Tomorrow, Danes (and many other ethnicities of patchwork Europe) go to the ballot box in order to vote in an election that has major ramifications upon daily legislation, but yet still leaves Average Joe quite indifferent. That's the European parliamentary elections - a quinquinnenial event that brings a steep but sadly insufficient surge in interest concerning pan-European politics. That itself ridicules the entire ordeal slightly. As Hanne Dahl of JuniBevægelsen put it a few weeks ago: In order to be meaningful to people and thus garner a large ballot, European topics need to be high on the news agenda constantly, not just surging to the media's attention whenever we suddenly have to send no-names and political retirees to Brussels on our mandate.
Anyhow, I've been much in doubt as to where I'll apply my vote. During these last few weeks, I've realized that no one (at least not in this country) really truly shares my views on the European Union, the direction in which it is going, and the direction in which it should go.
Down the drain!
And now, why is that? Don't we need to speak with a strong, joint, European voice in an increasingly globalized world, in which problems become more and more international and intercontinental, where financial and environmental crises crave for unambiguously multilateral actions? Yes, by all means do we Europeans need to counter the views and voices of America, China and other sprouting economies based one the comparative advantage that is cheap and plentiful labour.
This being said, I think the European Union as it exists today is no longer the correct solution. I believe it has become way too large and multifaceted for it's purposes. A union with as heavy economical and social ramifications as the European Union simply cannot function properly with economies and welfare states as diverse as the Danish, the Romanian, the British and the Italian. I have noticed the European Union having increasing difficulties in actually making things happen, because there will always be some countries tripping it up, like France or Poland. It's all a mess. The monthly extravaganza of racking thousands and thousands of staff and stuff up and transporting it from Brussels to Strasbourg just for the sake of mr. Sarkozy not choking in his Chardonnay (wait, he doesn't drink wine. His Evian then...) is a good example. The absurd agricultural subsidies another. The European Union must dissolve, that's the austere truth. And be replaced by smaller, closer knit alliances between countries that are more similar economically and social policy-wise. Then it would function. I'm tired of foot-dragging conservatives from southern and eastern Europe in the big agricultural organizations' pocket.
So who am I voting for then? Well, as I've mentioned, sadly as everywhere in Danish politics right now, no one really has the wit and the guts to say that the emperor is wearing no clothes. I am principally against abstaining or handing in a blank vote, even if conjectural. I could vote for Folkebevægelsen mod EU (People's Movement Against the EU), but they're against the whole idea of unionizing altogether, and that i cannot support. More than anything i believe it is a good thing to send strong and outspoken politicians, which is why I will probably vote for Hanne Dahl, of JuniBevægelsen.
The vote on the Act of Succession? Who gives a fuck.
