The closing conference of the European Year of the Citizens 2013.

The year 2013 was proclaimed as the European Year of the Citizens by the European Commission. It is an initiative focusing on the rights that come with EU citizenship. 

Over this year, dialogue between all levels of government, civil society and business was encouraged at events and conferences around Europe. The purpose was to discuss those EU rights and build a vision of how the EU should be in 2020. (europa.eu)

The launching of this initiative took place in Dublin last January, as the country was holding the EU Council Presidency, but the closing conference took place in Vilnius Lithuania, as part of the Baltic country’s presidency, between the 12th and 13th of December 2013. 

Around 350 participants participated from various EU NGOs, governmental and European institutions. On Lithuania’s initiative, several representatives of the EU Eastern Partnership countries’ NGO sector also participated, as well as a number of bloggers. I was very honored to be one of those invited by the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU Council. (EU2013LT)

Lithuania has a historic tradition with its citizen journalism, today’s blogging, and the samizdats that were being published during the country’s struggles for independence from the Soviet Union. Like the "Sąjūdis News" (Lithuanian: Sąjūdžio žinios) written by a group of reformist, pro-democracy and independence activists. (Wikipedia)

It is heartening that a group of bloggers from across Europe were also invited and included in the conference, though I believe that such incidents should become more often from now on. Europe has a number of very competent bloggers that like the Sąjūdis can influence the European political reality, given the chance.

The main topics of discussion were how to rebuilt Europe “from the bottom up,” discussing the role and future of civil society organisations in building Europe’s future, focusing on the upcoming European elections in 2014 and how we can we boost citizen’s participation in them. But also fostering EU citizens’ rights and finding new ways for citizens to influence European policy makers.

There have been many key speakers in the conference, like the European Commission’s Vice-President Viviane Reding, Lithuania’s Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius, Minister of Justice of Lithuania Juozas Bernatonis and Emily O’Reilly the European Ombudsman. 

From the start of the conference the discussions were focused on how to encourage us all to be active citizens, creating a “Union of the People”. Raising awareness on our EU citizens’ rights was one of the most discussed topics, as well as the effect that the economic crisis had on how citizens view the EU institutions and how we can restore faith to them.

“The attitudes of the people can change, if people feel that their concerns are heard,” stated Ylva Tiveus, Director “Citizens”, from the Directorate General for Communication of the EU Commission. 

Involvement of the citizens in the decision making process, especially that of the younger generation by teaching them about the functioning of EU institutions and reviewing the treaties was proposed by some participants. 

Europe should build a bridge between civil society and EU institutions. Especially since 50% of the citizens believe that they can make a change on EU level, if they are given the opportunity. The EU must come closer to its citizens and for this to happen, their voices must be heard in Brussels. 

Europe should focus on promoting its identity and promoting active citizenship in all local communities and the cooperation of various NGOs between EU states. It should secure the rights of citizens residing in another EU member state and those of minorities, eliminate poverty and give special care to the most vulnerable, in order to eliminate inequalities. 

European culture should be used as a way to unite people, while citizen mobility and engaging in volunteering will also contribute to the creation of a more active European citizenship.

Because of the crisis the European population does not feel ownership of the EU project. For this the lack of synchronization between national institutions and organizations is to blame and all states must cooperate intensively to solve such issues. 

Mr. Vytautas Landsbergis, former Head of State of Lithuania, mentioned that we should be concentrating on the significance of being in the EU, while understand what it means to be a citizen. Citizenship should not just be on our passports, but we should practice “responsible engagement”.

We should be proud of Europe plus its cultural richness and contribute to it. The Vice-President of the EU Commission Mrs Reding also supported this idea and proposed that every year from now on, should be dedicated on the citizens. 

Mrs Reding stated that the lack of information and complacency are the greatest challenges that Europe has to overcome, in order to achieve its goals. The European Year of Citizens changed the way politicians connect to citizens and for the first time in 2013, people had the chance to confront their politicians.

The European elections in 2014 will act as a “moment of truth” for the citizens’ participation in the continent's politics. In these elections, the citizens will be asked what kind of Europe they want and their answer will shape the EU. 

The European Ombudsman Mrs O’Reilly added to Mrs Reding’s comments by expressing that EU citizenship does not replace our national one. Active citizenship is in decline both on European and national level and that clearly states that the crisis in our continent is not just economic, but a social one as well. 

The EU Ombudsman receives many complaints from citizens on the lack of transparency in EU institutions. That reveals the extent of the damage of the image of EU in the citizens’ appreciation, but also their will to participate and get involved. 

“The EU is a work in progress, but its achievements must not be forgotten,” stated Mrs O’Reilly.

The civic society is very important in creating active citizenship and the internet is one of the tools for citizen expression between elections, engaging voters in debates on EU, European and national related issues. 

It is crucial to have the European civic society getting organized through the various portals on the internet, just as we are experiencing now days in the Ukrainian protests. In this way, we can counterweight the various businesses lobbyists that promote their interests in a European level.

The internet can help to organize and mobilize people, but it is only a first step towards a functioning new democratic model for Europe. We still need political parties and a government to achieve such goal.

Education programs in schools must also play a role in educating and informing our youths on their rights as citizens, but also focus on creating a European identity. 

The debates continued over the two days of the conference, giving an opportunity to every participant in expressing their views. Most of us bloggers admitted that such ideas were for long circulating in Europe’s social media and such ideas are not something new. 

The question is if this time the EU Commission and our governments will uphold their promises and materialize the plans that for years us bloggers, but also NGOs and European Think-Tanks were debating on. 

You may wish to read on the Launching of the European Year of the Citizens 2013 that took place in Dublin in January here.  There will be a follow up article on the OneEurope website, with further reports on the conference.

“The idea that Ireland has restored its sovereignty is false,” believes Paul Murphy MEP.

Ireland returns to the bond markets by the end of this year, yet billions will be taken out of its economy under the recently announced Budget 2014. 

Paul Murphy MEP believes that the debt is becoming non-payable, so the solution is its repudiation. “If we refuse to pay then there is no deficit, but a slight surplus. The austerity is purely imposed to pay the bond holders,” claims Paul. 

This is the 7^th austerity budget according to Paul and the government is hitting the most vulnerable again, young people in particular.  “You just can’t remove millions out of healthcare without having any account. They are trying to talk about recovery but there isn’t any,” Paul continues. 

The Irish Government claims a 4% growth of GDP but we have a 4.3% GMP decline and prior to that we had ¾ of GDP decline. “At best the economy is really sagging,” he states.

“They are trying to create this idea that by returning to the markets, we are a big success story. But it is very likely that we will take a precautionary credit line with the European Stability Mechanism, which is essentially a second bail out”.  

It will come with a conditionality, which means something like a memorandum of understanding, more austerity, supervision and visits by the ESM people, not the Troika. “A change of overseer but the facts do not change,” he states. 

“The most important question is if the € 200 billion national debt is payable,” Paul adds. Around € 65 billion comes directly from the banks. Another € 65 billion comes from deficits that have been built up over the period of the crisis. 

The debt is 125% of GDP and the projections of the EU Commission have it coming gradually down to 100% by 2020, but they’re based on growth rates of 3% over the next years. “The government is not going to meet these rates as we have extremely low rates of growth already this year”. 

“What we could do is a moratorium on debt repayments, a debt audit commission to investigate the debt,” Paul believes. Establish what is owed to private people, pension funds and pay them. “But we should not pay the debt which is owned to the ECB, big bond holders and the IMF”. 

“I am not trying to say that it is an easy solution; there are complications like engaging in a major struggle, particularly with the ECB,” says Paul. “In retaliation they will cut off funding from our banks”. 

“But I think the consequences of that are better, than paying the debt which is unsustainable and eventually we will not be able to pay,” he continues. The benefit that Ireland has is having a lot of ECB money now in its banks and they are state owned. “So we have a card that we can play,” Paul believes.

Paul also disagrees with the way Ireland handled its banks. The decision that was taken by the Irish government was to nationalize them, but they did not take public ownership of them. In other words according to Paul, Ireland continued to run its banks as profit making enterprises.

"We should have taken democratic control over it, nationalize them and refuse to pay the bond holders," says Paul. "This year, the bailed out banks will pay € 16 billion to the bond holders and the banks are fully funded to pay them. This money could be used to pay something else," he continues.

Paul thinks that Ireland should not pay some of the bond holders and use the control of the banks to write down people’s mortgages, so they can have money to spend. The lack of credit is a massive drain in the economy and so the country needs to enable people to get access to it.

 "The banks keep saying that they are open for business but it is not real. It is so irritating that we own the banks but we do not use them as a policy tool," states Paul. 

He also thinks that an action must be taken on  European level, as this crisis is a European wide phenomenon. Like the general strikes that were organized last November to some degree in Greece, Spain, Portugal Cyprus, Malta, and in Italy, with  more or less success in different countries.

What Paul and his party is putting forward, is the idea of a common industrial action initially across the countries of the European periphery and then across the continent. 

Paul also believes that the Seanad referendum in Ireland was lost because people distrust the political establishment in general and the government in particular. "People have a deep and correct sense that there is a power grab happening, that things are less and less democratic," he argues.   

And that is a phenomenon that happens across Europe. In Ireland this is obvious with the economic management council, which is the centralization of power. "That was the context of the Seanad referendum and in that context people saw the referendum as part of that power grab," Paul believes. 

"In my opinion it was a mistake, the referendum was about the government cynically trying to do something that would make things slightly more democratic. This actually contradicts them in policy, but people did not believe them and so they voted against the government's proposal," he describes.


We ended the interview with Paul on a lighter not, as I asked him to describe life in the European Parliament. "It is very different every day,"ha stated. "On the negative side there is a lot of travel, stress and pressure, but on the positive side there is this amount of interesting people that I meet," he said. 

"In one day I can meet Palestinian candidates, Bangladeshi campaigners, or many very interesting and impressive people in one day. The only problem is that there is not enough time in my day, to follow with all that is happening," Paul continued. 

"I have the privilege to be able to travel and meet people in Turkey, or in other important developments like during the Gaza flotilla raid protests. I am aware of that privilege and I want to make sure that people across Europe get as much benefit from it," he concludes.

This is the third and last part of an interview with Paul Murphy MEP, published exclusively in the Eblana European Democratic Movement blog and in the One Europe website. 

The West's involvement in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

One of the most important political developments that took place last week, was the first step towards the end of a three decade dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Western nations led by the US, have for long objected to the Middle Eastern country's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The country has faced sanctions for many years imposed from the Western allies, in an effort to deter Iran from developing such weaponry. These sanctions have had a devastating effect to the nation's economy, with unemployment running up to 24%, according to recent statistics.

But they did not harm only Iran's economy, since as the country is one of the leading oil producers in the world, being unable to increase its oil exports because of the Western sanctions, the global oil prices were affected too.

It is clear then that the sanctions imposed by the US and their Western allies, were never just because of Iran's nuclear ambitions. A new nuclear power in an unstable region is indeed a very worrying development, but this alone does not justify decades of economic sanctions.

Let us not forget that both India and Pakistan, possess nuclear weaponry despite having  very volatile relations. And it is very peculiar that nations which themselves own nuclear weapons like the US and its allies, think that they can tell others not to develop them.

Nuclear power and weaponry is being treated as a commodity for elite countries, used to impose their will and interests upon non elite nations. If we would like to be fair, then no nation should own or be allowed to develop them.

But that was never on the global elite's agenda. They use their global status as economic powers, to refrain other nations that they consider as outsiders and dissident, from entering their club of developed and prosperous nations, that lead all economic, industrial and scientific developments in this world.

In reality, they do not want an Islamic, conservative and anti-West nation to develop in any of the above spheres of development. Such case would hurt the idea that our elites tried to impose on us, that a country with everything that Iran represents, can not be rich, developed and progressive but only liberal Western societies fit the bill to do so.

The notion that Iran is a threat to the West is nonsensical, as we are the ones who are acting as the aggressors. We are imposing economic sanctions that impoverish the Iranian people and keep them from long term prosperity, in fear that if they become a nuclear power they will be a threat to our security.

The only threat that they will become, is to the status quo in the Middle East region, that we and other global players like Russia and China, have direct interests in. And so we step up to stop them.

The agreement that took place in Geneva last week, between Iran and the six powers of Russia, China, USA, France, Britain and the EU, is indeed a good deal as many have already claimed. Because hopefully the West has finally realized, that sanctions and isolation do not help to end a dispute.

If the West wanted to change Iran, then a different approach should have been more preferable. But because the Middle East is a battleground for strong interests both for local and global players, such reasonable approach was not taken.

The US simply wants to control the oil production and prices, as its economy is based on this commodity. Some countries in the Middle East share America's interests and benefit from the current status, while others do not. It is unacceptable that nations can or can not prosper, depending on which side of the alliance they lie.

Of course not everybody was happy about the deal. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was very critical of it, declaring is as a "historic mistake". But we are so used to witness a continuous intransigence by himself and his government, when his country's interests are concerned. 

Such attitudes do not help to solve an issue and if the West or indeed Israel want to reach an agreement with Iran and end the decades long dispute, they must understand that diplomacy is the key and compromises from both sides must take place. 

Forbidding the aspirations of a nation for prosperity and development just because they hurt your interests is not democratic and if we want to put it bluntly is an act of aggression. If we want the Iranians to cooperate, then we must also show signs of trust and good will. 

Our opposition and concerns should only come in relation to the development of nuclear weapons, not the use of nuclear power in general that Iran, like any other nation has every right to consider for the benefit of its economy and citizens.Since the Iranians are willing to cooperate, why not give them a chance?

Hopefully this agreement will mark the beginning of a new era between Iran and the West relations and help ease the tensions in the Middle East, rid of all the old rigid approach coming from both sides.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Yesterday (25/11/2013) was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and I was engaged in a debate on the issue on the Debating Europe website.

It is obvious that above all, education reform is the key solution to a lot of issues that our societies are facing today and this problem is not an exception. 

Our youths should be taught gender equality, sex education that will include education on homosexuality, the differences between the genders and other relevant issues at school. 

Women must also be empowered to realize that they are the "hand that rocks the cradle", so if they want future generations of men to respect women, it is also up to them to raise boys, that will become men that are respectful towards women.

If women do not have respect for themselves, or they accept the stereotypes that exist in our societies and pass them on to their children at home, then nothing will change. In other words if our society must change, women must change as well, in how they see themselves in it and the roles they can or can not take.  

It is not just women who are stereotyped and the statistics reveal that suicide rates among young men are much higher than those of women, and that states something. Young males are also under pressure to conform and play the role that the society has assigned to them very well, that of the "real man".

We also have to examine why certain women, or indeed men who also suffer from violence, enter in a relationship with a violent person in the first place. Normally what any self respecting person would do if his or her partner was violent towards them, would be to leave such relationship.

But some people seem unable to do so, either because they suffer from low self esteem, financial dependency on their partners, family or public opinion restrictions, shame, an idea that the best interests of their children would be to stay in such relationship and so on. 

As a society we must struggle to remove such taboos on relationships and the family institution, the role of each gender in them and the stereotypes that we have created on how must a man or a woman act in them. Perhaps laws must be extended and developed by the state, to protect the most vulnerable people of our community.

People who are violent towards their partners most likely come from a family that abuse by the father, the mother or both was the norm, and so they continue what they know best and think it is normal: violence.

Perhaps they saw their mother being hit by their father at home, or the mother herself was abusive towards her children, or she allowed the father to be abusive towards their children, or both parents were abusive towards them.

And so the circle of violence never ends. The issue here is, how do we stop it and empower women to have more confidence and economic independence, that if they enter into a relationship with such men, to be confident and proud enough, but also financially independent to break away. 

Help them protect their children from violent men, but also stop being abusive towards their children, to retaliate for the violence they receive from the man that they "love" or are dependent on financially.

Perhaps women that enter such relationships believe that that is what they deserve and they do not deserve better. Or themselves have grown in an abusive family and they are just accustomed to violence. 

Potentially more state intervention is needed in family affairs, but then people will understandably object to such thing. Maybe this kind of intervention must be more discreet, with the establishment of agencies to support families in need and of course education. 

What I mean by "education" is not by its academic dimension of course rather its social, though promoted through our educational institutions. In this way we should try and change the stereotypes that portray men and women as they are under our current social role models.

Punishing one single case of violence, may solve the problem of one abusive relationship but it does not stop the phenomenon in the long term. It has been going on for too long and punishing one violent man here or there does not make it go away. Not that these men shouldn't be punished.

But preferably all of us as a society must take action collectively, both men and women, to raise children that do not think that violence is acceptable at any form. And our schools and governments must play an active role in this effort.  

We all know what shameful secrets, exist in the institution of family behind closed doors. Struggles between the parents to gain influence or power over another, or show to the society a fake facade of appropriateness, morals, happiness and accomplishment. And within these struggles, both male and female children are forced to comply with certain stereotypes, to be a "good wife" or a "real man".

It is those stereotypes that do most of the damage. In their effort to assert themselves in the family, in the eyes of a domineering father or mother figure and in the cultural stereotypes of the society they live in, men and women often find themselves at odds with each other, in an ever lasting struggle of dominance and role playing.

Perhaps if we get rid of those stereotypes, men won't beat women when they can not assert themselves, or prove to their mother, father, friends and family that they are "real men". Perhaps it is time to say, it is ok to be weak even if you are male, or it is ok to take the lead even if you are female. 

We should create new role models, that do not bow to any gender or sexual orientation. Perhaps then the disgraceful phenomenon of family violence will be eradicated, when the issue is not focused solely on violence against women, but violence in the family environment in general and the role of the two sexes in it.