“European democracy cannot be laid off! “

The European Parliament has gone back to virtual mode with the strengthening of health measures. The plenaries have deserted the Strasbourg hemicycle since March. Is the fear of transforming Parliament into a European super-cluster unfounded? A MEP sounds the alert: Geoffroy Didier (LR-PPE) protests against the slumbering of Parliament. And offers solutions.

As in the spring, the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, has put in place strict health instructions. Can you still exercise your democratic mandate?

Geoffroy Didier: It is during major crises that elected officials can be most useful. However, it is clear that European democracy is almost at a standstill. Unlike the National Assembly, the Senate, the regional councils or the Council of Paris, the European Parliament has progressively prohibited its elected representatives even from the right to vote in the hemicycle! Each member is asked not to go to Parliament and to speak only by e-mail.

After having had to put aside our work in Strasbourg, would we also be condemned to abandon Brussels? While the economic crisis now concerns all of Europe and the discussions on the necessary recovery plan are slipping, how can we understand that the only European parliamentary assembly can be brought to a standstill? At a time when Europe is under attack in its flesh, its values ​​and its civilization by Islamist terrorism, demanding of us a political and operational response, how can we accept that the only European parliamentary assembly can be silenced? Next week, the challenge of the fight against terrorism will be dealt with in just an hour, almost exclusively by video, without any concrete effect or real debate. I sound the alarm bell: European democracy cannot be put on technical unemployment, nor Europe reduced to a visio-democracy!

But who made this decision? Who is piloting?

The decision is currently up to the president of parliament (David Sassoli, editor’s note). Faced with such exceptional circumstances and given that the health crisis will last, we must find another modus operandi where all deputies are consulted on how to exercise their own mandate. There are many urgent issues, the Europeans are watching us, so we have to take charge.

What do you propose ?

There are solutions. I propose the establishment of very strict sanitary conditions, compliance with which would allow MEPs to continue to exercise their mandate. In addition to barrier gestures, we could, for example, require that each deputy presents a negative test for Covid before being able to go to the hemicycle. We know that the health crisis will not last four weeks, but many months. It is high time for the European Parliament to adapt its internal organization on a lasting basis in order to allow elected representatives and their teams to fully exercise their missions in the service of the people. Faced with the major emergencies facing Europe, the credibility of our institutions and those who embody them are at stake.

This putting under the bell of Parliament comes at a time when many files are on the table …

Fundamental legislation has been awaited for many months, if not several years. The new pact on migration and asylum has only just been presented after being postponed for almost six months. The draft regulation aiming to require social networks to remove terrorist content has been dragging the corridors of Parliament since 2018. Some political groups even allow themselves to say that they do not have the time to examine urgent legislation to fight against child pornography online. Meanwhile, the European Parliament is still voting on simple statements without a future, known as “resolutions”, on Nicaragua or Mozambique. More than ever, the European Parliament must pull itself together, shift into high gear and concentrate on the essentials. The whole credibility of Europe is currently being played out!