Bringing Europe Closer to the People

The authors argue that the EU faces a democracy crisis characterized by citizen mistrust and a perceived lack of representation. To counter this, they suggest that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) should engage more actively in online debates and that the European Parliament should become a primary forum for transnational public debate on issues like climate change and data protection. The paper emphasizes the need to integrate European and national politics, suggesting that national parliaments—particularly through scrutiny committees in countries like Denmark, Finland, and Germany—should play a more prominent role in explaining EU business to voters. Proposed reforms include giving national parliaments the right to suggest EU-level actions, allowing MEPs and commissioners to address national parliaments, and creating a eurozone oversight committee. Finally, the authors advocate for shifting the focus from bringing regional officials to Brussels to bringing EU engagement directly to the regions and municipalities to better reflect local concerns.

• Digital tools and cyberspace can bridge the gap between the EU and individuals, provided MEPs actively engage in existing online debates rather than expecting voters to seek out their official accounts. Examples include Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake's use of Twitter for her manifesto and crowd-sourcing for a report on digital freedom, as well as the 2014 live webcasting of European commissioner candidate hearings.
• The European Parliament (EP) has the potential to serve as the main forum for transnational public debate on complex, non-partisan issues such as climate change, surveillance, and data protection, as evidenced by its previous rejections of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and data-sharing proposals with the US via SWIFT.
• National parliamentary EU scrutiny committees, particularly those in Denmark, Finland, and Germany, provide a model for generating democratic debate. In Denmark, the Folketing committee on European policy possesses binding powers over ministers' positions before they attend the Council of Ministers.
• The current 'early-warning mechanism' under the Lisbon Treaty is limited to negative power (yellow and orange cards to stop proposals); the authors propose expanding this to allow national parliaments to positively introduce ideas for the Commission to consider.
• The eurozone lacks direct parliamentary accountability, which could be addressed by establishing a committee of national parliament representatives from eurozone countries to hold hearings with the head of the European Stability Mechanism and the president of the Eurogroup.
• The Committee of the Regions is viewed as ineffective because it lacks decision-making powers and has low public awareness. The authors argue the EU should shift its strategy from bringing regional officials to Brussels to bringing EU engagement directly to local and regional bodies.

APA

Grabbe, H., & Lehne, S. (2015). Bringing Europe Closer to the People. Green European Journal. https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/bringing-europe-closer-to-the-people/

Chicago

Grabbe, Heather, and Stefan Lehne. Bringing Europe Closer to the People. Green European Journal, 2015. https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/bringing-europe-closer-to-the-people/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Grabbe |first1=Heather |last2=Lehne |first2=Stefan |title=Bringing Europe Closer to the People |publisher=Green European Journal |date=1 September 2015 |url=https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/bringing-europe-closer-to-the-people/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{grabbe2015bringing, author = {Grabbe, Heather and Lehne, Stefan}, title = {{Bringing Europe Closer to the People}}, institution = {Green European Journal}, year = {2015}, month = sep, url = {https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/bringing-europe-closer-to-the-people/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }