I felt that question needed a reminder that it was Commission President at issue, not the vaguely-understood Lisbon new Council President.

Well, what would you suggest? Leave the uninformed voters out? That was one of the two main theoretical reasons why vote was related to a minimal income in the 19th Century (considering that in general property=education, on the one side, and that it you don´t have property shouldn´t be deciding on othr people's property, on the other).

I´m exagerating, I know you don´t mean that, but...

I mean, let´s be fair, European Union has a very deep citizenship problem, with most of the Europeans uninformed AND uninterested. Democratization of institutions must be done taking into account this situation, that in fact helps options 1) based in demagogic discourses easy to understand and feel; 2) with very good marketing campaign; and 3) based in national -NOT European- issues [Spain example, agree or not with Zapatero anticrisis plan]

What EU can do is:

1. Try to be democratic but, wit resoect of the development of European political culture, not expecting too much in few time.
   
2. Promote European political culture. HOWEVER: EU political system (if you can consider it so, I still don´t) is being built in a sociopolitical context of general desinterest about politics. Don´t expect citizens that don´t believe in "sound", "long-lasting" political systems to be emotionally and even rationally involved in a political system (the European) that copy liberal democracy schemes, just in a bigger scope and with more complicated procedures. EU system isn´t nowadays something in which development you can see the way out of the crisis of liberal democracy.

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)

Well, transport of animals across borders is kind of a wooly issue. In Denmark, you can barely go two hundred km without hitting a border, after all, while in Germany or France, you can go a thousand km or more and never see one.

A cap on the duration of transport of live animals (and regulation of the ways they are transported) would make more sense.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

There's perfectly fine 3d representation software available that is not excessively expensive for institutional users. Not that that would have mattered very much in this case - when you toggled off all the categories that weren't hardcore econ/social policy (a nice feature, by the way), the compass still showed a right-of-centre party being about as far to the left as a centre-left party...

Of course, some of it is GIGO - the party programmes of Danish parties are usually bullshit that's there to look pretty, not to describe their realpolitik (I mean, SF still has "revolutionary change" in the programme, because you can't strip it out without offending some old, tottering Trot on the back benches...). And some of it is the fact that the Overton Window has shifted so hard to the right that anybody who isn't flying high as a kite on spiked KoolAid sounds like a commie to the interviewers. And some of it is the fact that hardcore econ/social policy made up such a small part of the survey that it can't be used for any worthwhile statistics.

What always bugs me in these surveys is that there's no way to specify deal breakers. Agreement with the statement that taxes should be lowered, even at the cost of social services is a deal breaker for me. Full stop. No need to go any further. You're not in the running anymore. Still, it was an interesting exercise, and I was rather surprised by the positions of a couple of the parties...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.