Posts filed under 'Ideas'
On Europe Day, the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions launches a photo competition on intercultural dialogue seen through the eyes of young Europeans!
In the framework of the 2008 European Year of intercultural dialogue, the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions (CoR) organises a photo competition which will enable young Europeans aged 18-25 to share their vision of the dialogue between cultures in their city and region. This competition will be officially launched on 9 May, Europe Day, and will close on 30 September 2008.
A jury composed by PES Group members, representatives of Agence Vu’ and Notre Europe will select 6 the winning photographs among all the entries downloaded on the PES Group website. The six winners, each of whom will be awarded a prize consisting of a professional digital camera, will be invited to Brussels to participate in the Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, which will be organised on 26-27 November 2008, on the fringe of the CoR plenary session. An exhibition of the “Europe Works” project, accompanied by the photos of the competition, will be displayed at the CoR Headquarters from 24 November until 5 December 2008.
For more information on the photo competition and the modalities of participation, please visit the website of the PES Group in the CoR.
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May 8th, 2008by Noel Hatch
The Labour Movement for Europe for London and the South East put forward a strategy of political integration and electoral strategy towards our “friends from the EU”, inspired by Henning Meyer and David Schoibl.
What is the EU-Vote?
There are over one million non-British EU citizens living in the UK, a very large percentage of them in and around London. According to a mixture of statistics coming from the Office of National Statistics, Electoral Commission and local council data, they are more than four times less likely to be registered for elections than British citizens.
As of now, none of the political parties in London and the South East of England have developed an electoral strategy to entice this part of the electorate to vote for them, or to participate in the electoral process at all. Against the backdrop of poor turnout at local and regional elections, the activation of the EU-electorate can be a crucial strategic advantage, especially in marginal constituencies.
Some examples show a limited recognition of the potential. In the run up to the Scottish Elections in May the SNP is targeting Polish voters explicitly. In other specific local neighbourhoods, like Lambeth North, where there is a strong Portuguese community, some election flyers have been produced in Portuguese in the last council elections, but without a wider strategy to approach this community on issues specific to them.
The Principle of Participation
Voting is the basic right and expression of participation in the democratic process. Encouraging EU-citizens to vote in the UK in elections in which they are entitled to vote is as much about active participation and empowerment as it is to encourage British citizens to vote in European elections, using their rights to contribute towards the shaping of the EU.
Obviously business and public sector regulation are the most developed areas within the EU – however, the EU can only work if citizen participation is encouraged and recognised as equally important. The EU is not only about reducing trade barriers and negotiating agricultural standards and quotas. In addition to freedom of movement of labour, we have to recognise the freedom of movement of participatory rights, encouraging EU-citizens to not only contribute economically in a place of their choice within Europe, but also to contribute socially, culturally and politically.
Only in this way can we make Europe work on a local level.
Local, Regional and European Voting Rights
All non-British EU citizens are eligible to vote in three out of four types of elections. As with British EU citizens living in other EU countries, they can vote and stand in:
• Local government elections
• Elections for regional tiers of government, as in Scotland, Wales and London
• European Parliament elections
However, they are not eligible to vote in general elections (except for Irish and Cypriot citizens).
Local and regional elections are seen by the main political parties and by the electorate as elections of secondary importance, and attract lower turnout (30-40 per cent as opposed to 60-70 per cent). The electoral strategy employed in these elections for example as far as target group selection is concerned always looks with one eye at the next General Election. Transfer of power to the Mayor of London and the GLA on the one hand, and growing aquis communitaire on the other, make these elections more important than ever in their own right, as does the possible decentralisation of some powers to local government.
To read more of the strategy paper please click here
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October 10th, 2007by Noel Hatch
The very large numbers of potential EU voters in London and the South East mean a huge opportunity, both to strengthen the bonds between European citizens and to influence the political balance within London and the localities. The interests of foreign residents, particularly EU foreigners, are important in the realities of the situation in London – they are sensitive to many of the qualities London needs to develop as a world city. And in a low turnout regional or local election, a mobilisation of the resident EU voters could have a strong impact on the overall result. For the parties, there is a chance to engage with a new electorate, pilot new methods of communicating and adding to the debate, and keeping in touch with the realities of London.
Political parties who wish to ask EU-foreigners for their votes and had a convincing narrative for this electorate could surely benefit from a strategy to encourage participation. Three key elements would have to be recognised in a strategy:
1. A first step would be to increase awareness amongst UK-based EU-foreigners of their democratic rights as EU-Citizens. This would serve to encourage people who make use of the right to move and work to any other EU-country, to also engage in the political process there, as an EU-citizen.
2. Secondly one would need to entice them to register with their local authority as eligible voters in order to create the formal basis for their participation in the political process in the UK, and to encourage the local authorities (in line with their duties under the Electoral Administration Act 2006) to maximise registration of these voters.
3. Finally, local authorities also have a duty to promote voting in their areas, including participation by EU voters. For the Labour Party, an electoral strategy and narrative is required to motivate this group to vote and to give incentives for why their votes should be for Labour.
watch out for the next part or read the paper here
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October 10th, 2007by Noel Hatch
Locally
On a local level, district and unitary councils and London boroughs have a legal duty to maximise electoral registration. In this light, councils should be encouraged to reach out to EU-foreigners in order to get them on the electoral register. The means of communicating to councils can be through formal and informal channels, including encouraging Labour councils to take this statutory duty seriously and putting pressure on opposition controlled councils through members’ questions to do the same.
While the London & South East Labour Movement for Europe (LME/LSE) can contribute to an information/action campaign targeting councils in London and the Southeast, outlining the missed groups and opportunities, more work should be done on local CLP level to engage with EU-citizens in a move to specifically motivate them to register their vote first and to vote Labour. Their impact is likely to be highest in inner London boroughs, although the growth of communities of EU voters elsewhere (e.g. new Poles in Southampton) means that the possibilities can be applied in nearly all areas.
London-wide
Since EU-citizens in London are also eligible to vote in the Mayoral and GLA elections, which are coming up in 2008, there is an added incentive to encourage this missed electorate. In a local context where there are specific Europeans, like Portuguese or Polish one could approach them as individual national groups but in a London context for Mayoral and GLA elections and for the European Parliament there need to be general messages for the EU electorate.
The Mayor’s focus on the recognition of London’s cosmopolitan nature would fit in well with this strategy, as it would truly involve all Londoners, not only the British citizens and descendents of former colonial dependents who have established themselves as immigrant communities.
EU-citizens make up a large, significant group of more recent immigrants and need to be recognised as groups to be involved. At the moment they do not obviously fall within the multi-cultural framework which is mostly geared up to deal proactively with ethnic diversity, rather than cultural diversity. With Europeans making up about 10 per cent of the population in London this wider understanding of cultural diversity needs to be remedied.
Also, discriminatory parties such as the BNP would have it much harder to achieve electoral success. This is an important aspect for the upcoming London-regional elections in 2008. Due to the proportional representation system and against the backdrop of recent electoral fortunes for the BNP, the activation of the EU electorate could make a real contribution to limit the influence of the extremist parties.
Furthermore, given the historical experience of some EU-countries, and the different environmental standards of others, European citizens could be engaged on messages such as anti-fascism, housing, transport (working EU foreigners benefit particularly from improvements to the bus service in London) and environmental policies.
EU-wide
For EU-elections, EU-citizens can chose to either vote in the UK for local European candidates or via a postal vote to vote for the European candidates of their home country.
Since strengthening the UK’s progressive policy in Europe should be high on Labour’s agenda, it would be preferable to encourage as many resident EU-citizens as possible to be registered to vote for EU-elections here, which again – if Labour gets their EU-voter-strategy right – significantly increases the chances of (Labour) candidates.
Most specifically, since all EU-citizens can work and live in the UK due to rights they have as EU-citizens, their vote could contribute significantly to keeping candidates from radical anti-EU parties like UKIP in check who do not want to contribute to the EU but instead only want to undermine EU-institutions in their development.
see next part or read more of the paper here
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October 10th, 2007by Noel Hatch
In all the above, we assume that there is a strong potential for EU-citizens to support Labour policies, both on a local and regional and EU-level.
These figures are likely to seriously understate the eligible numbers of EU foreigners. The Electoral Commission/ONS study Understanding Electoral Registration (2005) found that 19 per cent of EU qualified voters were unregistered, compared to 5 per cent of UK citizens. The influx of EU nationals since 2004 will have significantly increased the proportions of potential voters, and probably by introducing a large number of work-seeking young people added to the difficulties of finding and registering them. The proportions for some boroughs, particularly Hackney, seem rather low given the high levels of EU voters in other comparable authorities.
Sense of Belonging
We will have to differentiate between different groups of EU citizens living in London and the South East.
First of all, there is a differentiation between EU 15 (-1) or EU 10 citizens, now joined by a limited number of Bulgarians and Romanians. While there is a split between “lifestyle migrants” (for example French, German, and Scandinavian EU citizens who come to live in the UK because of London’s cosmopolitan appeal, because their job brings them here, or because they like to just “live abroad”) and economic migrants (who mostly come from the recent EU-expansion states and mainly migrate to find better-paid jobs).
While their individual reasons to move to the UK may play into the electoral topics of interest to these migrant groups, another differentiation is more central to initially engaging European voters:
1. Migrants who move to the UK/London & the Southeast only for a few years to progress in their career or to generate income for their family who will often remain back home.
2. Migrants who stay here for an open-ended time, who make their living in the UK and build an existence, but maintain their citizenship of the home country.
3. Migrants who stay here and eventually become British citizens. While adopting British citizenship, often to help with overcoming bureaucratic obstacles, many EU-citizens still remain closely attached to their cultural community and thus are accessible for different topics than born English nationals.
If not involved actively in the local communities AND the political process locally, there is an increased danger of contributing to the already deeply split society we live in, as there groups will live mainly within their own community or with other similar people, instead of participating fully in their new home, whether temporary or permanent. To communicate with existing cultural-national communities, a British political party needs ‘interlocutors’ with that community and an ability to communicate in the right language, and strike the right notes, with the community.
Labour in many areas has been successful at finding interlocutors and integrating communities such as the Bangladeshi community into local politics. The same may be possible for EU voter communities.
Also, in general, EU-citizens from Southern and Eastern EU-countries are more likely to remain close to their direct cultural community, while Western and Northern Europeans often do not so much live within their direct community, but more in a diverse community of other Europeans in London. The latter group specifically can obviously be targeted on the basis of cross-European topics and issues, such as the environment, the EU, benefits and social care, as well as foreign policy and the economy at large.
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October 10th, 2007by Noel Hatch
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