to that point so they both want Jose Manuel Baroso to continue being the President of the European Commission. It is true that those big political coalitions do not seem to be that much different at all. After all, since the Reagan-Thatcher era, almost all the socialist parties which came to power, implemented liberal policies. ''So, what is the point of all this procedure ? '' I am afraid, that all these years, in order to boost up the unification process we' ve lost something much more important : to politicize the procedure. Despite the fact that the European Parliament was given a lot of powers over the last years- powers that will be much more important if the Lisbon Treaty is about to be implemented- the percentage of people who vote in the elections is diminishing. To conclude, is this 60% of Europeans who believe that their vote will result to nothing on June the 7th, a message to Brussels that something doesn't goes well ? I think that we are in a desperate need of MEP's that are able to understand so..