ATHENS – It was a celebratory atmosphere at the European Parliament’s office in Athens. After all, this is the night that voters get to directly chose their representatives at the European parliament – their voice in Brussels and Strasbourg. TV screens were set up for the media, staff and students. MEPs and candidates roamed the hallways and a reception was in progress on the ground floor.
But the elections results also sent some negative signals about where Europe is heading.
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German MEP, who is a 2014 European Parliament candidate for the newly formed party Greek European Citizens, told New Europe late on 25 May that unfortunately there is one very negative message.
“The negative message is that Chrisi Avgi, the Golden Dawn, seems to be persisting power in the Greek political system. The easy explanation is that reasons for Chrisi Avgi, the Golden Dawn to exist are still there: It’s the recession and it’s a recession without any hope,” Chatzimarkakis said in an interview.
“I visited - in my recent visits throughout Greece - Kastoria, a wonderful town in the north with 72% youth unemployment. I mean, if you accept and tolerate this as a European and as a Greek government you will fuel these powers – and this is the negative message,” he said.
Chatzimarkakis argued that “the positive message is the Greek society definitely wants an end the Nea Dimocratia-PASOK” coalition government.
“And the third message is that the Greeks want new parties. There’re a lot of new parties that have a quite good result but it’s very early to say how good this result in fact is. We’ll see,” he said.
Turning to a pan-European level, Chatzimarkakis said that there is one signal which is that the powers that are very critical towards the European Union get more members of the parliament elected.
“You can see that in the Netherlands, you can see that in France, you can see that in Germany where my old part the FDP (Free Democratic Party of German) has gone down from 12% to 3%, which was a pro-European Liberal Party, whereas the AfD, the Alternative for Germany has got approximately 7%. So people are reluctant when it comes to the European Union? Why? Because there is no vision; politicians have failed in order to formulate, to make clear a vision for what Europe stands. This goes home with Mrs (Angela) Merkel,” Chatzimarkakis told New Europe.
German Jorgo Chatzimarkakis of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe addresses at the European Parliament during a debate in Strasbourg, France, 10 February 2010 EPA/CUGNOT MATHIEU“The German Chancellor has created a European Union that basically allows colonies like Greece to be part of the European Union. Greece is a colony and Germans don’t even know that they are the net winners of this financial crisis,” he said, arguing that the German government does not communicate the truth to the voters.
As long as you think that you can win elections and Mrs Merkel does win elections with that policy without a vision for Europe – like (Helmut) Kohl and (François) Mitterand had a vision –there is no hope for a future,” Chatzimarkakis said.
“Mrs Merkel is not in trouble – she has got extremely good result in quite recent national elections. No trouble for Mrs Merkel, the point is that Europe will get into trouble if Germany continues that policy. Maybe this is the message she should take from that result that the policy cannot continue like this if you don’t want to put Europe at stake,” he said.
The next parliament will elect the new Commission President. Asked what kind of changes he expects in European policy, Chatzimarkakis he hopes that the Commission President will be for the first time a person that has not had an administrative post like European Parliament President Martin Schulz of Germany.
“Mr Schultz has never been part of any government. Mr (Jean-Claude) Juncker has. And Mr Schultz would be a good candidate to bring Europe closer to its citizens because he has been mayor in his village – that’s all. He has been a parliamentarian all his life and this is – he would be a good alternative to all the Commission presidents we had so far,” Chatzimarkakis opined.
See also:
Parliament prepares to take on the member states
Round one goes to the European Parliament
Schultz, Verhofstadt set on achieving "majority" for a "leap forward"
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