towards a better Europe Power to the people A soon-to-be-published report1 recommends that the monopoly of legislative initiation of the European Commission should be terminated. This is because of such fundamentals as their poor track record of participation, the bad 'delivery" and arbitrary enforcement of European law in jury-starved courts and recent revelations of their failure to report serious human rights abuse in Central Europe before votes on accession took place in the EU Parliament and Council. The report recommends that anyone in Europe should be able to propose legislation. This problem of transparency and participation is not just a European Commission issue. Many national political systems in Europe are characterised by elitist and non-participatory legslative systems. Where one combines the national and EU levels one ends up with a suffocating lack of public expression. CybaCity CybaCity is a European political information (PI) organization which is establishing an Internet-based community participation system. CybaCity permits the community conscience to come to bear on decisions through an open exchange of opinions, comments, analyses, articulation of propositions and allowing votes to take place on anything of concern. On this site (European Options) we will be reporting on CybaCity output on "Europe" and "European'" issues 2. There will be three sections to CybaCity, each supporting an activity to strengthen the free flow of information between citizens: Pamphlets Forums Legislative Initiation Documents & Voting Terminals Pamphlets "Pamphleteering" is an ancient and time honoured tradition whereby citizens wrote, printed and disseminated, often illegally, their concerns to a wider audience in a convenient and concise way. Others read, reflected upon them, passed them on or binned them. Pamphlets normally relate to issues of concern, sometimes about things the general population are not aware. Most pamphlets propose action to change things, in the opinion of the writer, for the better. The CybaCity pamphlets section will enable Europeans to prepare and disseminate their pamphlets to all of Europe and worldwide. Because they are short, they can be fun to read, after work on the commute home, with a study group or as a "conversation" piece at a gathering. The "technology" for this is being set up at Cybacity. Forums These are email lists which will come on stream in mid-May 2003. To make these worthwhile, they will often address the contents of a pamphlet already posted by a concerned citizen at CybaCity. The role of the forum is to try and help set the pamphlet in a broader perspective (if appropiate), assess its worth and suggest appropriate changes to make worth voting on, in the form of a Legislative Initiation Document (LID). Legislative Initiation Documents A Legislative Initiation Document is a converted pamphlet which takes on the form of a proposal for European legislation upon which the people of Europe can vote. LIDs will be posted at the CybaCity site in the voting section (see below). Persons wishing to follow the paper trail giving rise to the LID (forum deliberatiosn and original pamphlet can do so). Voting Terminals Voting terminals are Internet-based voting "booths" 3 where you can vote on a specific LID or other issues. The contents of pamphlets, proposals from European individuals can be the subject of a European vote. CybaCity voting systems permit people, who think the question and voting options inappropriate, biased or having missed the point, to register this. CybaCity have said that any complaints which are concise, logical and fair will be posted for all to see. To visit the European Options European section of CybaCity, click on the image below. Please remain aware that this is being set up now and that information content is provided directly by CybaCity. "We are all in this together son!" Harry Tuttle 1  "An Alternative European Constitution: Project Europe, Brussels, 30th May, 2003 2  Specific parallel agreements have been set up to cover the London constituencies and Ireland and the UK. These are run by CybaCity with London Browsa and CybaCity with Real News respectively. 3  Unlike some other terminals, CybaCity voting terminals have no "hanging-chads" nor "dimples".