Tonight is again meeting of the beginselen commissie, and I have done some of my homework. Previous time we agreed in point out societal trends, or developments, that have changed our societies since 1991. One can imagine that it is relevant to paint a landscape of changes since the last beginselen that groenlinks wrote. So here my three relevant changes:
Environment went politics
When groenlinks was born as a party, the environmental concern was a public concern. The predictions of the club of Rome were rooted in the heads of many people, and the atomic issue was very much alive. Nevertheless there was no party whatsoever that included those issues in their political programs. We did. Now, almost twenty years later, every party has environmental points in their program. We are by far and large not unique. We might consider that our policies are better, and mostly they are. But the elector has to choose among many positions on environment. And ours do not seem to be very distinctive any more.
Politics are opener
If one has a bit of a weakness for old figures, one can imagine that the Gorbachov's glasnost was a success. Indeed, the way that political parties are open today to the scrutiny of the public was unpredictable back at the start of the nineties. That has not made political parties more interesting. I do not believe that more people is politically active (if anything, less), or that more people votes. But today citizens can get to know about the internal processes of political decision making far more than before. This trend is not to be diminished. One common insult to politicians today is to accuse them of back rooms politics, of making deals not communicated to the public opinion. More bloggers are online everyday, and even if only due to statistics, some of them end up commenting on politics. And more politicians become open(er) writing their own musings for the broad public.
Migrants are no longer welcome in the EU
Even if today the European Commission is about to release policies on migration that look very much like groenlinks visie text on migration, the fact is that at against the public eye, the migrant is a problem. That is a change from twenty years ago. And it is a concerning change (besides the bias produced by me being migrant). The fact is that the EU can not work without migrants. But the public does not want them. So politicians have here a very difficult contradiction to deal with. And of course, this development is related (but not caused) to the increased threat of terrorism.
