World View/Paul Gillespie: What with all the talk and activity about the European Union in this first working week of the Irish EU presidency, when will ordinary citizens have a chance to express their views on the issues?
Well, in the European Parliament elections next June, of course, assuming they are presented by the candidates and political parties running for election then.
A note of disbelief resonates widely in such discussions. Talking to members of the Socialist group in the parliament this week in Dublin, where they gathered to discuss the Irish presidency, I was surprised to find the assumption that the elections will be determined by domestic issues and political moods so much in the foreground.
And what is wrong with that? Perhaps the question is misconceived. It tends to assume a political dichotomy between national and European issues. Either you talk about the Government's record on health, education and decentralisation, or about the constitutional treaty, EU enlargement, its budget for the next seven-year period and the political shape of the next Commission.
In fact the issues are not so counterposed. Rather do they overlap, criss-cross and intermingle. To be sure, they do so differently in different countries, as is to be expected given the distinctive national political cultures and traditions in the 25 states which will be involved in these elections.
But despite these differences the issues and moods tend to congregate or flock together in successive European elections precisely because of the interdependence in a developing political system.
Speeches at an informal gathering of the Socialist group threw up the word "family" to describe the various groups in the European Parliament. There are family resemblances between the parties involved. These will be reflected in the manifestos they prepare and present to their national electorates. Traditionally they concentrate on European issues, leaving it to the national parties to translate them into domestic language and political focus.
The cynical view has it that domestic issues and moods will therefore necessarily crowd out the Europeans ones. In Ireland these elections, together with the local ones, give voters the chance to make a judgment on the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Coalition.
Health, education and decentralisation will presumably be prominent in the campaign, even though they are for the most part neither decided nor funded at European level. The Government will fight on its record, arguing that its choices about them have been competent and prudent.
In doing so its candidates will also point up the Government's record in handling the EU presidency and argue its view on the issues involved. Has it revived the constitutional treaty negotiations and brought them towards a conclusion? Was it to blame if that has not happened? Does this make a two-speed or hard-core Europe more likely? How have the enlargement celebrations affected its reputation? What attitude has it taken towards the EU budget negotiations? Who is it going to nominate to the European Commission?
The Government assumes an effective EU presidency will stand to it at the polls, despite mid-term problems, and expects that greater exposure to the running European agenda will raise public consciousness of its importance. In addition Fianna Fáil and PD candidates will present their own policies on European issues.
The European Parliament is clearly one of the principal winners from the constitutional treaty if it is adopted, because many more subjects are now dealt with by co-decision between it and the Council of Ministers.
But there is still a disconnect between MEPs and TDS, and between national parliaments and the European one. The treaty gives a greater role to national parliaments in scrutinising EU legislation, but that, too, is for the future.
This campaign will have a number of genuine European issues running through it. Whether or not the treaty is approved by then it is bound to come up. So will the budget negotiations. And the political shape of the next commissionwill be decided in the light of the election outcome. Foreign and defence policies are also likely to figure prominently.
Whether this will lift turnout in Ireland and elsewhere remains to be seen. Throughout the EU it has been systematically lower than in national elections. This is because they are seen as "second order" by all concerned, not as important as national ones because the principal and most costly issues such as health and education are not resolved at European level, and democratic accountability is still seen as largely national.
Nevertheless, the extent to which law-making has been Europeanised is now more widely appreciated by voters. Some of the frustration with the European Parliament elections arises from the fact that this is not adequately reflected in the way political parties campaign, which tends to be predominantly on domestic issues.
It will be interesting to see whether this changes in June, because of the greater number of European issues. It is partly a question of how national parties relate to their wider families in the European Parliament.
Those who argue that democracy is based on a national political community or demos and cannot by definition be extended beyond the nation-state are presented with a major puzzle by the European Parliament elections.
What is the point of them if that is so? To say the parliament is largely irrelevant in affecting decisions can no longer be sustained. One has only to look at the extent to which MEPs are lobbied by interest groups.