Wednesday, November 18 2009 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 10 comments
Dear Madam, Dear Sir,
On November 19, at a dinner that you want to be historic, you intend to appoint the first president of the European Council as it is defined by the Treaty of Lisbon.
This dinner will indeed be historic because it reveals once again how little attention you pay to democratic considerations in the nomination of the highest two representatives of the European Union, the President of European Council and the Foreign Ministe
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Thursday, October 1 2009 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 8 comments
Newropeans signed the open letter to the European Parliament to Protect Net-neutrality. And we ask others to do the same thing at http://www.laquadrature.net/en/we-must-protect-net-neutrality-in-europe-open-letter-to-the-european-parliament.
“Organizations from all around Europe share their concern of seeing Net Neutrality being sacrificed during the conciliation procedure of the directives of the EU Telecoms Package.” These directives will be discussed in the coming days.
The open letter states: “Net neutrality is now under the threat of telecom operators and content industries that see business opportunities in discriminating, filtering or prioritizing information flowing through the network. All around Europe, these kinds of discriminatory practices, detrimental to both consumers and innovation, are emerging. No court or regulator seems to have adequate tools to counter this behaviour and protect the general interest. Some provisions introduced in the Telecoms Package could even encourage such practices.”
Newropeans think recent governmental, technological and corporation influence on web users’ rights have intensified the need for constitutional measures to protect the fundamental rights within the information society. We are strong supporters of the idea of a European Bill of digital rights, as declared in Tunis at the World Summit for Information Society 2005. These rights and principles should include, among others, privacy, data protection, freedom of expression, universal access, network neutrality, interoperability, global reachability of all Internet modes, the use of open formats and standards, public access to knowledge and the right to innovate. The same principles should later be applied to the next generation technologies that will replace the contemporary Internet.
Newropeans-Member Robert Cailliau (one of the founders of the www) wrote in Newropeans-Magazine:
"We believe in the principle of net neutrality to preserve the benefits of the internet as a free and open technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic communication. Transfer of information should not be prioritized by the identity of its sender or its destination.
The EU should stimulate neutral networks free of restrictions on content, sites or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed. A short-term regulatory solution should split responsibilities for content from those of transfer. ISPs are to be
divided into IHPs (hosting) and ITPs (transfer). ITPs must treat all packets equally. Companies shall not provide both services. The middle-term goal is public municipal broadband infrastructure, like roads,
sidewalks, and parks."
More information:
Veronique Swinkels (vice president Newropeans) vswinkels @newropeans.eu
0031651572672
Reinder Rustema (specialist net neutrality) 0031621224775
Read more about Newropeans’ Information society policy:
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/content/view/9103/84/
http://interneteurope.pbworks.com/FrontPage
Friday, September 18 2009 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 10 comments
As the debate rages over Manuel Barroso’s renewal at the head of the European Commission, everyone seems to forget that this year is also the 10th anniversary of Santer’s Commission collective resignation on grounds of ill-management and corruption scandals.
According to Newropeans, and to all those interested in the progress of both democracy and
But in this field, the results are appalling. While many people - inside the Commission as well as from other European institutions and among the partners of many European projects and programmes – expected the 1999 crisis to kick off a wide-ranging process of renovation of the European executive administration, it is clear today that the situation has in fact worsened on every aspect.
Four challenges were highlighted by the 1999 crisis which should have been taken up successively by Romano Prodi’s and Manuel Barroso’s commissions in the past 10 years, i.e. :
1. the lack of political control over the European Commission’s top bureaucracy
2. the increasing tolerance, in the course of the 1990s, to corruption and fraud inside the institution
3. the growing influence of external players on the definition and implementation of the Commission’s policies and programmes
4. the loss of contact with field realities (citizens in general, operational partners or programme beneficiaries in particular).
Ten years later, the record is clear: not only has none of these four challenges been addressed, but the situation has deteriorated on every four aspects.
This conclusion is illustrated as follows:
In 1999, as I wrote at that time, something completely absurd for a so-called democratic system started to develop: “politicians” were resigning in order to cover « bureaucrats ». Santer’s Commission indeed committed suicide in order to prevent the launching of all-out investigations on the dealings of many general directors and other senior administrative officials directly involved in embezzlement, fraud and bad management practices. The two commissions that came after that never dared facing up to the Commission’s top administration and therefore let the system that caused the 1999 crisis prevail, a top administration free from any political control. In a meeting in 1998 with a group of young experts (vainly) trying to warn against the trends that led to the 1999 crisis, Commissioner Anita Gradin, then in charge of financial control, spontaneously replied to us that she could not do anything about general directors … she was just a Commissioner! Ten years and two commissions later, nothing has changed. The European Parliament will get excited about the nomination of Commissioners, when it should in fact exert its authority on the Commission’s top administration (for instance, putting an end to the life-long judicial immunity enjoyed by EU civil servants, as advocated in Newropeans’ programme).
Talking about these life-long judicial immunities, it is part of the second challenge that was never addressed in the past 10 years: tolerance to corruption and fraud inside the institution itself. The Commission remains a virtually uncontrolled institution: the OLAFs and other UCLAFs are run by the Commission, and the European Court of Auditors has very limited coercitive means; the Parliament is only interested in puppets (Commissioners, as Commissioner Verheugen confirmed in 2006) and the Council is only striving to submit and weaken the Commission (there is no hope of accountability on the part of States, which contributed actively to the general decay). No need to be a great expert to imagine what can be the result of years without control for an institution in charge of dozens of billions of Euros and with direct influence over whole segments of laws applying to 500 million people. In this regard too, nothing has changed in ten years. As a matter of fact, no civil servant was ever accused of anything relating to the 1999 crisis, or of anything at all since then: on the basis of this sole criterion, the Commission would be a perfect institution with an internal crime level equals to zero. Ten years later, this lie obviously remains the standard.
The influence of lobbies and the constant intrusion of external players involved in the management of EU programmes is no question. No one is fooled by the cosmetic procedures related to lobby transparency (this concerns the European Parliament too): lobbies can tell whatever they want, the way they want… a real programme of transparency and control!
Last but not least, if the Commission’s image was already deteriorated at the time of the 1999 crisis, it is today far worse as it has no image left whatsoever. The Commission has completely disappeared from European citizens’ political perception. It was completely overshadowed by the EU Council which did all it could to build on this trend. The nomination of mediocre presidents at the head of the institution has enabled
Ten years after the Commission’s big crisis, the fact remains that none of the profound causes that led to the collective resignation of the European executive power was addressed, the situation in fact deteriorated even further, creating the conditions of growing isolation for the Commission, now completely disconnected from socio-political realities (even a control is a link to reality) and merely concerned about the power and privileges of its top administration.
If the next Commission stood a chance to have a politically accountable programme, it would consist of addressing these four challenges. We know already that Manuel Barroso won’t. But we should have no illusion in any case: given that member-states are responsible for this choice and are short-sighted enough to estimate that it is in their interest to have a weak Commission and president, no other candidate will make any difference, as we have seen in the past ten years that the Commission cannot be renovated from the inside.
The only solution for all those, among whom I am, who know that a democratic European Union needs a legitimate and dynamic European executive power in order to face the common challenges related to the social and economic crisis, the weather crisis, the global governance crisis… is to work on both European and national levels, inside and outside of the European institutions, enabling each and everyone to contribute to the preparation of a radical change in 2014 in the structure and designation means of the European executive power, in the control of how it operates and of its top hierarchy, and in the definition of five-year priorities for the EU.
Franck Biancheri
President - Newropeans
www.newropeans.eu
Tuesday, June 9 2009 By Guillaume newropeans.eu
Newropeans wants to thank all its voters, supporters and members who made possible this historic premiere of a single political movement presenting the same programme to 130 millions European voters in different EU member states.
Despite its lack of financial resources, a blockade by most national media, in particular televisions, and very nationalist campaigns for this European election, Newropeans inaugurated trans-European campaigning for a European election : millions of Europeans have seen or heard the Newropeans video-clips in the official campaigns, hundreds of thousands have visited our websites and dozens of thousands have voted for us.
Too few to make a political difference ... yet! But enough to allow Newropeans to prepare from today on the next five years leading to the 2014 European Election.
Let’s keep in mind that 4 years ago, when Newropeans was created, it only had 20 members ... and nothing else but the will to push forward the agenda of Europe and democracy!
At a time when abstention reaches a new record high, when extremist parties are progressing all over the EU, the threats to European democracy are bigger than ever.
Therefore Newropeans has decided to sign the charter of the newly launched ’European Democratic Front’, whose objective is to gather all those social, cultural and political forces willing to prevent the EU to fall in the hands of non democratic leaders and parties.
Meanwhile it calls all its voters, supporters and members to get ready for allowing Newropeans to be successful accross the EU in June 2014!
The fate of Europe and Democracy is more uncertain than ever. The fight for 2014 starts now!
At least one political force will keep on talking about our common European future in the coming 5 years : it’s Newropeans!
Join us now ... the fight is only beginning!’
Site de Newropeans
Contact us : contact@newropeans.eu
Wednesday, May 13 2009 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 10 comments
Thursday, December 11 2008 By Guillaume newropeans.eu
During its Agora which took place in Frankfurt the 29th of November, Newropeans defined a working plan in order to elaborate by February 2009 a European response to the world crisis, including two parts:
By its presence in various member states, Newropeans is to this day the only political force capable of perceiving the crisis directly on the whole EU territory. Furthermore, its novelty and absence of national left-right bias give its members a particular ability to analyze and understand the crisis without any ideological a-priori.
Finally, Newropeans is the only political movement which regularly relayed analyses and interrogations of informed observers, like those of LEAP/E2020 which foresaw the crisis and the process of its progression until 2006.
To this day, Newropeans is thus the European political force the best prepared and apt to identify and promote the implementation of appropriate solutions.
In this context, from December 2008 on, Newropeans has decided to publish its "European social political alerts" on a regular basis in order to publicize its political recommendations to member states as well as the content of its proposals regarding the common European action to face this crisis.
This first alert, "unemployment burst", is set at the crossing of two major concerns of Newropeans, democratising the EU and giving Europeans a strong voice in the world, since this is indeed a global crisis started out of Europe, in the United States, but which triggers a massive rise of unemployment in the UE which in turn poses a potential threat for democracy as history already showed.
Despite the conservative estimates made by the Member States and the European Commission, which a couple of months ago were still denying the existence of the crisis itself, Newropeans is now convinced that unemployment within the EU will reach historical levels in the course of the years 2009/2010. Over this period, one should expect almost a doubling of the number of unemployed, up to approx. 30 million people (versus 17 today), under the combined effect of bankruptcies, redundancy plans and the recruitment stop . the various revival plans currently announced that continue to ignore the systemic nature of the crisis will not have a significant impact on this trend.
Against this background, even before the complex implementation of the employment reconstruction process, and because of the possible duration of the most severe phase of the crisis (between two and three years), Newropeans asks all Member states to prepare as soon as possible, already at the beginning of 2009, an urgent reform of the unemployment benefit systems in order to face this two fold increase:
Instead of focusing the provision of public funding to financial institutions, and awaiting the necessarily long term impact of large public investment plans revival measures, it is essential that Member States avoid an explosion of their unemployment benefit systems for lack of budget.. And it is also vital to avoid that in on year from now million of unemployed reach the end of their benefits, et because of a lack of dynamic labor market sink into absolute poverty.
The existence of a social system based on solidarity in the European states is a major advantage which benefits our continent to face the crisis. Since they don’t benefit from an similar ‘social safety net’ Asian countries are now worrying about increasing riot risks and violent socio-political movements; whereas the United States, powerless, see a growing part of their middle class sink into poverty. Europe, by opposition, has the advantage of having learnt from the 30’s crisis and of having generalized the principle of social protection. For the next three years, this social protection will become the best protection of our society’s stability and of our democracies. The EU Member States therefore need to reinforce it. Newropeans invites the European Commission and Parliament to adopt before the end of January 2009, the necessary common recommendations for stimulating this evolution. Without such action from the EU, Newropeans will launch, in February 2009, a large European citizen initiative to demand the mobilisation of the entire European social protection system against the crisis.
To govern is to forecast.
And forecasting is acting now !
Newropeans
Contact for press communication: press@newropeans.eu
Tuesday, October 7 2008 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 10 comments
This post is also available in: French
Monday, October 6 2008 By Guillaume newropeans.eu
8 months, that's all that is left for Newropeans to get 5 to 10 % of the almost 500 millions european citizens to vote for the democratisation of the EU, to vote for Newropeans.
With the Summer Beach Campaign, Newropeans got exposure in the media along the way. And mostly, almost a Million (910 000) flyers were handed out to tanned European citizens in flip-flops - by volunteers traveling in Camper-vans along the coasts of Europe and giving their time for the democratisation of Europe.
A great adventure for the volunteers, a huge achievement for Newropeans !
8 months remaining. Everywhere in Europe, Newropeans campaigns are kicking off or gaining momentum. Next campaign to be launched: the spanish one, in Barcelona on 22th November. If you around, do not miss it!
8 months remaining, our programme to enrich!
8 months remaining, dozens of translations for our network of voluntary translators!
8 months remaining, anyone who is concerned about the way the EU is currently run is welcome to help
8 months, that is all we have got to bring our ideas in the parliament.
Thursday, November 15 2007 By Guillaume newropeans.eu | 4 comments
When I wrote a post three days ago to celebrate the 250th person to join the Newropeans group on Facebook, I did not expect that the 50 next will join in so few hours. 300 citizens who are the best support to our action, since ideas without audience are nothing!
Let us keep up the pace, let the snowball roll and gather friends of friends around this necessary and thrilling project: the democratisation of the EU.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2371593110