The European Commission launched “Debate Europe” yesterday – an online discussion forum on the future of Europe in 20 languages. The forum is part of the European government’s call for a “period of reflection” following the rejection of the proposed Constitutional Treaty by voters in France and the Netherlands. It is open to all citizens, and feedback will be incorporated into a Commission report.

The forum has been broken down into three broad themes (for now):

Europe’s economic and social development

Feeling towards Europe and the European Union’s tasks

Europe’s borders and its role in the world

The forum is quite easy to use – if you want to comment, you click on “add a comment”. You must enter a name, though some have used nom-de-plumes like Peter Pan (my apologies, Peter, if that is your given name). There is the option of filling out other personal data including gender, age bracket, city and country of origin, and profession, which is published with the comment. Beware – if you decide to include your email address it means that anyone who reads your comment can email you directly.

Response in just one day is off to a strong start – 743 comments in 16 languages. The Dutch and French have especially taken to sharing their views – if only I, as an English speaker, could read them.

That is the one thing that seems counter-productive about the forum – you can only debate with those people who share the same language. It’s great that the EC has a multilingual team to read all these comments for the final report. But for the rest of us, our only option is laboriously putting comments into Babblefish.

Disucssion participants have already brought this issue to the moderators.
“The Moderator” posted a response:
Q: Will we tell you what is going on in other language channels?
A: If possible, yes. It is impossible to translate it all though. We will try to give you an idea every now and then what other people are discussing.

After a quick read through of the English forum, the comments seem intelligent and thoughtful. I’ve gathered a sampling of excerpts just to wet your appetite…

K Pharck (Poland) wrote:

I have not yet found any place on the Internet to educate me on the basics, such as the language of debate. Not only “EU for Dummies” style, but also advanced, up to the bureaucratic lingo level. Is anyone at compulsory education level ready to participate? Where are the citizen education programs?

Dr M Rogers (Newport, UK) wrote about research and development:

Peoples may struggle, nations may go to war, but researchers have crossed frontiers and worked to gether in the interests of all humanity since the dawn of the Renaissance (Hello Mr. Erasmus, so do you have a visa to lecture in Belgium? NO, well, sorry… the EU open market and free flow of goods and services hasn’t QUITE got to you yet….) SO please let the EU get on with this side of life….
PS. I hear Irish will become a language of the EU - anyone ever asked about Welsh or did Mr Kinnock not have the time to promote his home country?

Paul Vanhecke (Austria) wrote:

I never understood why one should negociate to join. Just accept and fulfil the rules and then you can join. Now it looks more as a big turkish bazar with each country having its own exceptions. Sorry but I was a big favourite and defender of Europe. Now I became very pessimistic, especially when realising what kind of amateurs we have in Brussels.

Christian Treczoks (Germany) responded to the EC’s query:

The EU has brought many benefits such as the single market, consumer protection, food safety, etc. Should the EU continue to develop, for example, an area of justice, freedom and security?

He addresses each part in turn, but my personal favourite was:

“Food Safety: For years now, the EU has successfully protected us from too straight bananas.”