with respect on the European Referendum Campaign

1) Direct Democracy (DD) is part of Representative Democracy. It extends voting rights to include the possibility of voting on substantive issues. As every democracy is imperfect but every imperfect democracy can be made somewhat more perfect, DD is a little bit less imperfect than a indirect (pure representative) democracy.

2) Direct Democracy is a big bundle of rights, procedures and processes. In the heart of the system there is a mandatory constitutional referendum. If governments and parliaments want to change the constitution they have to secure the agreement of the citizens. And the citizens themselves can also influence the process of constitutional change by means of the constitutional initiative. Further there is the legislative referendum which makes it possible to hold a vote at any time on any law if the proposal is supported by a certain part of the electorate. Other instruments are the lawmaking initiative and the constructive referendum, by which laws not only can be rejected but amended.

3) Direct Democracy has potentials to ennoble political culture and integrate multicultural societies and polities better than indirect democracy only. Firstly DD makes politics more communicative: those in power have to justify their exercise of power more often, in greater detail and more convincingly and they, too, have to repeatedly win majorities (in referendums). Those in opposition are forced to be more precise in formulating their challenges and exposing them to public debate: on the other hand, it is easier for them to win or build up new majorities. Secondly change has to be understood as a collective learning process. Everyone is potentially an agent of change and a part of the learning process. Thus although changes may sometimes take longer to effect, they are more deeply rooted in the population (and enjoy greater political legitimacy) and therefore tend to last longer. And thirdly DD offers society a particular and stronger integrating force.

4) Direct Democracy can give the European Union precisely what it most needs for it's reinforcement and consolidation. The main defects of the EU today are: elitist, technocratic, distant, lacking transparency, unaccountable, cut off from ordinary citizen. The main benefits of DD are: better communication, substantive debate, legitimacy, reduction in the distance between politics, politicians and citizens, the integration of minorities and of diversity, identification and a more thoughtful general public.

5) The European Union needs more democracy and democracy needs more Europe, as democracy cannot be defended against the power of a globalised market by nation states alone: what is required is a transnational constitution. This does not automatically lead to a European (super)state but is capable to give European politics a high degree of legitimacy and helping it to be more effective where it needs to be most effective: economic and social policies, foreign and security policies, environmental and transport policies.

6) Simple reason now demands that any proposed European constitution must be put to a first Europe-wide referendum, in order to be accepted or rejected by the citizens of Europe. Elements of citizen initiated referenda in the EU has been discussed as early as the deliberations preceding the Amsterdam Treaty, the then foreign ministers of both Austria (Schüssel) and Italy (Dini) put on the table the preliminary draft of a "European people's initiative": a minimum of 10% of the electorate from at least three member states could propose new legislation to the European Parliament. This idea of a popular initiative has recently been taken up again by the Petitions Committee of the Parliament: as a first step it is planned to extend the current non-binding petition into a 'people's motion' which would oblige the Parliament to hold a debate on the issue.

7) Elements of DD should be written into the future transnational constitution. As a first step the should be three such elements: the obligatory constitutional referendum, the citizens' submission right towards the European Parliament and the constitutional initiative. The introduction of such instrument must however be treated with great care. There should not be to high hurdles to launch a constitutional initiative, we need generous time allowances, adequate financing, the development of constructive links with the European and national parliaments, NGOs and other European institutions.