There has been a lot of discussion on how European integration shall be taken further, and discussions within the Pirate Parties have turned towards that direction as well. Due to the possible need of a new constitution for Germany in order to get the ESM approved this discussion has been, at least to from my biased German perspective, centered around Germany a bit. In svnee’s article on the issue one sentence stood out to me: 

It leaves us in a situation where we need to have a new vision for the European Union, a vision that was lacking the last decade, we need great thinkers that advance and advocate for a better integrated E.U. and we need citizens to voice their concerns.

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This post is about a week late, but I think it is still valid: In the discussion about the non-referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice by the European Parliament the European Commission called the Internet Community ‘not democratically legitimated’. Now this is an interesting thing to write by the European Commission.

Obviously, this is yet another attempt to discredit those criticizing ACTA, but it does take it to another level. While earlier criticism tried to portrait the demonstrators as badly informed, and their information outdated or simply wrong, now it seems that the European Commission wants to put our legitimacy in doubt. How dare people try to influence policy makers even though they have no political mandate! Well, while the internet community, if such a group exists and can be talked about, is not democratically elected, this sheds a light on how the Commission seems to think democracy is supposed to be working.

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