The Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) invited European Commission First Vice-President, Frans Timmermans to discuss about the problems of representative democracy in Europe.
Vice-President Timmermans spoke out of the different faces of democracy, the sovereignty and the European identity, and highlighted the transformative power of European integration and democracy. Democracy needs permanent maintenance in order to face imminent threats such as indifference, considering the disconnections between generation and European society. According to him, there is a process of dehumanization and for that reason Europeans should be vigilant.
Moreover, he referred to the rise and temptation of authoritarian-nationalistic groups, a huge issue for the European integration and democracy as such. A panacea to this could be the creation of bridges instead of ‘islands’ across Europe with all political groups, because if politics are reduced to represent the interest of only one group, then we will have radical and extremist parties, and consequently anti-European ones.
On the role of the EU institutions he mentioned that the crisis of institutions does not affect only EU institutions, but it affects also deeply the national ones. He pointed out that better regulation for this new structured Commission is to make life easier to SMEs and subsequently create jobs and boost economic growth. Vice-President Timmermans stressed out the importance of maintaining and enhancing the European identity in the political, social and cultural domains and concluded by underlining the lack of political mobilization on standing of the rights of the gender equality in some Member States.