Voting Rights and Beyond…
59
their notorious quest to keep their seats. In cities, districts and regions with
large ratios of second-country nationals, candidates for the national parliaments are likely to be responsive. From running campaigns on electoral
rights, we know that politicians are most responsive and even get seduced to
go beyond their party lines. National parliamentarians may play also a crucial role in generating support for the ECI in the EU Council. However, their
influence on the government as well as the respective minister sent to the
council varies strongly. The way in which European parliamentarians could
act as multipliers to support the policy process depends on the role of the
European Parliament in areas where the council decides unanimously. Yet
the ECI narrative should include substantial arguments that would win them
over, too.
The above points are of course not all-encompassing. They are meant to
be a guide to the initiators and to complement the academic debate. We have
already taken steps to support the ECI by developing the online tool www.
vote-exchange.org, which allows for cross border debates on domestic policies among second-country nationals and their indirect participation in
national elections in their country of residence. A French citizen residing in
Germany votes for her or his German counterpart living in France, and vice
versa. It is a tool to trigger the public debate and more than a playground for
all who already want to live up to the goal of creating a European
people today.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium
or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes
were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and
your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
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