Former Presidents of the EP with Hans-Gert Pöttering in Brussels

Just a quick one today, based on an observation about something we have just published on the site. We pounced on a lunch held in honour of former EP Presidents held last week to ask them why they think people should vote in European elections. (Perhaps they could improve on our ten reasons, which have given rise to some small controversy here and there)

It was a remarkable occasion, in that every surviving former president of the European Parliament since direct elections was present, including the first, Simone Veil, plus her predecessor, the last president from the pre-1979 era, Emilio Colombo. All were generous enough to give us a moment of their time to ask our perhaps rather unsophisticated question.

I won’t repeat their answers here, but what I will mention is that there was a clear evolution in the kinds of answers they gave, which may provide a nice little illustration of the way the EU and the European Parliament are going. The “earlier” presidents’ reasons tend to revolve around the notion of voting as an endorsement of the European “project”, of the Parliament itself as a manifestation of European democracy and of a broad European ideal. More recent presidents emphasised the choice to be made by voters between different parties and political philosophies in order to deal with difficult world issues. So more about who you want in the Parliament than about wanting the Parliament itself, as it were.

An unscientific sample, maybe, but might the differences between these answers be a symptom of the maturity of the European system and the firmly established powers of the Parliament? Do we see a shift towards Europe as politics-as-usual, as opposed to the pioneer days when the political drive was about ”building” Europe? Just a thought…

You can read the president’s reasons by clicking on ”meet the presidents” in the central column here.