If a visitor to Greece believed everything they heard recently on TV and in the coffee shops, they would have fallen from the clouds today. Because—amazingly—the citizens of Greece aren’t voting to bring down the government or raise up the opposition!
No, we will have the self-same government and opposition tomorrow.
Nor are they are being called upon to vote on how Kasselakis declares his income or on the “Mitsotakis regime”. Or on state responses to the disasters at Tempe or Mati. They aren’t voting for the justice they like or against the justice they dislike.
They won’t be deciding whether PASOK overtakes SYRIZA, or Velopoulos ups his percentage of the vote.
Their vote won’t resolve the problems in the Middle East or remove Russia from Ukraine or Israel from Gaza.
No, just like people in the rest of Europe, the citizens of Greece have been invited to choose their representatives in the European Parliament, in the hope that they will elect people worthy and capable of representing them.
Over its last five-year term, the European Parliament has too often descended into a burlesque of cheap party political opposition to national governments. But that’s not what it’s there for; that’s not its job.
And it would be a blessing if those who are elected decide to serve the national through the European, to exercise the responsibilities for which they are elected, and to respect their essence.
Because the European Parliament is not a student union where idlers make and remake the planet. Nor is it a bunch of overpaid narcissists.
But the EP can play a decisive role in a European Union that is struggling to regain its momentum and plan for its future role, to find itself in a turbulent and unstable world.
Obviously we don’t know what the results are going to be in the 27 Member States, nor how the seats will end up being divided between the groups in the new European Parliament. The pundits are predicting a rightwards turn. Let’s wait and see.
One thing that is certain, though, is that Europe has not got this far because everyone agrees on everything. No, it has made progress when everyone in Europe works toward and achieves agreement.
Because Europe is the amalgamation of all its peoples and social classes, all its ideologies and factions. And the process of reaching that agreement will begin tomorrow.
Not only because every election is a new start. But also because Europe, and us as Europeans, need to agree and press ahead.
Given that we have decided to live together, it would be an irony of History if we die apart.
