Everything that has held us together for decades is coming apart because these approaches are becoming absurd. We need to play our part in addressing this: it is we, those who believe in Europe, who have allowed cracks to appear in democracy, distancing peoples and making them hostile. And similarly, it is we who must rediscover the path of sovereignty: we need the other form of courage, rediscovering the path of democracy.
That will require, first and foremost, a new method to overhaul Europe. That is why I want this roadmap that I intend to propose to all EU Member States – this roadmap to build the future of our Europe over the next decade – not to involve a treaty negotiated sneakily behind closed doors in Paris, Brussels or Belin. No, I propose that we try a new method: that by the end of the year, we sketch out the major principles of our approach, where we want to take our Europe, and define our objectives clearly. We can then, at the beginning of next year, submit those principles and objectives to the peoples of Europe. I propose that wherever leaders choose to take this path – something I hope for most earnestly – in each of the Member States, we organize six months of consultations, democratic conventions that will be an opportunity for our peoples, throughout our countries, to discuss the Europe they want to see.
Lastly, I want us to put behind us this sort of childlike dilemma Europe is currently tied up in. A dilemma where on the one side, some want to make the people say “yes” or “no” and manipulate them for months, where the referendum becomes the weapon of populists and anti-Europeans alone; and where on the other, those who believe in Europe end up afraid of their peoples and hide behind their own doubts, saying to themselves “let’s move forward but without changing the treaties, for fear of having to hold another referendum. Let’s move forward in baby steps, behind closed doors. The people will not understand.”
We need to choose another, a third way, the one invented here, at this very spot. That way was not that of demagogy, but that of democracy, of controversy, of constructive debate driven by critical thinking and dialogue. It was the way that involved entering into the detail of each question and its complexity, to decide what we want to do for the common city. That is what I want to see in the first half of 2018 in all the countries of our continent, of Europe, to rediscover the zest of what was invented at this spot where we are standing, and which formed the basis for our democracies. So yes, through these six months of democratic conventions, we should debate this roadmap, the principles for which the governments will have designed, and then we can meet again to reconcile them and, on that basis, after debate, including grassroots debate locally and digital debates across Europe. Then we can build what will be the foundations for an overhaul of Europe for the coming ten, fifteen years, we can build the terms of what we really want together. That is the ambition I want to see as a method in the coming months.
Looking back over Greece’s history means seeing the strength of this democracy and debate. That is I what I want us to rediscover together for our Europe. But beyond that, I want the everyday operation of tomorrow’s Europe to once again be more democratic. I want us to put behind us the rules invented by the few for the many, and to reinject more democracy into everyday operations.
