Attendance was high, the microphones worked and the bar was open afterwards. That was all good. The debate, alas, was not. In fact, to call the stilted, off-topic, everything-but-policy exchange between Libertas founder Declan Ganley and Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit in Brussels yesterday evening a debate would be generous.
Ganley insisted on answering virtually every question – what ever it was – with a populist let-the-people decide tinge while Cohn-Bendit struggled to get his point across and through facial contortions and exasperated sighs (though I did have sympathy at times) looked more patronising than wise.
Cohn-Bendit started with the personal attacks by questioning Ganley’s links with US military giving the Irishman the opportunity to read a not very edifying passage from Cohn-Bendit’s book (Le grand bazar). If Cohn-Bendit had stuck to political issues, I feel he could have skewered Ganley on substance (or lack of).
As it was, I think I can say that most of the audience, apart from the Libertas clutch at the back, left after the two-hour debate absolutely none the wiser about Ganley’s or Libertas’ policies. This was partly due to poor moderation on the chairman’s part (Paul Adamson from the Centre thinktank) but also, it seemed, a deliberate tactic by Ganley to not commit himself to anything at all.
Still, I am pleased there was a debate at all. For such a political city, Brussels has remarkable few head-to-head sparrings between politicians – the European Parliament offering only choreographed for-the-record comments from a pre-defined list of speakers.
I hope it will herald more. I think each political party should put forward a candidate for European Commission president and they should meet in this format to debate one another. Such debates might give people a sense for what they are voting for when it comes to the European elections. 2014 perhaps?
Tags: Cohn-Bendit, Ganley
#1 by Andy K on May 8th, 2009 - 6:06 pm
It is a shame but I’ve yet to find a country where there was any great interest in talking about the EU.
If someone else has had a different experience please let me know.