The CTOE has published a manifesto of demands for democracy; we have examined those European Parties with manifestos for the European Parliament elections this year and have scored them against our 10 demands. The results are published on the CTOE blog site, The European Party Manifestos: Who is Afraid of Democracy? Overleaf/below, are further comments with the CTOE’s demands preamble, and some scoring graphics, showing the traction of the demands and the committent of the parties.
The preamble states, “Democracy is more central to the future of Europe than ever before. It is only through widespread and empowering civic deliberation, participation, and citizen involvement in decision-making that the polarised conflicts in Europe – e.g. regarding the environment, migration, agriculture, security – can be resolved. It is by allowing for more civic voice and transparency that social, intergenerational, and climate justice can be restored or even strengthened, and lasting peace can be secured. Citizens and civil society are essential in their role as watchdogs of proper political dialogue and policy-making, as well as to deter corrupt practices. As various authoritarian challenges to democracy show us in a dramatic way, it is only by extensive and meaningful citizen involvement in politics that much needed democratic resilience can be enhanced in practice. Citizens Take Over Europe therefore calls for a leap forward in the democratisation of the European Union. “
Below are the demands and the Party’s commitments to CTOE’s demands, illustrated using radar charts.
The support by the political parties can be seen and compared in two dimensions, by party and by demand
Not unsurprisingly those demands which challenge the Parliament and the Parties’ power within the institutions are less supported, particularly there is little support for referendums, and limited support for transnational lists. One area of multi-party concern is that the member states’ commitment to the rule of law is monitored and that the Union acquires enforcement powers. The political parties are also looking at audit and corruption in the aftermath of quatargate and their promises on this issue is reflected in the high score for “Radical Transparency”.
Strengthening the Union institutions against the powers of the member states is a matter of political disagreement. We have evaluated the Party positions on whether they increase the power of citizens. The EPP and the ECR both have commitments to defend the Council of the EU’s powers and to consider returning some competencies to the member states. The ECR’s language has led to us scoring that particular promise as -ive on Referenda, and +ive on local power.
CTOE also produced a traffic light info graphic, which they posted on twitter.
Methodology
The manifestos of the European Parties were examined, strong commitment to our demand was scored as a 2, weak commitment as a 1, silence as zero and negative/contradictory comments equally as -1 or -2; there were no -2’s. Most negative comments were positive statements for member state autonomy. This means that each demand could score between ±18 and the parties ±20,
The charts above were produced using Chartify, and the data manipulation was done using Excel.