European democracy
#TheFutureIsYours Strengthening European democracy
Democracy can only take place within a framework characterised by a common public discourse. Unfortunately, this EU-wide public is still completely missing and in some EU countries populists of all kinds have easy play because they only need to control their local media. Only the common public discourse can create more commonality in the EU and further develop the EU. For this purpose, I would like to see an EU-wide media organised under civil law, modelled on the Franco-German TV channel ARTE, at least one TV and radio channel with an associated steaming service for its own media library and free discussion forums for each media contribution. The TV and radio channels should be broadcast at the same time throughout the EU at the same time, but synchronised in all EU languages. Journalists working in these media must be free, and those working in these media are only under the control of a civil watchdog, whose purpose is to represent, as far as possible, all the cultural, political, economic and other interests of EU citizens of all EU countries. In order to ensure broad state independence, these channels should be financed on a pro rata basis from the broadcasting fees or public service broadcasting budgets of the EU Member States, along the lines of ARTE.
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I fully agree but even more: EU citizen should be able to access easily all national TV, subtitle at minimum in english should be available.
I fully back this proposal, in particular as many European citizens do not live in their country of birth. Beyond that, this kind is very supportive for the cultural exchange. It would look like language abilities as well as the mutual composition with our European partners. As content could be shared (own TV productions e.g. RAI fiction, defrosted) the cost base could be sudden. It is ridiculous that even if I want to pay for the access to e.g. Italian or French public broadcasters, I have today no chance as I live in Germany. However, if I want to watch Illegally, this are technical instructions to be found in the net.
Why in English? it is too difficult for many people. I think hope would be a better choice
indeed, the stake is democracy... and therefore in the language of the real people. Not to do a Berlitz school (often confusion is done, which leads to a levelling down). Language solutions exist (recorded interpretation, titration, machine translation),
This is a great initiative.
This idea should be pursued further. Information and opinion building on the whole of the EU is very important. However, I am also of the opinion that there must not always be a “single decision” for votes, but a clear definition of a 3/4 or 2/3 majority where it is long. This comment does not necessarily fit under this heading.
As a first step, work could be done on a single, Europe-wide platform through which all public broadcasters can make their content available. This will make it easy to access the programmes/content of the relevant length — from all over the EU!
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With this idea, you have come to my mind! Unfortunately, it is too late for EuroNews to take on this role, as countries outside the EU are now also involved. A credible broadcasting system that removes the wind from the sailing of the easily manipulated national and captured international media could be the solution to many of our current problems. However, it is already possible to implement it on a smaller scale. Domestic media could have long been working together on their own initiative to promote multilingual, international coverage. So, or so, there is a lot to gain from it!
Which shows that national and international media are easily manipulable?
Good idea! Why not extend ARTE to the pan-European TV channel? This would be a cornerstone for an EU-wide public with truly European debates.
Absolutely supporting this!
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Angesichts der Fähigkeiten, die das Übersetzungsprogramm auf dieser Seite zeigt, entfällt das Kostenargument gegen diesen Vorschlag. Das Medium kann in alalen Sprachen erscheinen und jeder kann sich seine Version zurecht übersetzen lassen.
This is true for texts (www.deepl.com). I consider it cumbersome to have the sound lane of a radio or television broadcast of good linguistic quality translated into all EU languages (automatically) or to offer subtitles in all languages at least in TV/video. I tried the latter time for a YouTube video and gave up because of the poor automatic translation. The follow-up was enormous. But AI is developing very quickly.
Automatic translation is likely to be very long away from replacing synchronous speakers. The cost argument for dubbing into the relevant national or regional language hardly counts at all. In that regard, I refer to the example of the Franco-German community marshal ARTE. Again, the costs of synchronisation are completely marginal in relation to the cost of producing the jorunalistic content or the performance rights of feature films, etc.
The fact that something like this has been resisted for so long is indicative that there are powerful forces fighting against real European integration. Without it there cannot be a real European demos and therefore a full European democract
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I support this proposal! A feature in such a programme could be regular reviews of national media where for a given topic the reporting by local media of the various countries is quoted or summarized and compared across countries
Yes. this would be an important feature. With 3sat, Switzerland, Austria and Germany share a common TV station, which shows the main news programmes of the public television of these countries. From the different branches of the news content one can very well infer the public perception of the daily events in these countries. However, cause of the current shift to the right in countries like Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Malta and others, I see a threat to the diversity of the media in these countries. An EU-wide broadcaster can give the opposition in these countries media space and thus curb the success of government propaganda.
Just in case I've been misunderstood: The media reviews I suggested were meant to come from the EU-wide broadcaster you are suggesting. (I.e. I am suggesting a programme feature for the broadcaster you are proposing.) If national chains offer media reviews as well, this would be an additional source on top.
I suggest everyone to endorse the most successful idea for creating an EU broadcast channel: Created at European Public Broadcaster
An excellent idea! In order to facilitate communication between EU citizens, state-of-the-art translation tools should be used to overcome language barriers. Artificial intelligence and modern machine-based translation tools such as deepl could help to add subtitles to all programmes and automatically transfer comments to the user’s language.
I fully agree that the EU must have a public, universal and free radio television that can be accessed from all Member States by radio and TV. Just as there is a state, autonomous and local radio and television, there should be one from the EU, such as euronews.
The first step should be to require all EU member state-owned media to allow all EU citizens access to their news and other content focusing on politics. That means to stop encrypting linear broadcast and to stop geoblocking of such internet content, such as https://www.france.tv/france-5/le-monde-en-face/2221449-qui-est-veritablement-boris-johnson.html does. It also means to stop making registration with an address within the member state a prerequisite for access to such content, like e.g. https://www.france.tv/france-2/journal-20h00/2460227-edition-du-mardi-25-mai-2021.html does. Sadly enough, blocking access to internet services from outside a member state is accepted by EU law. Cf. DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/789 = https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L0789&qid=1621663498465&from=DE#d1e460-82-1, Preamble, section 11.
The new rapport Schuman sur l 'Europe 2021 L' État de L 'Union is a capital of Bruno Patino (President ARTE France), according to which ARTE has partners in nine countries. The website offers content (Spanish, English, Italian and Polish). The content of, for example, the Italian and English sides is much more limited than in German-French. Films can be booked via VOD against payment (price per film around EUR 4). There are no productions such as RAI fiction. You need your own login. Whether someone with an subscription to a US TV provider changes at this price is questionable. If the platform were to offer a modest price to the partner broadcasters who choose to do so, the partner broadcasters would be rewarded by the wide reach and users would have direct access to the content. This is a field of European affairs and an area where EU citizens have their say, surveys, etc., that is my wish. [...]
see comment of 26.5.2021 20: 01, of course, I am in favour of the suggestion that the comment could not be corrected afterwards.
I supported this proposal. This is also great for language learning, especially for the smaller languages in Europe. The ARTE is a cultural community project. It would also be important to me with a European channel that there should be cooperation between as many countries as possible, not only in the form of translations of national own productions, but rather about taking a common look at things.
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That’s a very good idea. A broadcaster for all countries, but in the respective national language, this is important in my opinion in order to reach all people in the respective country. A supervisory body should in any case be a body independent of politics, in order to avoid precisely the influence that we are currently seeing in some countries. The costs are to be paid out of the EU budget, again there should be no influence from politicians – the keyword budget reduction.
An EU broadcaster paid by the EU will not be considered politically independent.
Hello Peter, what kind of political influence is that? In order to avoid interference, an independent body should control the broadcaster. But first and foremost, it should be a channel that broadcasts information independently and can be received throughout the EU in order to prevent governments from influencing the free press. Let’s develop ideas how this independence could look like...?!
Hello Olivier, Every government is trying to influence public opinion, the same applies to the EU. This does not have to be a problem if there is a free and sufficient pluriform press. This is the case in most countries. There is already a reliable and well-established channel at EU level, namely; Brussels PlayBook by Politico. More importantly, readers are broadly orientated and not immediately assume everything for real.
"Elke regering probeert de publieke opinie te beïnvloeden, dat geldt ook voor de EU. "
Just! And that is why the control of this civil rights medium must be carried out by the citizens and not by the state or EU institutions. There are very good examples of this "non-state" publicly controlled organization in German, Austrian or, far from the EU, also in Swiss public broadcasting.
Tom, you want a common public discourse to create more unity and further develop the EU. However, you also want independent media and journalists who represent all the different interests of all the different citizens in the EU. All well-known contradictions are therefore also covered in this discourse. Why do you think such a discourse will lead to consensus among 450 million citizens?
Peter, I didn't say a word about Konesens. Consensus is impossible. This is about making the so-called “public opinion”, and this consists of many opinions. So that every individual citizen can form his own opinion as freely as possible, it smokes this public discourse of the “demos”, which at the same time creates this “demos” precisely by doing so. The public media are free, and they already form the full spectrum of society, at least in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, not only in terms of politics, but also in all other areas of public life, i.e. culture in all shadings, sports, etc. In principle, private-sector media can never create this diversity and independence, because they cost money and the funders determine the course. As long as the donors are all democratically minded, this is not a big problem. But now look at the media landscape in the USA...
Esperanto is an artificial language developed between 1872 and 1887 by Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof. IT’S A DREAM THAT EVERYONE WANTS
Esperanto estas artefarita lingvo, evolved inter 1872 kaj 1887 de la pola okulisto de juda origin Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof. ESTAS REVO, KIU IU VOLOS
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Hate to break this to you, but the EU is not a country. It is in fact a free association of sovereign countries. Democratic debate takes place within the countries, this produces national governemnts which rule the EU.
You are only right to say that the EU is (yet) not a state today. But the EU was founded from its earliest beginnings as a Montanunion in the 1950s as a project with the long-term goal of a federal state. But the EU is also democratic in its present state as a treaty-bound federation of states, and in many areas it has assumed tasks of a sovereign state. In order for these common policy fields to be democratically legitimised, the demos of this federation of states must be able to conduct a common political discourse. As a citizen of this federation of states, I would like to speak if, for example, the politicians of this federation of states determine the amount of fruit in jam. And, of course, I would also like to be able to discuss this with all the other citizens of the League of States, in order to form an opinion.
It is not a "treaty-bound federation". Nothing anywhere in the TEU says anything about the EU being or becoming a "federation". The German Constitutional Court very clearly stated that the EU is NOT a federation, and the Member States remain the masters of the treaties. The Member States decide what the EU is or isnt, what it does and how. They own the Union wholly as its masters.
Democratic debate is robust and vibrant in all Member States, as it should be.
The EU is a treaty-bound federation of states. It’s not a federal state. The fact that further deepening towards a federal state is not included in these treaties is irrelevant. I have pointed out the history of the EU with this long-term goal. However, only the current contract always applies. Nor do you need to be afraid that the EU will continue to develop into a federal state without your consent, because this directly affects the basis of the Treaty, and therefore further deepening can only be done by unanimous decision of all the parties to the contract. If Hungary does not want any further deepening, then it is only necessary to vote against the corresponding Treaty amendments. But this is not about further deepening, but about the treaties to which Hungary has already agreed. Hungary is currently breaking these treaties and therefore there is rightly an infringement procedure against Hungary.
Can you comprehend words, Tom? The EU is not a federation in any way, since its founding document the Treaty on European Union never calls it a federation. You can think it a federation, in the same way as you can imagine yourself a pink flamingo. But the EU is no more a federation than you a pink flamingo. Reality matters. Your hopes, dreams and delusions do not.
“Can you comprehend words, Tom? The EU is not a federation in any way, since its founding document the Treaty on European Union never calls it a federation." I see that you do not understand the words. Maybe the system doesn't translate that correctly either. But I made it quite clear that the EU is NOT a federal state. Don't you understand these words? The EU is an alliance of states and these individual states are bound by treaty. Hungary has been subject to this Treaty and is obliged to abide by the Treaty. Hungary is currently in breach of this Treaty and therefore an infringement procedure against Hungary is right.