Texel – Make the Fire of Democracy Blaze Again

by | 11. April 2019

Den Burg, Texel| My name is David Reich. As an intern, I joined the BeNeLux Tour in Belgium and the Netherlands in April this year. The first destination in the Netherlands for me personally (the others already had a stop before in Maastricht) was in beautiful Texel, a small island located far north close to Alkmaar. On the negative side, it was cold and windy; on the positive side, we had a lot of interesting characters under the dome, amongst others a local (retired) fishermen, who had a lot to say about his experience with the EU parliament – more on his view later in the text.

I arrived late in the evening with the last boat, which I almost missed, due to traffic – luckily I made it and I was ready for the talk on the next day. The day started cold and cloudy, but hour-by-hour the weather became friendlier and we saw the sun shinning through the clouds. One hour before the talk started, we decided to go to the dunes to get into the island mood and to absorb some sunrays and some fresh sea air – what a pleasant way to start the day!

The first talk was on plastic waste (Plastic Wastic, funny word creation by Anne), which related to the exorbitant usage of plastic and the problems linked therein – polluted beaches, microplastic in the ocean and in our food and so on. As I was mostly busy with filming and taking pictures, I didn’t hear a lot of the talk. However, we had 6 interested participants, amongst them two students and two locals, who talked about their experience with plastic. Especially the two locals were talking about their experience in Texel; apparently a big problem is the waste on the beach that tourists wouldn’t pick up, but rather leave it on the shore and dunes.

Lively discussions under the dome in Brussels

“There are a lot of things that I do not understand, especially those things happening in Bxl. I was a fishermen and we are far away from what happens on the mainland. Politics need to become more graspable and closer to the citizens. Sometimes I have the impression that I cannot do anything and I don’t really understand – some more transparency could be a solution.”

Participant under the dome

European Public Sphere

However, it seems that the island and its people are aware of their situation and thus they act accordingly to their situation. This in turn means that there is a risk to build an echo chamber around oneself, which one of the person mentioned. On an island the outlook to other spheres is rather difficult, as it is isolated and far off other communities – which is equally true for people that live in cities and who don’t realize what their impact is (high consumption leads to an increase in waste and this leads to a waste problem that isn’t visible directly). Also the younger participants mentioned that we need to act accordingly and not just accept our destiny. 

After the first talk I had time to walk around the festival ground. I saw a visualization of Texel through VR goggles, fishermen talking about their experience on high sea and many other stands related to the upcoming European elections (EUradio, European Citizens Network etc) – it was basically a festival that had the intention to call for action, related to the elections but also to other political topics. One of my favourite activities was a discussion on the situation of workers in Europe and how they could solarize and work together in a broader network of different European syndics (organized by the European trade union confederation).

The second talk started right after and this time I was in the middle of the action – together with Mirte, my dutch colleague, I moderated and discussed with eight discussants, from Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, China and Germany. As we were close to the elections our topic of interest was the “expectations to the new EP” in the coming legislative term.

We started with what are the duties of a citizen. Most agreed that it started with voting, others said that voting is abdicant and we need to act politically as our votes are not representative anymore. The fishermen was concerned that the political sphere is a rather complex and difficult realm, that is inhabited by politicians that don’t connect to the people and their concerns. Thus a proposition was to send experts to the parliament, such as local fishermen that could discuss their related expertise/knowledge and form valuable tools and policies to tackle complex problems.

Video of our 5 stops in the Netherlands

The Danish Commissioner Margrethe Vestager also paid us a visit

Moreover, a Hungarian colleague from a civil society organisation said that we need to use the existing tools more efficiently and consciously (European petition system ECI system etc.); this in turn means that we as a civil society need to become aware regarding our possibilities to act, as well as regarding our responsibilities. However, this goes hand in hand with the responsibilities of the politicians that are sometimes too far away from the real problems, as one discussant mentioned. 

All agreed upon tools that could strengthen transparency and participation of the citizen – the parliament needs to be aware of his responsibility towards the EC, which means it needs to create a sphere that includes all ideas and opinions.  

All in all an interesting day with many different ideas and opinions. With such a spirit one likes to go into the coming election, the hope should be that we will have a representative, inclusive and diverse parliament that treats and considers all people equally. 

In addition, reforms of citizens’ initiatives and direct democracy tools (such as the petition system) should be sought in order to make civil society audible again. I am happy that we were part of this entire festival and that we might have motivated people to be more engaged into the political business in Brussels.

As was mentioned earlier and in many other talks, we need a government for, with and by the people to tackle the challenges we are currently facing. Moreover, a better, empathic, solidary and transnational Europe should be answer to hatred and racism and not disintegration and fear scattering. 

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Video of our 2 stops in Luxembourg

Some impressions from our Dome Event: