Enhance Promotion Announcements with Digital Signature Legitimateness in the European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature legitimateness for Promotion Announcement in European Union

[Music] hello and welcome to another tldr eu video last sunday marked europe day the anniversary of the schumann declaration where the french foreign minister robert schumann formally proposed the creation of the european coal and steel community the forerunner to today's european union sunday however also marked the start of a year-long conference the conference on the future of europe so in this video we'll take a look at the future of europe what the conference is what it seeks to achieve and why nearly man still might end in failure to celebrate europe day for the next week we're offering 20 off all of our european union pin badges these are our high quality enamel pin badges which feature our countries with shoes designs we have a pin for every single eu country and as i mentioned you can get 20 off by using code europe day the link to the store is in the description thanks for your support back on the 10th of march this year the three presidents president of the european union the portuguese prime minister on behalf of the portuguese presidency of the council and the european commission president signed the joint declaration on a conference on the future of europe the declaration set out this conference as a new space for debate with the citizens to address europe's challenges and priorities saying that european citizens from all walks of life and corners of the union will be able to participate we want citizens to join the conversation and have their say on the future of europe essentially then citizens from across the uk will be invited to spell out exactly what europe and the european union should address over the coming months and years with the conference consisting of four main components a multilingual digital platform where ideas can be discussed and submitted decentralized events european citizens panels as well as conference plenaries to bring together the debate this might seem like a somewhat inoffensive and good idea to involve citizens in the debate around europe's future but not everyone's on board andres baneth called for the conference to be cancelled outright arguing that the conference is a mistake and should be ended before it begins baneth has two issues with the conference that it will lack legitimacy and that will lead to an unwelcome wake up for europe when it comes to the former he's concerned that not enough europeans will take part in the conference in order to make its conclusions legitimate she points to the turnout of the european parliamentary elections which face three issues sheer turnout nationalism and protest votes the main issue here being turnout in 2009 and 2014 turnout at the european parliamentary elections was just shy of 43 each time increasing slightly so 50.66 in 2019 though that's still far far below national election turnout the picture actually gets worse when you drill down to the figures for each country in the 2019 european parliamentary elections turnout in belgium was 88 luxembourg 84 and denmark 66. compare that to portugal on 31 slovenia on 29 and slovakia 23. if the same massive discrepancy between countries is replicated in the conference there arises a potential that any findings will be skewed towards the interests of the likes of belgium and denmark while ignoring or at least not fully appreciating those of slovenia or slovakia that being said the eu commissioned and ran a barometer on the future of europe to gauge interest in a conference as well as broader sentiment to the eu's role challenges and priorities in the years ahead the findings of the special euro barometer seem to point strongly towards support for the conference with 55 percent of respondents totally agreeing with the statement the eu citizens voice should be taken into account for decisions related to the future of europe on the specific idea of the conference 76 agreed with the statement that the conference would represent significant progress for democracy within the eu the issue though is whether people will actually take part in a somewhat embarrassing turn of events portuguese people seem less than willing to take part at the precise time they hold the presidency of the council of the european union and launched the conference to much fanfare with only eight percent of portuguese people saying that they'd definitely be willing to take part leading many to worry that the conference won't produce anything of value when it comes to voter engagement when it comes to the unwelcome wake-up call we mentioned earlier officials and a significant proportion of european leaders wish to see a deeper ever closer union yet it's entirely possible that the european people will turn around and say that they don't wish to see an ever closer union in fact 12 eu member states including the likes of austria denmark ireland and the netherlands have already watered down expectations initially it was proposed that the conference could result in treaty changes essentially if the people wanted to back change in the eu then the conference could lead to further integration through treaty changes however these member states stated unequivocally that the conference should not create legal obligations nor should it duplicate or unduly interfere with the established legislative process in other words the conference shouldn't by itself lead to eu treaty changes something which is seemingly in direct contravention to the original proposer's wishes that proposer being emmanuel macron back in march 2019 macron proposed the conference and affirmed that it should be able to propose the necessary changes to our political project without any taboos not even treaty revision ursula vonderlion at least initially backed macron's position in the political guidelines vandalian made the conference a priority stating that she wanted europeans to build the future of our union and that they should play a leading and active part in setting our priorities and our level of ambition i'm ready to follow up on what is agreed including by legislative action if appropriate i am also open to treaty change the proposals for treaty change were subsequently watered down in the light of pressure from the council and countries such as the netherlands portugal and sweden who were all skeptical of treaty change in fact the revised council position from early february 2021 states that the conference does not fall within the scope of article 48 of the treaty of the european union the section of european treaties that deals with treaty change so those are the two major issues that the conference faces at this point it's possible that not many europeans will participate damaging legitimacy or at least skewing data as well as the concern that the conference doesn't have the power or the will to change anything however the fact the conference is even happening is almost impressive in itself because it seemed at one point the conference might just be a non-starter the initial proposal was planned for a single eminent european personality as its independent and single chair back in january 2020 the european parliament selected geva hofstadt to be the president of the conference and reaffirmed the selection again in september 2020. the issue being that many didn't believe that the hofstadt was the right person for the job due to his federalist views thus negating the independent aspect of the chair this immediately caused deadlock in the european union as to who would take over the chairmanship in order for the conference to proceed eventually it was agreed that an executive board consisting of the three presidents would take on the joint chairmanship but not before talks nearly collapsed in the last few weeks they may have ironed out some of the wrinkles chosen a group to hold the chairmanship and watered down some of the initial aims but the question still remains as to what the conference will actually achieve this seemingly slightly neutered version of the conference isn't quite what macron had in mind and with a limited number of europeans expected to take part the question is what will the conference actually achieve over the next 12 months and as things stand that's anyone's guess but what do you think is the conference for the future of europe a gimmick or will it truly invigorate europeans across the union to join together stronger than ever as always let us know your thoughts in the comments below be sure to subscribe the channel and hit the bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video special thanks to our patreon backers who make videos like this one possible and if you want to see your name at the end of videos then you too can back us on patreon the link to that is in the description