If each coming referendum will be successful, and the Accession Treaty will be ratified in all the countries, then from May next year Europe will be enlarged to a community of 25 nations. But how exactly will this community function? How democratic it will be?
There are already different signs of democratic deficit in the decision-making and implementation processes. There is also a further evident threat to democracy: the ever-increasing bureaucracy.
The warning 178-page study of professor Torbjörn Larsson on the Byzantine EU committee system (EUobserver.com 11 April) reveals serious efficiency problems and at the same time points to the dangerous fact of weakening democracy when it argues: „Very little is known about their work, who participates and what their mission is".
Used to central planning and top-down decision making
If this is the case with 15 members, what will happen after enlargement? How many more bureaucratic tasks and positions will be created for how much money? The accession countries have been used to central planning, committees, top-down decision-making and lack of trust in politicians. How will they react to the striking similarities of their "old" and "new" world?
There are already many bad feelings in these countries caused by the extremely bureaucratic and fuzzy processes of participating in any EU-financed projects. What if – after accession – they will experience that the "ever stronger union" is going to be ever more bureaucratic and less democratic? How can they feel about the democratic values of the EU anyway, if they watch the events around the first three referenda, and most explicitly about the latest one in Hungary?
38 per cent voted Hungary into the EU
TEAM has found that the first two referenda were not really fair. This is even truer for the third one. Still, the EU leaders welcomed all of them, and especially the latest one, claiming: "By coming out overwhelmingly in favour of EU membership today, the Hungarian voters have signalled their clear choice to build their future within a strong united Europe."
But wait a minute! How can anybody use the word "overwhelming" in a case where only 45.62% of the citizens voted, with 83.69% in favour, which actually means that only 38% of the citizens voted Hungary into the EU. Is this really a democratic referendum? Is this going to be the future of democracy "the EU-way", too?
The original dream of the founding fathers was different. They created the vision of a competitive, prosperous and culturally vibrant community, which could only be built on democratic foundations, co-operation and trust. Bureaucracy is against efficiency, creativity and innovation. Democratic deficit hinders the development of trust. Without efficiency, creativity, innovation and trust there is no competitiveness, neither prosperity. Will the 25 countries be able to ever fulfil the dreams of the founding fathers? Do they really want to do so?
