Representation & Politics
The International Representation of the Roma - Part 2
The Need for Representation
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The Europe of minorities
The main thrust of approaches to Roma representation is that, as a minority, Roma need to organize along the lines of a civil rights movement. A recent Focus article in European Options (The Europe of minorities, McNeill) makes a strong case for the future European Union being unable to exercise democracy without responding to the needs of minorities. This is because the tendency in Europe is for all member states to constitute minorities. This article is part of a series organized by Project Europe which identify required changes in European political organization to accommodate the needs of an enlarged Europe and reduce the democratic deficit.
No single nation or racial group in Europe constitutes a majority. Indeed, some European ethnic groups have a combined population within Europe which exceeds the population of some member states. Unlike the case of nation states, European integration means issues of concern to people will no longer be easily solved through majority decision making by any mainstream population. European issues can only be resolved through a system of governance which is fully responsive to the new reality of a Europe of minorities. The dissolution of a single identifiable majority raises the political stakes for every group. As a result, European governance has to move towards a system which is responsive to minority interests. Without this evolution it will not be possible to sustain popular support through engagement of the population and the democratic deficit will increase.
Country populations (m)
as % of European total
| COUNTRY |
POP |
% |
| Germany |
82.8 |
14.8 |
| Turkey |
65.6 |
11.7 |
| UK |
59.5 |
10.6 |
| France |
59.3 |
10.6 |
| Italy |
57.6 |
10.3 |
| Spain |
40.0 |
7.1 |
| Poland |
38.6 |
6.9 |
| Romania |
22.4 |
4.0 |
| Netherlands |
15.9 |
2.8 |
| Greece |
10.6 |
1.9 |
| Czech Rep. |
10.3 |
1.8 |
| Belgium |
10.2 |
1.8 |
| Hungary |
10.1 |
1.8 |
| Portugal |
10.0 |
1.8 |
| Sweden |
8.9 |
1.6 |
| Austria |
8.1 |
1.4 |
| Bulgaria |
7.8 |
1.4 |
| Switzerland |
7.3 |
1.3 |
| Slovakia |
5.4 |
0.96 |
| Denmark |
5.3 |
0.95 |
| Finland |
5.1 |
0.91 |
| Norway |
4.5 |
0.80 |
| Ireland |
3.8 |
0.67 |
| Lithuania |
3.6 |
0.64 |
| Latvia |
2.4 |
0.43 |
| Slovenia |
1.9 |
0.33 |
| Estonia |
1.4 |
0.25 |
| Luxembourg |
0.4 |
0.07 |
| Malta |
0.39 |
0.07 |
| Iceland |
0.28 |
0.05 |
| Jersey |
0.09 |
0.016 |
| Isle of Man |
0.073 |
0.013 |
| Andorra |
0.066 |
0.012 |
| Guernsey |
0.064 |
0.011 |
| Faroe Isles |
0.045 |
0.008 |
| Liechtenstein |
0.032 |
0.006 |
| Monaco |
0.032 |
0.006 |
| Gibraltar |
0.027 |
0.005 |
| San Marino |
0.027 |
0.005 |
| TOTAL |
560.0 |
100.00 |
Source: GeoHive, The Netherlands |
Statistics
The current population of the member states of the European Union is some 380 million. If the population of prospective candidate countries to the European Union is added to this total, the 'Greater European' population will be some 560 million.
The largest country in the European Union is Germany with a population of some 82.8 million. Currently the German population accounts for some 21.8% of the EU population and, with enlargement, this will decline to 14.8%. The United Kingdom, France and Italy will take up minority positions each with around 10% of the EU population and countries such as Sweden to 1.6% and Ireland to 0.67%.
It is therefore evident that in terms of decision making, at the European level, Europe is already characetrised by minority interests and this will become more eccentuated as Europe expands.
Moving from majority to minority structures
Within nation states it is normal to find a majority, or mainstream population, and several smaller groups which constitute minorities. The systems of governance within European member states, both in terms of electoral system representation and popular influence on decision making, are associated with significant democratic deficits in the way in which minorities are treated. Indeed, quite often the institutions which are found to be most discriminatory are government agencies. Because in most democratic electoral structures one is dealing with a democracy based upon 'majority rule', there is an ineffective representation of minority interests. This is as true in electoral systems with 'proportional representation' as with those with the 'first past the post' systems. Racial and other forms of prejudice against minorities survives because the mainstream controls decision making in 'democratic institutions' into which they interwine their value sets, prejudices and views of society.
In a Europe in which its citizens freely participate in a system of elections and governance, the reality of the Europe of minorities makes the current nation state democracies inappropriate.
Participatory development
In national 'mainstream' societies, the way in which laws and policy are developed and applied tend to reflect the values and preferences of those in the mainstream society and who often have a direct influence upon legislation and planning. In general terms the instances of conflict or harm resulting from enforcement of laws are associated with those people who did not influence legislative development as well as minority groups. Over time, law has become a collection of regulations which have to be 'obeyed' and for some sections of society law, and its interpretation, is a controlling factor and is therefore oppressive.
Moving to a consideration of how such a system should adjust to a situation where there is no mainstream group, then participatory development becomes an essential aspect of achieving a more humane and harmonious solution. Participatory development is a means of facilitating the ability of European citizens to participate in the initiation, development and implementation of actions, policies and legislation. To better protect minority interests everyone needs to be able to influence the decisions which will affect them.
This concept is not original and its components can be traced back through history. What is required is that proposals for changes in, or addition to, the law can by right come from any citizen, that other citizens can support such a proposal, that a widening array of people can become involved in refining a proposal. The other aspect of law making is that those involved need to accept that what appears to be 'rational' from their individual standpoint, may not be so when applied in practice to people with differing circumstance. Therefore any law needs to be subjected to a process which protects people from harm when such a law is applied. The well established means of managing complaints and appeals is the jury system. From the standpoint of minorities, a principle proposed in the English Magna Carta is of importance. That is, when judging a complaint, an independent group from the community should review the case and those who undertake this review must include peers or members of the complainant's minority group. This principle later gave rise to the jury system and it is indeed the jury system which can help protect the interests of minorities by bringing to bear the community conscience on any decision affecting another.
The salutory effect of juries is that they can nullify a law in any particular case. Therefore the law makers need to take this into account. This will result in more generally applicable and therefore fair laws. Legislation, even that developed through a broad participatory system, does not want to face the embarassment of facing, in each and every case, appeals which result in the nullification of the law.
The demise of majority voting
In Europe, the reality of the Europe of minorities heralds the death of majority voting and even 'qualified' majority voting. To protect all minority interests the movement needs to be towards broad based participatory development of actions, legislation and policy and, at community level, the safeguard of juries of peers.
Reproduced with permission: http://www.europeanoptions.org/
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