What next for... democracy in Europe?
Saturday 27 October, 5.15pm until 6.00pm, Seminar Space What next for...?

When is a constitution not a constitution but a reform treaty? Maybe when politicians want to avoid a referendum they fear they will lose. Come and debate the future of the EU. Does the Reform Treaty represent the triumph of the European idea, or does it signify the exhaustion of domestic political elites? Will the new member states bring political, social, economic and cultural dynamism, or conservatism, to Europe? How will the potential entry of Turkey affect our traditional conception of Europe and what the EU is for?

 Speakers

Marc Glendening
director, Democracy Movement
Mark Littlewood
director general, Institute of Economic Affairs
Dr Tara McCormack
lecturer in international politics, University of Leicester; author, Critique, Security and Power: the political limits to emancipatory approaches
Chair:
Martin Summers
public affairs consultant

 Produced by

Martin Summers public affairs consultant
 Recommended readings

Unless Europe gets its act together, the world will continue to ignore it
To really count as a political entity, to speak with a clear voice in the world, the EU needs to find find a way to avoid deferring to the interests of its member states
Timothy Garton Ash, Guardian, 20 June 2007

EU referendum petition passes 100,000 mark
Report on the Telegraph's 'I want a refendum' campaign
Christopher Hope, Telegraph, 26 September 2007

If EU referendums are taboo, what then?
The problem with the legitimacy of the EU derives not from citizens' anti-Europeanism, but their distrust of their national governments
Toger Seidenfaden, EUobserver, 2 October 2007

Depicting Europe
'The emergence of the Union may be regarded as the last great world-historical achievement of the bourgeoisie'
Perry Anderson, London Review of Books, 20 September 2007

The EU: Treaty, Referendum, Immigration, Security and Foreign Policy
Watch Claire Fox News examine several issues around the European Union.
Claire Fox News, 18 Doughty Street TV, 8 October 2007

Europa and the bull: a lesson for European democracy
Reduced to electing representatives to the European parliament, democracy in the EU is short-changed. Is it not time to allow the popular will to express itself?
Peter Sain ley Berry, EUobserver, 27 September 2007

recommended by spiked

Europe: whose treaty is it anyway?
Chris Bickerton, 27 June 2007

The reawakening of European democracy
Frank Furedi, 30 May 2005

Session partners