The Young European Federalists (JEF-Europe) are astonished about negative remarks regarding the role and the composition of the European Parliament expressed by some European politicians over the few last days. The latest came today from Slovak president Ivan Gasparovic in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt. | 
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“Rather than a money-gorging mammoth, the European Parliament makes a
positive and vital contribution to policy-making and is a sign of the
democratic evolution in the EU. To ask national MPs to look after the
European Parliament disregards this reality and sounds pre-historic,”
responded the newly elected president of JEF-Europe, Jan Seifert.
Jan Seifert qualified the critique made by the Slovak president as “a slap
in the faces not only of MEPs from the Slovak Republic but parliamentarians
from all member states serving the European citizens.”
“Democratic institutions cannot be a matter of savings. If we start to
pinch and scrape when it comes to the representation of the citizens, we
can start packing up all other democratic mechanisms as well.”
Regarding Gasparovic’s comment on the three seats of the European
Parliament, JEF-Europe’s president remarked: “To keep the three places of
work has been a unanimous decision of European governments – and the Slovak
Republic has not objected.”
“Instead of blaming the EP for this institutional failure, Gasparovic
should commit his own government to support any move towards a more
efficient and democratic European Parliament with only one location.”
“The EP represents the emerging European demos and it is vital that its
power is strengthened at the same time as the concept of European
citizenship takes shape.”
“The model proposed by the Slovak president goes against the idea of Europe
expressed by Monnet, Churchill or Spinelli and makes us wonder: who is
actually the mammoth?”
