The director of the European Parliament's Information Office in Spain analysed current European affairs and what is expected of the Conference for the Future of Europe on Capital Radio's Atalayar programme

María Andrés: ''This Conference has to be an exercise in listening to the feelings of citizens''

photo_camera María Andrés

With a degree in journalism and specialising in European Union and international politics, María Andrés is currently the director of the European Parliament's Information Office in Spain. She stopped by the microphones of Atalayar on Capital Radio to talk about the Conference on the Future of Europe that began on the 9th, whose differentiating element is the importance given to citizen participation. In her speech, the journalist explained the relationship between Spain and the European Union, assuring that we have a very important role in it and that our position, both popular and from the institutions, is increasingly pro-European.

What does a Spanish citizen have to do if he or she wants to take part in this great forum that has been convened? Do you have to channel it through associations? How could he or she do it?

Well, the truth is that in the history of any democracy, I would say, there has never been an exercise in reflection like this one, so big, so ambitious, and I think there are many ways to do it. As a private citizen, if you simply Google "platform on the conference on the future of Europe", you will immediately find this address, futureu.europa.eu, which is a platform created by the European Commission and launched on 19 April with the sole objective of giving any citizen the opportunity, without the need to belong to any association, simply by committing to meet certain requirements of respect for certain values and principles, to submit any proposal, any reflection they want on the future of the European Union. So that is what is intended, that it should be a tremendously participatory exercise, and not only through the platform, but also through these citizens' panels that are going to be organised, where there will be up to 200 citizens per panel to discuss different priority issues, a representation of which will be in the plenary sessions where this conference on the state of the European Union will be debated in the European Parliament. Perhaps it is difficult to explain this quickly, but I think there will be a number of opportunities for citizens who wish to participate.

The panels are going to be drawn from a sample that tries to represent the diversity that exists in the European Union, so they are going to be chosen, for example, in a certain age bracket, so that at least 30% are under 70 years of age, or are, of course, geographically diverse, and so on. But the idea of this conference, what sets it apart from any other past exercise, is precisely this leading role for citizens.

María Andrés

And the Spaniards, although we are still in a very embryonic phase or in the initial start-up phase of the Conference, are we participating a lot, even if the Conference is going to last for more than a year?

Yes, I think so. I believe that Spain is a deeply pro-European country. It always has been. During the financial crisis of 2008, perhaps because of the harsh consequences that the economy was having on society, and that may have influenced public opinion, which began to question the role of the European Union, how we were managing ourselves, how this crisis was being resolved. But we recovered again; in 2016-17 that pulse began to recover and now I would say, without a doubt, when one looks at the Eurobarometers, we are once again at the forefront of this constructive Europeanism and what we are trying to do of those who are pushing the cart. You see that clearly in the events and in the seminars and in the debates that we organise in this office. But it can also be seen in the way we push the most pro-European theses from the different institutions. Patxi Aldecoa was commenting on many of the proposals, but I see, for example, a Secretary of State for the European Union, Juan González-Barba, who participates as an observer in the Executive Committee of the Conference of the European Union, where only seven Member States participate and he is one of the most pro-European and goes hand in hand with the European Parliament, aligning himself with many of the proposals. Furthermore, you were asking Patxi Aldecoa what opportunity Brexit offers or what scenario opens up after the departure of the United Kingdom, and I think it leaves a lot of room for Spain, which wants to be pro-European and be in the leading group, to really position itself with countries, for example, like Italy, which is also pushing in that leading group without complexes and to move Europe forward on the issues on which, until now, the United Kingdom has traditionally dragged its feet so much. 

What I would say to you is that I do not agree so much with Patxi, is when he said that yes, we will probably end up having a convention that will later lead to a reform of the Treaties. I would say that, without closing the door to the future reform of the treaties, we shouldn't be pigeon-holed in this debate either. What we must be clear about is that this Conference must be an important exercise in reflection, in listening, and that the institutions must be brave enough to carry out this exercise to its ultimate consequences. We have to really listen to the feelings of the citizens, what reforms do they want, and then transform them into concrete actions. But in order to transform them into concrete actions, it may not be necessary to go to this maximum proposal and start reforming the treaties if the national governments of certain Member States are against it. But the current Lisbon Treaty leaves us so much room for improvement, in how we coordinate, in how we can manage future pandemics, in how to move forward to provide more social solutions for the city, in how to promote a truly European education, in culture, in sport... There are a lot of things where proposals have not yet been carried out, the many that are coming out now, and that could be carried out without the need to reform the treaties. So let's not forget that it would not be a failure if this does not end in this international convention, but it would be a failure if the proposals made by citizens are not transformed into concrete actions and if they do not find a consensus during the Conference.

What we in the media should be able to do - and this is what we are doing at Atalayar - is to convince citizens that this is about them, that this affects their daily lives. And well, in the 2008-2014 crisis, each country acted in its own interest and not as the European Union. Now, with the pandemic, they have acted as the European Union.

Yes, I see how throughout the recent crises that the European Union and the rest of the world have suffered, because this has been a global trend; the issue of the economic crisis, then perhaps the immigration crisis that we have had since 2015, so striking with the conflict in Syria and subsequently the Brexit and even the election of Trump in the United States, has led the European Union to accumulate one blow after another, one crisis after another in which, it is true, we must recognise, it has been an important breeding ground for those more nationalist theses of a more Europhobic nature. We in the European Parliament see this every day. These parties that thrive on opposition to anything that involves ceding more powers to the European Union, the only thing they are interested in is renationalising policies and so on. But these parties, which are more Europhobic, as you said before, very well, with the exit of the United Kingdom it has been shown that perhaps it has been more of a vaccine than anything else. And I don't hear any party from any country in the European Parliament now defending the exit of their country. What these Europhobic parties are talking about now is how to remain strong within the European Parliament to try to dissolve these ambitions to take away more competences from the European institutions and renationalise certain policies, but they intend to remain inside. And I believe that in Spain we have realised more forcefully than ever before, due to the recent crises, that Europe plays a major role, that they have a lot to decide on the daily lives of citizens, we still feel a significant lack of knowledge about how the institutions work, but we no longer doubt that they do play a major role, and play a major role. Therefore, I believe that the feelings of the citizens when we listen to the surveys - which is ultimately the clearest, what speaks to us best - we continue to see, for example, in the latest Eurobarometer of just a few days ago, that 81% of Europeans believe that the conference on the future of Europe should serve to reform the European Union, to improve crisis management, and that it must be done from the European Union; 66%, for example, from the European Union, as an important perspective for giving that future and that employment to today's young people. There is also talk of the European Union being a very stable place in a more unstable world. If you look at these surveys, you realise, especially in Spain, where we are always the ones leading the survey, that we really do have the conviction that, in the face of global challenges, we need global solutions. And that the European Union is always going to solve our problems better, not because we are better or because the institutions achieve something that the national government does not, but because we are only going to be able to face together the challenges that we can only solve together because they are global: immigration, the coronavirus pandemic, and so on. I believe that this is something that has really struck a chord with Spanish citizens. And if we also bear in mind that this polarisation and fragmentation of opinions, which is a general trend throughout the world as a result of globalisation and the crises we have mentioned, has become so deep-rooted in Spain that we see that each election is beginning to resemble more and more the discourse of the Spanish post-Civil War period, in some cases, with very conflicting theses, very right-wing versus left-wing. So, I believe that this hostile debate, this fragmentation of opinions, this polarisation of public opinion, causes even more uncertainty, more wear and tear on the political class and makes Spanish citizens look with greater distrust towards politics in general. But, once again, the polls tell us that when it comes to choosing from which level we want the main problems to be solved, once again, and far above the national level, the answers are still in favour of solving them through the European Union.

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