We are excited to present TRANSEUROPA Network – a network of activists from throughout Europe working together for the emergence of a new and genuinely transnational European politics, culture and society.

Applications now open for the founding meeting on September 25-26! Deadline for applications September 8

The basis of the activity of TRANSEUROPA network is monthly “transnational” summits where members of the network from each city represented are invited to participate with expenses covered.

Members of the Network:

TRANSEUROPA Network is above all a platform for those who want to work together to bring about the emergence of a new European politics, culture and society. The Network brings together activists and scholars, artists and students from throughout the continent to develop together a new transnational political subjectivity.
You will benefit from the diversity of these individuals, their backgrounds and approaches, and the diversity of topics dealt with. You will also have the opportunity to propose projects or subjects of investigation, and European Alternatives and TRANSEUROPA Network will do its best to allow you to run these projects if they are consistent with the aims of European Alternatives. Finally, you will have the opportunity to travel to other cities in the TRANSEUROPA Network with expenses covered by us.

To become a part of TRANSEUROPA Network you need to be happy to commit to participating between September and the end of May 2011. Once you have taken part in TRANSEUROPA network and helped prepared TRANSEUROPA Festival in May 2011, you will remain a member of the Network, and you can choose how much you would like to continue to engage in our work.

TRANSEUROPA Festival is a trans-European event happening simultaneously in many countries in May 2011. The Festival represents the climax of the work of the Network and the place where the discussions held over the preceding months will be publicly presented. The format of the Festival in each of the participating cities is left flexible so that it can be adapted to the different contexts of different cities, and also to the capacities and resources of the local groups.

We have a list of core topics we definitely want to cover in TRANSEUROPA Network over the coming year. We want to explore how they can be best related to and explored in the different social and political realities throughout Europe. You are also very welcome to suggest other topics we should work on. In the TRANSEUROPA Network social networking platform (coming soon!) there will be the constant opportunity to bring up new topics as priorities.

Transnational Democracy
Includes: the meaning of democracy in the EU and nation states, new participative methods, the future of political representation in Europe.
Migration
Includes: Common asylum and migration policy; detention centres and camps; integration policies, human rights issues
Ecology&Commons
Includes: Environmental policy; common goods and access to general interest services; production model; social justice and climate change
Transnational Media&Media Pluralism
Includes media freedom and pluralism, transnational public sphere and European media, democratisation of access to the media
Gender Equality
Includes: EU and national legislation relating to abortion, pay, work-life balance etc. The image of women and of men.

We are currently inviting interested individuals to apply to become part of the Network and join the founding meeting on September 25-26 in London.

To apply to join the network, all you have to do is send an email to network@euroalter.com with an overview of your interests, of why you would like to join Transeuropa network, and what topic(s) you are most interested in.

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Heteronormativity is the word to express the way of life of our society, the way we should live, act and react: is the reinforcement of certain beliefs by many social institutions and social policies.
Sex: refers to the male and female duality of biology and reproduction.
Gender: refers to the socially constructed roles, behavior that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women.

These beliefs include the belief that human beings fall into two distinct and complementary categories, male and female; that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between people of different sexes; and that each sex has certain natural roles in life.
Our system is the binary gender system.
The role that have nowadays words such as Man or Woman, and what it means nowadays to be a man or a woman, and to fulfill the role, it is an important topic in these days.

These words are now obsolete, but rich of hidden meanings.
Watching the television, while walking around, you can see in every moment of your life what society think about men and women.
Men are usually connected with the God of war (Mars) and the Godness of Love (Venus).
Women have to be pretty and clean, well dress, take care of children and possibly be hard-workers, in the same time.
Men should care less about fashion, like football, soccer, and hard sports.
Since you are a young boy or girl you have to follow the lines, and often is possible to be denigrated, if you do not properly fit into the stereotype.

JUSTINA, LITHUANIA, said: “I think that the role of parents in the family…it’s only their business! I do not agree with the stereotypes of the woman whocook, wash, at home and the husband make a money. I think men could also be a babysitter and women make a career.
And about sexuality, in LT women are like the products for commercials, everywhere in commercials, TV, press are showed sexy blondy girls, and it makes me sick!”

But what happen if you step up the lines, if you feel different?
This is an important topic of our societies, and too often it remains unexpressed.
Governative labels are an instrument of legal power to redefine ourselves.
For instance, if in your country it is forbidden to get married with a person of your same sex, you could feel uncomfortable to accept your sexuality.
This starts when you are in the kindergarden: you start reading stories about a prince and a princess, and you understand that it is the normality.
But what normal means?
Actually it is not so easy to say.
The current definition refers to something constituting a norm or standard or type or social norm; someone could say that it refers to scientific laws as well.

The reality is much more complex.
You are who you are.
No way to say that you can be less normal than someone else.
It should be fair enough that your sexual identity, or sexual orientation, is not important to define yourself, since you don’t want to.
My teacher about this topic, explained me this, saying: when you go out you don’t have to say: I would like a beer and yes, I’m lesbian.
Nobody should care about who you love.

MARIANA, BULGARIA: “I believe that everybody has the right and choice to be whoever they want to be, if this doesn’t harm the others around him. Not fitting the classical heteronormative structure doesn’t do harm to the societal norms, it expands them to capture the diversity of all people in our world. It may just be harming the mentality of the old-fashioned people, who don’t want to understand that things are not black and white. But that’s for good. Open your eyes, people, see the colors!
My country is very backwards thinking when it comes to gays and lesbians. Especially about gays,as they work against the classical image of the “Bulgarian macho”. But I still hope things will change in our black and white world.”

We have plenty of declarations of human rights, but most of the modern governments seem to not care so much about the issue.
The rights are there, but their real implementation is an actual and complicated issue.
The thing is: you could not care, but there are people who are gay, lesbian, trangender, trans-sexuals, bi-sexuals, and the government should care about them.

YUNUS, TURKEY:
“In Turkey half of women population face the domestic violence, this rate rise till %97 if you go to poorest and socially isolated places. And while %70 of man population work only 1/4 of women work in Turkey. And the amount of girls who do not go to any school is 600.000 person more than amount of boys who do not go to any school.
Only this data shows something about gender roles in Turkey. But why the situation is like this?
In Turkey, as most of late-capitalist countries, family is the key subject of social and economic structure of country. Basically, to have ties with soil and survive through man’s arm power, different roles of gender, and woman has right to live if she do her duties in home. So the measurement of being a free individual and “person” and to enjoy all the social rights depends on economical freedom. The success and honour of family is identified in terms of the woman’s virtue.
This is a typical characteristic of feodal economic culture. Violence about woman is also related with this issue. Because of woman/girl does not have a place to go (cause she doesnt ve economical freedom, a job, opportunity to find a job) she has to stay at home and suffer. Of course the situation is diverse In west of Turkey, in the big cities, their suburbs( especially eastern and south-eastern people and romas live in suburbs) and in the East of Turkey. And this fact brings us to another case. While west of Turkey almost capitalised and especially in big cities like Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Balıkesir, Eskişehir…etc woman might have economic freedom, most big part of south east Turkey is still enjoy feudal economy. So will we wait till the sistemic economic change 100s years ? should we only watch when girls who has lost their virginity before marriage killed by family 100 year more? And only say ınfra structure determines super structure ?
I think human rights cannot leave its sociologic evolution. There are international norms and we have to work for a social transformation of changing perceptions of people towards each other by changing ethical norms and paradigms. Homosexuality cannot be separated from all these facts. Because of man is important for surviving of family and all society’s economy, to be a man is also important. In our culture identities are constructed by looking the other or easily creating the other. İf there is no “other” we cannot enjoy the real feeling of “us”. That is why especially gays and bisexual men are the subjects of “otherization” and discrimination. But honestly to be tolerant is aside, it s too hard to understand the general hate against homosexuals in Turkey.”

MEHMET, 22:
“The roles of men and women mostly depend on the area they have been living in and the family of the person. But it is a fact that most of the men think that the natural, physical differences should make women unequal to the men for other issues in life such as ; the man should decide for the women and the women should stay in, cook, take care of the kids. From the other hand conservative family style is another affect on those situations(mostly for women). The way they raise the child makes them less confident not just in life but also in their houses since s/he has been told to do everything for their lives by their parents which turns out to make the men the leader of the house and make the women obeyer since the men are considered to be smarter and more powerful. So that they can make the women do anything and they can do anything they want such as being violent. However; it all ends up with the lack of education of the people.“

We should not care about what normal is, we should just care about people, and their happiness.
Unfortunately, for someone, this seems to be a fairy tale.

JUSTINA, LITHUANIA: “this is my opinion, Lithuania is homophobian country..even it try to show the world how liberal it is. Few months ago, it was Vilnius Baltic Pride 2010..almost half of country was against, it was big conflict between both sides, anyway it happened with a lot of police, security ( the participants were minority in comparison with police forces). I think this event showed all situation in our country…still sovietic view and lack of tolerance for different people.t.. of course there are some famous poeple who are loved even they are different . And my personal opinion, i don’t have any against when we are talking about family…wedding bettween the same gender for me is ok..but children adopting…hm i don’t know. It’s difficult situation.“

JURGA, 21, LITHUANIA:
“I think that women and men should have equal rights. In Lithuania, in my opinion, the rights are quite equal, because laws are ensuring this.
Talking about society, I would divide it into two parts: older generation and younger generation. Older generation still thinks that there are works and different tasks for man and for women, that women have to do all domestic duties and raise children. But younger generations don’t divide works for women and men. At home they divides task between themselves and women don’t have to do everything by their owns. I could say that nowadays in Lithuania women are quite independent and strong, they can fight for themselves.
Homophobia is a little bit different. Our society is still too conservative and people are still intolerant for gay people. But I cannot say the same thing about the whole society. Of course, there are people who are tolerant and do not hate gay people. As for me, I think that gay people are the same people and all people can decide freely what to love and which orientation to choose. So just let them live as they want.“

About homosexuality?

MEHMET, TURKEY:
“And the homosexuality problem is generally because of people not being familiar with the topic. For most people in Turkey homosexuality doesn’t exist since they don’t know much about it. Being gay for a man is considered to imitate women which is a temporary phase or illness. And being gay for a women is nothing but a sexual fantasy for the most of the heterosexual men which they would have seen in adult movies. Even if they see a homosexual on tv or somewhere they can never expect that to happen their children, their friends because it’s not acceptable for them at all which occurs a huge social pressure for homosexual people preventing them to come out.”

JOE, FROM UK:
“Homosexuality here isn’t massively problematic.
There are some homophobic people, as there always will be, but it’s not too bad. There are some areas of the country that are very homophobic, and other areas that are very homosexual. For example in Soho, London there is a massive gay community, so it is widely accepted there.
It’s clear here that a lot of gay people are proud, which is shown by the gay pride day, and various other events like that. However, obviously it’s not ideal to be a gay person, and for someone to come out isn’t particularly pleasant. but the majority of people in this country are widely accepting of the gay culture.
I have a high number of gay friends, and they are all very proud of their community, and there are a lot of gay clubs in England, especially London, which i think helps promote the idea that gay people should not hide away.”

DONNE, FROM SOUTH AFRICA:
“Well in my hometown there is hardly any discrimination , Being homosexual here is accepted within our community, there are how ever many afrikaans people who look down upon homosexuals, it is much more harder for guys to be freely gay around here then for us lesbians, for instance you will see many lesbian couples holding each other in public places but you never see gay guys like that in public, except for in our local gay club aqua nightclub, then people can be free.“

CANDICE, FROM SOUTH AFRICA:
“Well, gay life in South Africa is legal as well as gay marriages.
There is and always will be discrimination by the more conservative people out there, as well as by the very religious people.
I live in Cape Town, and here they call it the PINK City. It is the gay capital of our country:) We have quite a few gay bars and clubs here. Some very up-market, and the others for everyone else:)
The last homophobic attack I heard of was in about 2005/2006 and it was a fairly well known south African actor, who was gay. A group of guys attacked and beat him up, and he died. His name was Brett.”

Last April I had the opportunity to participate to an interesting workshop which took place in Berlin about discriminations and diversities in the context of the EU, particularly concerning the gender issues.
The host association was Kombi-Kommunikation und Bildung- which works since the 70’s about the topic, especially focusing on sexual discriminations.
Gender refers to the social constructed roles, behavior, activities and attributes that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women.

I want to underline that this reports are made with people in different countries, who have different backgrounds and sexual orientations, as well as, I guess, different ice-cream flavors.

Valeria Venturini

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Roma European citizens are European citizens like any other European citizen. All of them have the right to live throughout the EU without discrimination. Sending Roma to a country where they have historically faced considerable discrimination whilst complaining that in that country there is discrimination shows a complete lack of respect for European citizenship. It is regrettable that the European Commission, in responding to the announcements in France, was not in measure to say so.

The ‘Roma’ issue is of course not limited to France. In Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia organised attacks on Roma by hate groups, and anti-Roma marches throughout towns have become more and more frequent. In Germany, 12000 Roma are going to be deported to Kosovo in the coming years, roughly half of them children who speak neither Serbian nor Albanian, and who came to Germany in exile from the ethnic violence of 1992. In Copenhagen earlier this month over 20 Roma people were arrested as a group and deported under allegation of theft, without any trial or conviction apparently having taken place. In Italy the anti-Roma sentiment is lower down the political and media agenda than a few years ago, when there were mass expulsions, burnings of camps and the creation of vigilante groups of citizens, but anti-Roma discrimination is as high as before.

While complaints about criminality amongst Roma and travelling communities have a basis in reality, Roma and travelling communities have faced deep-seated discrimination throughout Europe throughout almost all of Europe’s history. Complaining of a higher level of criminality amongst these groups is hypocritical whilst one is feeding that discrimination. If France wants to address the ‘Roma’ issue, it might start by providing enough legal fields in which travelling people can stop. A law passed in France in July 2000 calls for every village, town or city of more than 5000 people to provide a place for travelling peoples to stop, but 10 years later only half of these have been provided, and often in unacceptable locations (close to rubbish dumps, between motorways etc).

But ultimately action must be taken at a European level to defend minorities which have always been discriminated against by nation states. The Roma are a vanguard experiencing prejudice that any European citizens might come to face: for the travelling way of life is the way of life enshrined in European citizenship, one of free movement. The linking of ethnicity or the travelling way of life to criminality is outrageous, a nightmare from Europe’s past which must be banished. If this kind of lazy criminalisation of a people on the basis of ethnicity, lifestyle or any other trait is allowed to go unchallenged in contemporary Europe, then we have learnt nothing from our bloody past, and the European construction is not the beacon of tolerance of intercultural dialogue it claims to be but rather a cover in which our prejudices can hide. If the European institutions are unwilling or unable to act on discrimination on this basis, it is up to the people of Europe themselves to understand the meaning of their common citizenship, and act to defend it.

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by Emanuele Gatto

Eyafjallajökull. Unpronounceable even after looking it up on the Internet – and there’s no way you can get any help from www.howjsay.com. The name of the Icelandic volcano was used as the slogan of the meeting of all Nichi’s factories, held in Bari from 16 to 18 July. Nichi’s factories, first established in 2010 to support the Italian politician Nichi Vendola in his running for Governor of Apulia, one of Italy’s Southern Regions, then spread all over the country as places for experiencing and experimenting good political practices. The three-day meeting in Bari included seminars and well attended debates on employment, the economic crisis, scientific research, the Mafia phenomenon, migration, new media and the future course of Italian politics. But that was not all, as the eruption also brought with it the “Fabbricamp”, a meeting dedicated to projects and ideas for building a “better Italy”. The debate took the form of the so called barcamp, with all subjects being openly put forward by the participants and not by the organizers: a more plural way to reflect on the Factories’ future role and their possible relation with the European landscape of active participation.

After revitalizing the dynamics of Apulia’s local elections – the highest point of the process of participatory democracy – and providing the voting campaign with opportunities to share and propose ideas, the Factories are now expressing their continuing need for participation. Not only are they firmly rooted in the local community, they are also increasingly thriving on their own awareness that many other communities are animated by the same desire to take action and make their voice heard.

Just raise your gaze to Europe and its regions and you’ll see several informal groups of young people, associations and organizations that work to give people a voice and thus contribute to the vision of a participatory society. Whilst there is one Europe looking distant, complex and at times incomprehensibly bureaucratic in its late responses to the crisis, there truly is another Europe which is paving the way to greater democratization. That is the Europe betting on civil society as the diverse and flexible actor able to receive, interpret and express grassroots impulses, and which will help shape a European awareness of belonging.

In the German region of North-Rheine Westphalia a youth group promoted an initiative called “Youth moves politics”. They organized a series of meetings at local and regional level, in several countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Lithuania and Poland) as a way to put together all their experiences in the field of equal opportunities and then share them within an international seminar. That would allow the benefits of each of the debated proposals to be transferred to their local communities of origin.

By the same token, the newly established Nichi’s Factories can become part of this European network and act as a further character of European civil society. We can hope that by establishing links between the Factories and all the different groups that foster the participation of youth in the democratic life as part of their mission will result in more and more opportunities of dialogue and debate.

Perhaps in this way influence can be exercised on EU parties and institutions, and dialogue opportunities created between the latter and civil society by taking full advantage of the instruments currently offered by EU policies.

“Youth in Action”, the programme set up for young people and aimed at inspiring a sense of active participation and citizenship, is an eloquent example of this: the 2007-2009 statistics have shown that out of 805 applications only 11 regarded the action “Youth and Democracy” and, at a closer look, those regarding the meetings of young people and those responsible for youth policy were much fewer. It is clear that not only is there room for action, but it has also to be fully and urgently used through the ideas of good politics for a “better Europe”.
That is exactly the idea of Europe enshrined in Altiero Spinelli’s courageous vision and invoked by Nichi Vendola in his concluding address at the meeting in Bari, as the image of a democratic continent able to open up to differences. Vendola, after announcing he would run as the centre-left prime ministerial candidate in the next primary elections, urged his Factories to contribute to the project of Europe’s federalism with the same courage shown by the founding fathers. The Factories declared themselves to be eager to rise to the new challenges lying ahead Italy and Europe, without fearing victory.

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In this exclusive interview with Giuletto Chiesa, the Argentinean Minister for Communications, Juan Gabriel Mariotto, explains the country’s new broadcasting legislation.

The position of journalism as the “fourth estate” has been almost universally subjugated by large media corporations or governments and regimes with control over content. What is the situation in your country, and what gave you the idea of developing a new “Law on audiovisual communications services” and why?

Decree #22285, withdrawn last October, was written during the Argentinean dictatorship. The clauses it contains were composed according to the junta’s doctrine of national security, which was a mechanism for State terrorism. This same doctrine led to the perception of freedom of expression as coercive and the authorisation of censorship, allowing the State to play a subsidiary role in suppressing all voices except those of business. In the 1990s further changes were made to increase the neoliberal aspects that already existed in broadcasting regulations. These changes encouraged the centralisation of multimedia systems, centralised production in these systems and allowed for an exponential increase in concentration of ownership while the system came increasingly under outside management.

Let me quote a few figures. In the three-month period from June-August 2009, 67% of material broadcast in the provinces was just copies of broadcasts in the capital. Of this, 84% came from two main media groups: Channel 11 (Telefonica Group) and Channel 13 (Clarin Group). Every government elected by popular vote since 1983 has promised to bring our country’s laws in line with democratic principles, and it was time to start building on this promise. The understanding that the right to communication is a fundamental human right obliged us to create a set of regulations that would make this practicable. The principle behind this realisation was that freedom of expression applies to everyone, not just to journalists and especially not just to media corporations.
It was essential that the new regulations put a limit on the concentration of media ownership and, at the same time, allow other suppliers of information-communication services entry into the market. The idea, to answer that part of your question, came from a desire to see true pluralism in communications, breaking away from the past, with the principle that the words spoken on screen – and likewise the ideas, whether verbalised or imagined – should echo the views of as many individuals as possible. [...]

Although this new legislation was passed with an overwhelming majority in both chambers of your Parliament, it has been met with strong opposition from major private national media groups, who accused President Christina Kirchner of wanting to control information networks. What is your response to this accusation?

I think that this accusation is completely wrong and is made by those who are acting in their own interest. The inescapable truth is that, if the President had really wanted to control the media, the best way to do this would have been to do absolutely nothing, keeping the old legislation in place.

In this way control of the media would have remained under the direct power of the executive branch, and, what is more, the president would have had no obligation to make decisions collectively or even keep Parliament informed of these. According to the previous regulations, broadcasts could be stopped if governmental interests were in question, citing reasons of “public order”. […] The fact that not-for-profit organisations receiving broadcasting licenses were financed by the Government and worked according to its interests demonstrates the contempt that these political and cultural domains showed to any form of popular organisation.

What do you understand by “public space”, as referred to in the new law? Is there really a need for such a public space? Is it not enough for media networks and private newspapers to guarantee pluralism?

Currently, various means of communication make up a large portion of this “public space”. They are the main actors in this space. It is they who create discussions and ask questions, but they also have the ability to close down and silence these opportunities. It is they who build public sentiment and it is difficult to set oneself outside the limits that they create. We are not supporting the view of all-out determinists who claim that the media forces us to think in a certain way, but we are convinced that they do have the ability to direct public opinion according to their interests. The pluralism we wanted to introduce with the new legislation limits the power of the large corporations that operate in many different media with an all-encompassing business strategy that stifles competition. This is case with Clarin Group, the Country’s biggest media corporation, which has 191 cable licences (12 for state television via cable, 35 for SA cable television, 59 for multi-channels, 35 for digital via cable). To this must be added their 20% share in Supercanal. In total this represents 60% of the Argentine cable market, in a country where cable accounts for 60% of the total television market.
In addition to this, the Group’s other business activities [...] must be taken into account, as it controls a significant proportion of the media, but also has other branches of operation, ranging from the culture industry to various fields of business.
Media pluralism is stimulated by encouraging and supporting the existence of different types of information service providers. With this aim in mind, the recently-passed law 26522 recognises three types of service providers: public (national state-owned, regional state-owned, national public universities, public university institutions, Roman Catholic Church, indigenous population); private companies (commercial sector); not-for-profit organisations (trade unions, cooperatives, charities, foundations etc.). For this last group, and I want to stress the importance of this new regulation, 33% of the total market has been reserved. At the same time, by limiting the multiplication of licences, we are able to welcome new operators to the market.

It appears that this new legislation places the Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communications Services firmly in the hands of the executive branch of government. Is there not a risk that “public” will turn into “governmental” and that citizens will be thrown out of the frying pan of total media dominance of the private sector and advertising into the fire of the current government? This question comes from an Italian perspective, where the private media monopoly has doubled in size since the single private monopoly seized control of online public space.

[…] Law #26522 states that the Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communications Services be governed by a board consisting of a president and six directors. Only the president and one of these directors is selected by the Government. Alongside this, a bicameral is formed (made up of 8 deputies and 8 senators) which, among its other tasks, chooses 3 directors: one from the party with a parliamentary majority or the opposition party, one from the next largest party and a third from the third largest party. The other two directors are elected by the Federal Council for Audiovisual Communications Services, with the proviso that one of these must be a representative from the academic world.

Furthermore, the composition of this board will remain independent from the presidential elections, as it was formed two years after this term of office began and will remain in place for four years. There is also a further series of checks in place. In particular, the aforementioned Federal Council, whose members include representatives from the provinces as well as the autonomous city of Buenos Aires, the world of business, charitable organisations, trade unions, universities and, finally, indigenous peoples. […]

There is a close relationship between democracy in means of communication and information and democracy itself, in the sense that the latter cannot exist without the former. How does the new legislation deal with this problem?

This struggle […] began 26 years ago, at the moment when our country rejected the dictatorship in 1983. Our view is that full democracy is impossible without a fully democratic communications network, especially without democratisation of electronic means of communication, which today are used by the majority of the population. In today’s society, the media occupies a prominent position in the public’s interests and in the development of individual and social opinions. Without pluralism and diversity in these areas we are condemned to listen to a single voice, multiplied into infinity, across all media platforms and formats. We believe that fairer access to free speech is intrinsically linked to the construction of a model for a country that is fairer and better united. […]

Public opinion does not see the right to information as a basic human right. Do you think it is?

The idea of public opinion is a powerful construction that is widely used by the mass media. However, what we can see is a steady movement within which different areas are constantly realising the importance of information and are taking action to defend their right to it. It is no coincidence that among the voices that have been raised in defence of the new legislation are those of organisations that defend human rights, such as CELS (the Centre for Legal and Social Studies) and the Nuns and Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Similarly, the support lent to the law by Frank La Rue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, is no accident.
Article 2 of Law #26522 states: “The activity involved in audiovisual communication services is considered to be a public service activity, whose fundamental nature is concerned with the socio-cultural development of the population, through which are realised the inalienable human rights to expression and to receive, broadcast and seek out information, ideas and opinions.”
This law was created in absolute harmony with international standards on human rights and with the aim of overcoming the existing limitations on the right to information which are a result of the concentrated structure of today’s media systems and the inadequacy of the limits on state controls. Under the system that we have just left behind us, opinions from different parts of society could not be freely shared and, at the same time, the rest of the population were unable to access information provided by minority groups.
This law is founded according to the principles of freedom of expression and based on international tools for human rights. It makes explicit reference to the declarations on freedom of expression made by the UN and the Organization of American States.
With this in mind, and in response to the claims made by the groups defending the interests of concentrated media, who believe that the best way to protect freedom of expression is to not regulate the sector because regulating material is the same as “gagging the media”, we can point out that according to the international law on human rights, the right to freedom of expression is not absolute and allows for restrictions and regulations. Further to this, the Corte Interamericana for Human Rights states that “the activities of the communications industry are not just capable of being, but should be regulated by the State. This regulation should, obviously, be uniform and protected by the standards of the right to freedom of expression.”

Why did you include a clause in the law in defence of national production? Was it necessary?

Yes, absolutely. Means of communication should be conceived as complete organisations that provide a product with both material and symbolic value. And, at the same time, that act on a political and economic stage. Because of this, audiovisual production, in its symbolic sense, is directly linked to the cultural make-up of a people. It is the responsibility of the State to promote the production and broadcasting of its own culture. This is in line with UNESCO’s convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expression (2005). […]

In modern society, television is not just the most powerful of all the means of communication, but is also the most powerful tool for education (or diseducation) of the people. One thing is for sure: TV matters more than education in schools and even, in many cases, education in the home. Does this new law include the necessary antidotes to degeneration of advertising and cultural barbarism? […]

In principle, the law makes no requirements for quality. “Trashy TV” will still exist. The law does however make room for new service providers who may interpret communication and entertainment in a different way while, at the same time, strengthening public means of communication. On the other hand, a Council for Audiovisual Communication for Children has just been set up, whose functions will include the creation of proposals for improving the quality of programming aimed at toddlers, children and teenagers. This is a State-led initiative.
At the same time, all content, both advertising and programming, will be subject to certain requirements of the new law, namely that they cannot contain material that incites discrimination on the grounds of race, skin colour, sex, language, religion, political views, social background and anything that attacks the dignity of humans, the environment, health or children’s well-being. […] Quality is an objective that cannot be imposed by law, but it can create an environment to promote and stimulate it.

This struggle about the media and within the media has pushed Christina Kirchner’s Argentina into the public eye. Is it more advanced than Chavez’s Venezuela? More backwards? Or on a different scale?

The team of experts who prepared law #26522 made use of comparable legislation and this is clear upon examination of the text. Elements of the law from the United States, Canada and some EU countries were used, as were some from the Republic of Venezuela. These could give the impression that we are following Venezuela in moving against potential liberal-conservatism in the media.
And yet, as the UN envoy for freedom of expression revealed, these new regulations put Argentina in the vanguard of this process. And similarly, you could say that by reserving 33% of radio and television broadcasting space for the not-for-profit sector, my country has positioned itself as a guide for viewing communications as a social benefit and the right to information as a basic human right. On this note, it is interesting to recall the words of the director of the Pan-Latin-American satellite television station TeleSUR, Andres Izarra, in an interview published in the left-wing newspaper Pagina 12 on 12th November: “legislation in Argentina is more advanced than that of Venezuela: a third of the broadcasting space in the former country has been reserved for community organisations and NGOs. This means that the law allows communication space for alternative media. I think this is a very positive move by Argentina, because it means the country is changing with the times. Communication space is no longer reserved for oligarchs or private corporations, it is becoming democratized. This is a point our two processes have in common. New players are emerging that would never have even considered entering the world of communications before.” […]

Juan Gabriel Mariotto (Lomas de Zamora, Province of Buenos Aires, 1964) is an Argentinean university lecturer and politician, and currently chairs the Comité Federal de Radiodifusión (COMFER).

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On June 16, 1985 the Stava Onlus 1985 received the Alexander Langer Award.
The prize, financially supported by the Ethic Bank (Banca Etica), aims to promote the associations which work in the context of the Sustainable Development , civil rights and the ecological conversion of economy and work.

The Stava 1985 Foundation was born after one of the worst tragedies in the history of the Region of Trentino.
At 12:22 on the July 19, 1985, around 170 cubic metres of mud spread out by the mineral plant of Prestavel, sweep away an entire village, and 268 people with it.
The land was obviously unfit for the structure, ma the two major societies who had the power on the plant, such as Montedison and Eni, did not want to spend funds for the transports towards a safer area.
From that moment, the 172 civil parts, who received 500 millions of Lire after the trial, decided to use the funds to create an association with the aim to keep alive the memory of the tragedy.

Moreover, the objectives of the Foundation are: to reinforce the culture of the prevention and the correct use of the territory, the promotion of a documentation centre, to create a natural-historical path called “La Montagna delle scoperte” (“The Discovery Mountain”), and to create a Master Programme in “Analysis and management of the geotechnical systems” in cooperation with the Universities of Trento, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Torino.

The President of the Foundation Graziano Lucchi, explained how it is “essential to increase the attention level towards this kind of catastrophe” and also added: “Accidents like the one of Val di Stresa keep happening in the world twice a year“.
Unfortunately these tragedies comes from economical criteria, and the risks for the environment and the local populations are very high.

For this reason is required to not forget the words of our tenth President of the Italian Republic:

“Unfortunately the unavoidable can happen sometimes. But this is not the case.
These tragedies have to be avoided: we should not have created the conditions to let it happen”.

(Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, 1999)

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Nowadays seems to be fair enough that words such as freedom, democracy, development, have become bare containers full of rhetoric with no meaning.
Too often we hear examples of good or bad governance based more on economical concepts instead of human rights.

Amartya Sen, Nobel Price for Economy 1998, in his book Development as Freedom underlined:

“Development means a process of expansion both in private and social sphere. Consequently, the fight of the development is to eliminate all the “unliberties”, such as fame, poverty, tyranny, intolerance, repression, illiteracy, lack of healthcare system and environment protection, freedom of speech and expressions, for both men and women, who have the opportunity to act and built the life they want”

His words seems to be a vade-mecum of the perfect democracy , which unfortunately has been put on a second level, compared with economical principles.
Reading about the economical growth of the Asian Tigers, we should ask ourselves if we really can talk about virtuous examples, or perhaps we should push our governments to guarantee at least about fundamental rights of their population, to really talk about concrete development.
In the case of India, the differences between wages or rights are always strong, despite the high development of the last 20 years.
Is that fair to define Tiger a country where the Caste System is still alive, even if with no legal value?
Or a country where large parts of the population do not have the chance of the healthcare system?

Around this topic, in June 2010, for a few days, some Medias reported a news around Bhopal, where in 1984 happened the largest industrial catastrophe of the history.

The tragedy took place in the night between 2/3 December 1984: from the multinational Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), spread out around 40ton of MIC(Methyl isocyanate), causing a sort of toxic geyser on the area.
This happened because the managers decided to cut the security system to save money.

The explosion provoked 754victims, but Amnesty International calculated nowadays more than 25000 deaths; in addiction to this, the still-alive contamination and the deformations of the entire population, and particularly of Bhopal new generations.

On June 7 2010, eight Indian managers of the UCIL have been condemned for the responsibility, together with the then-president Warren Anderson, 81, now in hiding.
There are in the areas severe diseases, such as eyes, lung, liver, back, gastrointestinal and genital, and nervous and immune system.
In addiction to this, there are plenty of cases of exhaustion and depression which can degenerate in coma or death.
Moreover, the problem of the environment is still huge: BBC Radio in 2004 asserted that the area is still full of toxic materials: just swimming in one of the several lakes for more than 10 minutes could provoke faintness.

USA defended the UCIL, saying that the factory did its very best to help the families of the victims: effectively, UCIL gave around 450 millions of Dollars to indemnify the victims, but actually none of them has been spent for the needs of the population, creating the worst case of corruption in the history of the country.
Just 50 million Dollars have been spent to built an hospital around 22 km far from the most affected area, but just few families have the opportunity to spend 300 Rupee to get there with a rickshaw.
Can we actually talk about freedom and development? Perhaps we should create new words, because clearly our words are neither sufficient, nor least of all faithful anymore.

Valeria Venturini.

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It is however the situation of Italy that is best known as being similar to that of Romania, namely a state of dependency towards political actors that no one even bothers to deny, given that everybody seems to be aware of its existence and (mal)functioning. It is, for example, common knowledge to which party each Romanian TV channel belongs and what side the information conveyed takes.
Unfortunately, this situation is never analyzed in its depth: there is currently no research on the impact of such influence on the quality, selection and type of information and opinions delivered by both written press and TV channels. Only by watching oneself can you interpret what are the implications of watching a certain news or talk show of a TV channel run by those “from Power” (as they say in Romanian) or by “the Opposition”, respectively.
This is why this common knowledge we all seem to share stays at the level of chit-chat (be it in a private or official sphere), except for a few good blogs that attract decent traffic on the Internet from the under-35 category. Therefore nothing is being done to deal with what definitely represents a major issue of democracy, media freedom.

Many people in Romania still enjoy the controversy over the way a female journalist (belonging, what a coincidence, to a TV channel run by “the Opposition”) was called by the Romanian President while trying to film him when shopping: “stinky Gypsy”. Some people say he was wrong, more that he was right (“The man has the right to his privacy”). Even more enjoy the appellation…Though this happened a few years ago and almost immediately afterwards the President said “sorry” for the words he used, this “small” incident remains the top of the iceberg of the relations between the media and the state institutions. Along with this incident goes the “I’ll personally take care of you!” threat of the Minister for Tourism to a “disobedient” journalist who dared to denounce the corruption in her ministry.

More recently, however, “the media problem” has gone beyond the level of the presidential right to privacy, reaching that of CSAT (The Supreme Council for the Defense of the Country). In its strategy for the year to come, the President, who is also president of the Council, has chosen to include, among terrorism and drug abuse, the media as dangers to the country’s security. Reporters without Borders said,
‘It is astounding that the government of country that is a European Union member can regard the media as a threat to national security. We thought this kind of language was nowadays used only by dictatorial regimes that exploit national security concerns to legalise censorship and justify jailing lots of journalists. The international importance of such views in a strategy report should not be minimised.’
The full reaction is available here.
A campaign has been launched by the Romanian NGO ActiveWatch .

A leader of the opposition, the social-democrat Mircea Geoana, defined the attitude of the President as a “personal vendetta” of someone who shares a vision on media power belonging to “the Cretaceous age of democracy”.
The inexistence of comparative studies concerning the way information is selected, created and presented by the different media trusts, as well as the recent use of the state institutions as tools for solving personal disputes, that should be considered quintessential for the Romanian case. This situation will continue as long as no one dares to take the first step of showing the damage created.

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On 8th July the European Parliament voted to approve a text on the formation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), a new civil service for the foreign affairs of the EU created by the Lisbon Treaty. A few days before the vote, European Alternatives talked with Franziska Brantner MEP, who participated in the negotiations on the text on behalf of the Green-EFA group in the European Parliament. We asked her what the priorities had been in the negotiations, and what progress had been made, as well as how to improve the democratic legitimacy of Europe’s external action, and the role of civil society.

European Alternatives: The European Parliament has been in negotiations with the council, commission, and Catherine Ashton about the new European External Action Service. What would you say were the priorities of the European Parliament in these negotiations? Now that an agreement has been reached on the outlines of the new EEAS, do you think the parliament was successful?

Franziska Brantner: It was important to include the EEAS in the ‘community method’.
What was most important to the parliament was to make sure that the new EEAS would not be outside community budget control. There should be as much financial accountability for the new EEAS as there is for the European Commission. The first proposal that was on the table, drawn up by Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, was not very clear about the right to discharge, and how to hold accountable the people making the decisions about how the money is spent.
The easiest way of ensuring the accountability would be to make it be part of the Commission, because then there would be the same means of control as for the Commission. Then we could keep the rules the same. We’ve got now a deal which enhances the draft in ensuring that the tax payers’ money is accountable.

Our other priority in terms of the community method was to make sure that current financial instruments (development and stability instruments, for example) remained under the control of the Commission. This was particularly important for the development community which wanted the EU’s action to remain strongly development focussed and that this should not be subordinated to other foreign policy objectives. On that we succeeded to some degree and with regards to development instruments the last word stays with the Commission, even though the programming is done partly in conjunction with the external action service. We didn’t manage to obtain the same with stability funds and other classical foreign policy instruments.

Another priority of the parliament was to insert some substantive issues into the negotiations, this was the main interest of my own group, the greens. Human rights, peace and crisis management … the Ashton first draft of a blueprint for EEAS didn’t mention ‘human rights’ at all. Now we have managed to get a human rights focal point in each delegation (in each embassy of the EU abroad) and a headquarters to ensure that human rights are a priority at the highest level of the EEAS. So on human rights we managed to achieve quite a lot.

We also wanted the Commission and Council structures for peace and reconciliation to be integrated in the new service. There we did not succeed because the nation states are really ring-fencing their Council structures and insisting that they work under their own procedures.
Some member states wanted to keep their own structures independent within the EEAS, and subordinate the Commission to them. This is the worst possible scenario – member states keeping their own structures and subordinating Commission resources and staff. We managed to keep them at level footing, even though they are separate. Regrettably, we didn’t manage to integrate them in a smart way. There we lost out against member state pressure.

In the first draft there was an all powerful secretary general who had the financial rights, the programming, the representation rights … this person would have been more powerful than Ashton, everything would have gone through him. This was unacceptable to the parliament. If you had asked me which job I would have preferred, Ashton’s or the secretary general’s, I would always have chosen the secretary general : he had all the financial control, all the programming, also the representation and he was the bottle-neck through which everything had to go. There is now a financial director responsible for finances, and two deputies responsible for coordinating the team. So there as well the parliament was successful.

Where we lost out is on the question of who comes to represent Ashton when she cannot come to parliament, which she won’t be able to do all the time. Unfortunately the deal is that it will be the Commissioner when it concerns Commission affairs, and the rotating presidency comes when it concerns Council affairs. This is really a shame because it brings back in the rotating presidency, back into foreign affairs, whereas in the Lisbon treaty we thought we had got rid of it.
This was a way for national foreign ministers to keep their foot in the door of the EU’s external policy.

All in all I would say that we won some important battles and we lost on some points, and we’ve managed to open plenty of useful doors.

EA: I want to ask about the priority of development in the EU’s external action. Several months ago Judith Sargentini wrote an article for our website about article 208 of the Lisbon Treaty, which says that eradicating poverty should be the major goal of the EU’s development policy. Do you think this goal has been respected in the agreement over the EEAS?

FB: As a result of the negotiations, development policy of the EU remains under the responsibility of the development Commissioner. This means it should not be subordinated to other priorities, but should remain a major focus. We even managed to get a mention of article 208 in the text.

But I should point out we don’t only do foreign policy to eradicate poverty: we also do it to promote human rights and democracy, we do it to promote peace. These are the three big areas we do foreign policy for. It was important to ensure that eradicating poverty was not subordinated to national concerns, and the best way to do it was to ensure it was under the responsibility of the development commissioner. But it was equally important to insist on the other two areas, and as I have already said, we won on human rights in getting a focal point on this in each delegation, and there is more work to do on the peace and stability objectives of EU external action.

EA: As a representative in the European Parliament, how do you think the democratic legitimacy of EU’s external action can be improved?

FB: The Lisbon Treaty didn’t change the decision making of the European Union on foreign policy. It did in other areas, such as the agriculture budget, but foreign policy clearly remains an intergovernmental affair.

The parliament really needs to have more of a role in discussing European foreign policy. Have you ever heard anyone discuss the success or failure of our missions in Congo? no. Who was responsible for the debate about that? no-one. It doesn’t happen in the national parliaments … it happens in the European parliament but nobody cares about that. This is an area where the parliament needs much more power. Once the European parliament has a role in discussing the policies afterwards, perhaps soon it will have a right to discuss policy decisions beforehand.
But what I think is perhaps even more important is to give up unanimity amongst the member states in the area of foreign policy.

EA: What do you think the role of civil society should be in the EU’s external action, and does the creation of the EEAS give more opportunities to civil society to participate in the making of EU foreign policy?

FB: I think that is one of the major concerns along with transparency and accountability.
It is especially an issue when entering into relations with non-democratic countries, because the only source of information is the government themselves, and civil society in these countries cannot take part in the negotiations. Take the example of Zimbabwe: good luck to civil society which wants to have an influence on the negotiating position of that country!

We tried to get civil society focal points in each of the delegations: there should be someone responsible in the delegations for communication with civil society. This was one of the major priorities of the Green group in the European parliament. Unfortunately it didn’t get through.

Under the new rules established by the Lisbon Treaty, the parliament will now have to approve international treaties entered into by the EU. That is a battle which is going at the moment between the Parliament and the Commission. When does the Commission have to tell the parliament the details of the Treaties so that the parliament can discuss them? If they tell us only at the end of the negotiations, it is too late to have any influence. Take the example of Libya, where what I’ve heard is that we’re doing some pretty dirty deals so that we can get rid of our refugees. The Commission has taken the ridiculous position that it will not tell us the legal basis of negotiations with Libya until the end of the process – this means they are only going to tell us afterwards that we had a right to be involved since the start.

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