HET GESPREK - Interview Arno Uijlenhoet
Een Politiek Gesprek. Presentator Margriet van der Linden ontvangt Arno Uijlenhoet, van de nieuwe Europese partij Newropeans.
"Our main point as Newropeans: We want to give the Europeans, besides a national voice, also a European voice in the European parliament. If we really want to get grips on what is happening within the EU, we, as citizens of Europe must involve ourselves in the decisionmaking process. The only way to do that is to organize ourselves on a European level. I give you an example: Everybody is talking about the rediculous fact that the European Parliament is moving between Brussels and Strassbourg. It costs amounts of money and time. If you know that this situation is the result of a non-transparant cowtrade between our national elites, you understand that no national politician is able to change the situation. Not even our actual European Parliament members can do something about it, because they became their seat on a national ticket. Only with our European voice we can say: He, this is nonsense, this should be stopped".
"The same meganism is working when it comes to the negotiations about Turkey joining the EU. In the trade-off between memberstates one will see that a ’no’ by some memberstates can’t in the end be upheld, because in this negociating meganism it is in the end not done to veto the outcome. And this is unbelievable, because the majority of Europeans don’t want Turkey to be part of the EU. So here again, only with our common European voice we can stop this particular train to stop. And be clear, it is not that we don’t like the Turkish people, on the contrary. Our point as Newropeans is, that we want to bridge the gap between the citizens of the Europe of today and European politics. We are striving for a Europe which is recognisable by the people and where decisions have a true democratic legitimacy. Only when the EU has changed in that direction, Europe can back the interests of the peoples in the street. And only then Europe can play a credible and decisive rol in the changing world of today".
"Newropeans is a breakthrough-movement, a movement for new credible European politics".
"Newropeans is organised on European and local level. We experience more and more positive feedback by people and recognician by the media. And yes, we need to become more visible on the internet. This will be of major importance to us. We’ve understood that besides our content we should show the people that are involved and the actions interested people can take to back our movement".
Arno Uijenlenhoet