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The European Crossroads of 15 million European
Students
EU-StudentVote — Online Elections of the
First " European Student Council "
EUSV, the first online European elections,
will give to the millions of EU students the occasion of voting
for the first " European Student Council " from
4 to 8 March 2002.
This pioneer initiative will provide help
to the development of both e-democracy and euro-democracy.
Eu-StudentVote finally gives to the
15 million EU students the possibility of being represented directly
at a European level, of identifying their representatives and
the nature of their defended European policies on matter of higher
education.
 The
European integration project and the democratic principle are
not naturally linked. It’s been only several years ago, particularly
with the increasing impact of the European integration in the
daily life as well as with the arrival of the Euro and the serial
crises effect ( the fraud caused Commission’ resignation,
the Mad Cow and Aphtous Fever crises, the treaties adoption process
appearing less and less satisfactory as regards the democratic
standards…), that peoples/citizens’ aspiration to participate
to the EU and its future’s co-management is starting to develop.
Today, phrases like " democratic deficit ",
" European public space ", " European
civil society ", " euro-citizenship "
recover one and the same reality : the EU’s Trans-European
level is a non-democratic space and the increasing European integration
is about to situate on a clash path the pro- European beliefs
and the EU citizens’ democratic principles.
Besides, in this respect, the Trans-European
civil society is cruelly lacking staff capable of working at a
European level ( this refers to France even more then to other
states ) of building/developping/animating Trans-European networks.
Thanks to the EU-Studentvote (by exploring
the potentialities of the Internet to democratize the EU) we hope
to get to stimulate a wide spread processs, in the student environment
and beyond it, allowing the upcoming generation of new actors
of the Trans-European political life and of the new EU democratization
methods.
There is a real generational fracture which increases
very quickly. On the one hand : the huge weighing generation
of the " baby-boomers " who have been controlling
all the leading levers for almost 15 years (politics, media, culture,
companies, social level) and, on the other hand, the below 40
and the bellow 30 who have got access to nothing with a minimum
of command, if not the Internet.
Without providing it with bigger virtues than
a simple instrument can have, the Internet constitutes today’s
only available tool allowing the quick emergence of a Trans-European
civil society and new approaches as regards the European construction
and its democratization.
Thanks to the EU-StudentVote, the Internet
represents for the students the unique opportunity to express
themselves at a huge level, to invent new solidarities, to invent
the future, … and to test out tomorrow’s political techniques
… as candidates or citizens.
In a democratic world, the civil society has
no meaning unless it is the compost of the political debate, the
origin of ideas and men/women. Each political debate is meaningless
if it is not approved by elections.
If you believe that European construction and
democracy should imperatively go together, if you realize that
the young generations’ ideas are totally absent during nowadays
political or social debates, then show your interest in the EU-StudentVote.
As students, it is your honour and responsibility to open this
door to the democracy’s future in Europe !
Franck Biancheri
President
EU-StudentVote
E-mail : contact@eu-studentvote.org
Site web: http://www.eu-studentvote.org
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