What does Europe want?

There are times when public statements by the political leaders of their own country are so out of the rut that it becomes a shame to be its citizen. This is what happened to me when I read the reaction of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Slovenia to the message that on June 13, Friday, the Irish at the referendum voted against the Lisbon agreement. He directly stated that the European association is too important to trust his fate (simple) to people and their referendum. The elite looks deeper and knows better - if we were forced to follow the opinion of the majority, we would never have survived to the great transformations and the embodiment of true theories ... This indecent arrogance reached the climax in the next statement: "If we had to wait, so to speak, a certain popular initiative, maybe the French and the Germans would still look at each other through a rifle scope."

There is a certain logic that these words belong to the diplomat from a small country: the leaders of large countries cannot afford to directly and cynically state obscene arguments underlying their decisions - only barely audible voices from small states do it impunity. What are the reasons for the failure of the referendum in our case?

Irish "no" - a repetition of the French and Dutch "no", said by the project of the European Constitution in 2005. Numerous commentators offered various explanations to the Irish “no”, sometimes contradicting each other: either this “no” became a manifestation of a narrow European nationalism, fear of globalization personified by the United States, or the United States itself is “no”, fearing competition from the united Europe and preferring unilateral actions to the weak partners. However, such interpretations ignore a deeper aspect. Repetition means that we are not dealing with an isolated case, an annoying ordinary obstacle, but with a long -term discontent, which persists for years.

Now, after a couple of weeks, you can see what the real problem is. A much greater threat than “no” in itself carries a reaction of European political elites. They did not learn any lesson from NO 2005, they simply did not catch what his meaning was. On June 19, in Brussels, the EU leaders quickly graduated that they were insincere about the fact that they “respect” the decision of the voters, and immediately showed their true face, behaving with the government of Ireland, as a bad teacher with naughty mentally backward students. The Irish government was given a second chance: four months to correct error and enlightenment of voters.

Irish voters were not provided with a clear symmetrical choice, since the conditions of questions themselves spoke in favor of “yes”: the elite offered people a choice, which essentially was not a choice - citizens called for ratification of the inevitable, the result of wise expert conclusions. The media and the political elite presented this to the choice between knowledge and ignorance, experience and ideology, post -political administration and old political passions. However, the very fact that “no” was not supported by a clear alternative political vision is the brightest evidence of the ineffectiveness of the elites from politics and the media, the monument of their inability to clearly formulate, translate the people's desire and dissatisfaction of the people into the political field.

We can say that in this referendum there was something inexplicable: its result was simultaneously expected and unexpected - as if we knew what would happen, but nevertheless for some reason we could not fully believe that this could happen. This split reflects a much more dangerous discrepancy between voters: the majority of the minority that generally took the work of voting) was against, although all parliamentary parties (with the exception of the "Shinn Feyn") decisively supported the agreement. The same thing happens in other countries, for example, in neighboring Great Britain, where Tony Blair literally before winning the last election was a convincing majority of citizens recognized as the most hated person in the country. The gap between the direct political choice and the dissatisfaction of the same voter must force us to beat in the bells. It means that multi -party democracy is not able to grab the main mood of the population, i.e. Unformed indignation is gaining strength, which, due to the lack of capabilities, normally express itself democratically, can only lead to obscure "irrational" splashes. When the referendums make a meaning directly undermining the meaning of the elections, we get the dual behavior of the voter who, say (thinks that he) knows very well that Tony Blair’s policy is the only reasonable policy, but despite this ... (from the heart hates him).

The worst decision is to ignore this resistance, considering it a simple manifestation of the limitations and the stupidity of an ordinary voter who can be defeated by improving communication and the level of argumentation. Here we again return to the unfortunate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. The point is not only that his quoted statement is virtually incorrect: large Franco-German conflicts did not flare up because of the passions of ordinary people, but were planned by elites behind ordinary citizens. In the statement of the minister, the role of elites was also incorrectly conveyed: in a democratic country, their purpose is not only to manage, but to convince the majority of the correctness of what they do, to allow people to see that the state’s policy reflects their own innermost aspirations for freedom, prosperity, etc. Democracy puts on the fact that, as Lincoln said a long time ago, you can’t always fool your heads to everyone: yes, Hitler came to power democratically (although not quite), but ultimately, despite all the throwing and confusion, the majority must be trusted. This bet does not allow democracy to die, and if we lower it, then there will be no talk of democracy.

And this is exactly what European elites do not succeed. If they were really ready to “respect” the decision of the voters, they would have to admit what the long -term distrust of people is talking about: the project of European unity in its current formulation is fundamentally errone. Voters see the lack of this political vision under an expert cod; They do not oppose Europe, they require more Europe. Irish "no" - an invitation to substantial political debates about how we want to see Europe.

At the end of his life, Freud asked his famous question: " Was Will das Weib ? ” (“ What does a woman want? ”), Having recognized his powerlessness before the mystery of female sexuality. Does the confusion with the European constitution indicate the same difficulty: what does Europe want? What Europe do we want?

Translation by Evgenia Seregina