European citizens at the Conference on the Future of Europe, held over the weekend in Strasbourg, discussed common concerns. Two Maltese participants told Jessica Arena about the debate on the citizens’ panel.
Unequal treatment in the enforcement of laws on tax evasion was one of the issues on which European citizens, including two from Malta, found common ground last week during a conference held at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Jane Pace said it was clear from the conversations that went on during the Conference on the Future of Europe that “a lot of people feel the law comes down in full force on us normal citizens while the elites do not pay their taxes.
“It’s a crucial point that we all agreed: more pressure from the European Union is necessary to tackle it,” Pace said.
She took part in the citizens’ panel during the conference alongside another Maltese, Massimo Cherret, 18.
They were among 200 randomly selected participants who discussed the major themes at the conference, which policymakers plan to use as a jump-off point for Europe-wide legislative reform.
The two joined a working group for discussions on a variety of topics, including a stronger economy, social justice, work and education, culture and sport, digital trans-formation, democracy, European values, the rule of law, security, climate change and the environment, health, the EU in the world and migration.
“It was very enlightening to be able to hear and share experiences from ordinary citizens from other countries.
“We were paired with people from Italy, Portugal and Denmark and had a productive discussion on a wide variety of things,” Pace said.
“Something we commonly settled on is the idea that larger countries often dominate the conversation in Europe, with a feeling that smaller countries like Portugal and Malta are not really given the same platform. If we are all part of the EU, we should be enjoying equal privileges."
Putting Malta's issues into EU perspective
Cherret, 18, said he was initially sceptical about taking part, but found the experience to be enlightening.
“Everyone in these workshops got a chance to speak and discuss,” he said.
“We did not necessarily always agree, but the diversity of opinion is very interesting. It’s already quite something to meet people of different ages, nationalities and genders, let alone to be able to discuss some really important topics with them.
“I hope that further on, when it comes to drafting policies, the EU actually takes the things we’ve discussed into consideration,” he added.
Pace said it was enlightening to hear the experiences and difficulties of citizens from other countries, which put some of Malta’s issues in perspective.
“We are a nation that loves to complain, and while I believe there are avenues where Malta can improve, compared to some of the things we heard from the other participants, you realise how good we actually have it,” she noted.
“We heard from students who struggle to pay their tuition fees, parents who would like to have more children but cannot afford to financially and artists who take a loss to be able to exhibit their work.”
Cherret said: “One woman told us that after her son had grown up, she realised that she rarely had the time to play with him and that he had largely been raised through the school system.“
She described how work had largely taken over her lifestyle and it was one of the many themes of social justice which we discussed.”
Citizens feel detached from Europe and EU
Cherret said there was a consensus among attendees that citizens felt distant from Europe and its institutions.
“The feeling that we as citizens feel like we’re very far from the EU was one of the very first things we discussed and probably one of the main reasons we are here in the first place,” he said.
“People don’t really understand the EU. They have an idea of what it is, but not what it’s doing and which goals and objectives it wants to achieve... what it is doing right or wrong. We all felt like we did not really identify as EU citizens. And this is an important issue that should be tackled.
“Why is there such a big institution with lots of potential and we are feeling a huge disconnect to this project which in theory should be uniting us?”
Pace added that when envisioning the future of Europe, she used a pomegranate as an allegory for how it should work.
“A pomegranate has a crown which we can take to be the EU institutions, then there’s the rind, that’s the 27 governments who hold it together, then the fruit inside, that’s all of us as European citizens,” she argued.
“To preserve this, we must remain united and tend to everyone’s needs equally.”