NGO News > Archives > Issue19

REGULATE OR BE REGULATED

Europe needs grassroots creativity to legitimize the process

Many NGOs appear eager and set to integrate with the US rather than with the Brussels-run European empire. And for good reason: the non-governmental spirit is purer across the Atlantic, not on the Brussels side.

The largest foundations in the European capital are those usually acting as intermediates for EU funds. They were specifically created for this purpose by the European bureaucracy. These foundations have board members that are former, current or future members of the same bureaucracy; high ranking public officials in member states usually serve as board presidents.

When distributing EU money, Brussels foundations first set aside a large share for their own management fee. They then look around to find other government-created NGOs that could take the burden of spending away from them.

European citizens complain that Brussels bureaucracy is far away from them. Try the Brussels-funded NGOs, which are representative for one community only, the bureaucratic one.

If Europe is so bureaucracy-driven and state-minded, why bother at all?

One reason is that if you are not part of regulating Europe, you will find yourself regulated by it. Europe is invasive. One day you do not mind it; the next day it can compel you to change from yards to meters or redirect other matters you would think your own. You have to be a part of the decision process if you do not want to be the subject of decisions.

Our region has special needs. What works in the very well-developed Netherlands may not work in Bulgaria. What is taken for granted in France may not be so obvious in Hungary. Be sure you are there to make your point. Remember that the net of the acquis has uneven holes; hazardous concepts can easily get through.

Accession is a mechanism for all parties to the process. Governments have interests. The EU has rules. NGOs should bring the principles to the negotiations.

The second reason involves a change of the NGO environment in and around Brussels. Take Vision, a small Italian virtual think-tank. It has no headquarters, no staff to speak of, and only four researchers, connected solely through the Net. But Vision stands precisely where the Commission is not - finding creative solutions to common problems. Of course, Vision did not receive huge amounts of funding as the foundations of former EU commissioners. Other NGOs that are willing to fight for their own vision of Europe, such as the Center for Policy Studies and the British Centre for European Reform, are becoming more and more influential every day.

In Central and Eastern Europe the Commission negotiates with governments only, and NGOs feel left on the sidelines. The EU Commission has taken measures to improve dialogue with NGOs. Nobody else but NGOs can create a niche for themselves in the negotiation process. Allies and coalitions are needed; no organization can succeed by itself.

The natural partners of CEE NGOs lie not in Brussels or domestic governments, but in this range of newly created non-governmental, American-type - let's not be ashamed to say it, Tocqueville said it before - Western European NGOs. Connections and linkages of East and West in the non-governmental sphere are the only ones that can challenge the EU, and help it at the same time.

Europe needs us. It needs us to turn this elite-initiated and -driven enlargement process into a grassroots effort; it needs the legitimacy NGOs can provide.

A few enlightened individuals in Brussels want to push Europe eastward. But they have little support from member states, no resources to speak of and mounting popular indifference, often open disapproval toward enlargement.

Solutions must be found to win popular support; NGOs are closer to the solution than Brussels. Europe needs NGOs' policy creativity, their unconventional approach, and their initiative. What we agreed to integrate with is already changing.

NGOs, along with business and media, must be the ones giving direction to these changes. They must be the ombudsmen of Europe, the policy institutes of Europe, the PR agents of Europe in their own countries, and many others roles still. The Commission-and EU governments-could not keep the same quality of governance without NGOs.

The EU should see that they are not paying alimony to have a third sector in the third Europe, but are financing a different vision, indispensable to a united Europe.

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is President of the Romanian Academic Society (SAR), founded in 1995 with the aim of promoting academic expertise in policy-making.

Romanian Academic Society (SAR)
Str. Mihai Eminescu 61, sec. 2
Bucuresti, ROMANIA
Tel/fax: (40 1) 2111477, 2111424
E-mail: office@sar.org.ro Internet: www.sar.org.ro