European View

Vào tháng 3 năm 2010, chiến lược Châu Âu 2020 được phát hành như là một bước tiếp theo của chiến lược Lisbon đầy tham vọng. Giống như người tiền nhiệm của nó, chiến lược này nhằm tăng cường khả năng cạnh tranh của Châu Âu trong nền kinh tế thế giới. Cũng giống như người tiền nhiệm, Châu Âu 2020 có khả năng sẽ không hiệu quả. Chiến lược này tập trung quá nhiều vào những lĩnh vực nằm ngoài thẩm quyền pháp lý của EU, nó thiếu biện pháp xử lý cho sự không tuân thủ và chứa đựng những mục tiêu mà rất ít liên quan đến việc tăng cường khả năng cạnh tranh. Việc thất bại có thể xảy ra của Châu Âu 2020 có thể đã được tránh nếu như Ủy ban Châu Âu tập trung vào những lĩnh vực chính sách mà EU có thẩm quyền, và được trao cho những công cụ cần thiết để đạt được những mục tiêu nằm ngoài thẩm quyền của mình.

SMEs are often praised by politicians and economists alike as the backbone of the economy and an essential factor for employment. They represent the vast majority of the enterprises in Europe and the largest source of employment. Differently from large enterprises, small and medium enterprises enjoyed better image vis-à-vis the great public, and overtime managed to ensure governmental support in times of crisis. This article analyses both the role of SMEs for economic growth and employment and the extent to which they were affected by the financial crisis.

This article provides an overall survey of Europe's demographic patterns and statistics. It identifies economic progress, institutional modernisation, and development of the welfare state as factors contributing to fertility shifts and particularly to postponement of childbearing. The authors suggest Europe needs policies aimed at demographic renewal which focus first on diminishing direct costs borne by both parents and second, on diminishing indirect costs born predominantly by women. If Europe can effect the necessary paradigm shifts in gender roles and society it will prepare the way for holistic solutions.

The central political paradox of the times is that the factors that contributed to the success of democracy are the ones that threaten it today. The crisis of trust in democratic institutions in Europe is the outcome not of the failure of the democratisation of European societies but of its success. The question is no longer how elites can regain the trust of the people; the question is how a liberal democracy can function in an environment in which the elites will be permanently mistrusted, regardless of what they do or how transparent the mechanisms of governing are.

Given that the huge protest waves of 1968, the early 1980s and 1989-1990 can now be regarded as past history in European democracy, the question now is whether a new protest culture is emerging in Western Europe. New protest literature has reached the top of bestseller lists, giving some evidence of ‘citizens in anger’. The new face of protest today is influenced by political agendas in reaction to recent parliamentary and governmental actions. In fact, although confidence in legislatures and governments is decreasing, there is no general distrust of coherent polities within European national systems. European representative democracies may come under civic pressure in future unless some new means of significant participation are created.

Over the past 30 years, responding to different international, political and economic circumstances, populists have formed, preserved, nurtured and expanded a political identity that is today present in most political systems in Europe. This identity constitutes a ‘populist potential’, in the sense that it is non-ideological and that it wavers between electoral abstention and support for anti-system parties. This article provides a historical overview of the ideological and sociological evolution of the populist identity in Europe and reviews the ways parties of the centre-right have dealt with it in the past. Its conclusion is that practices like coalition building and theme co-optation are not so easy to deploy today, given the non-ideological and anti-system nature of the populist potential.

The author demonstrates how European integration policy can gain by a proper understanding of the doctrine of Redemptoris Missio. The Catholic teachings expressed in this encyclical are concerned with tolerance, respect and inclusion, concepts inextricably connected with freedom. The author invites us to reflect on both a political and an individual level.

Estonia has used e-voting since 2005, and because e-voting is more accessible, more flexible and saves time, the result has been an increase in voter turnout. Compared with traditional voting in which a person must go to the polling station, a process that takes about 44 minutes, e-voting requires only 6 minutes. So far, supporters of right-wing parties and the Reform Party (Liberals) are more likely to use e-voting, with the result that Isamaa and ResPublica Liit (Conservatives) gained the majority of e-votes during the last parliamentary elections in 2011.

For EU institutions, public consultations represent a key tool for transparent and accountable policymaking. By means of e-participation tools, both the European Parliament and the European Commission aim to encourage multiple stakeholders to provide input on legislative processes in ways that go beyond traditional consultations, which are sometimes aimed exclusively at a small group of stakeholders. Online questionnaires are frequently used to give individual citizens, civil society organisations and other interest groups the opportunity to express their opinions. Although it is widely accepted that e-participation can improve the democratic legitimacy of EU policymaking, online consultations entail a number of democratic challenges. With the Commission's recent online public consultation on Investor–State Dispute Settlement in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the flaws of online participation have once again become a focus of political debates. As a result of new societal trends that favour ‘low-effort, feel-good’ political participation via the Internet, e-participation will remain a challenge for the EU as well as for political parties. This challenge will not be appropriately addressed by having a high degree of transparency about the consultative procedures alone. What is required is more effective multi-level communication of the proceedings of the consultation and of its results.