Margot Wallström's "Plan D" for the EU Commission

Claude de Bigny, the blog's irrepressible historical correspondent, has been mixing it over at Margot Wallström's blog (Margot Wallstrom, a Swedish politician whom many suspect of wishing to leave Brussels to return to Stockholm, is the EU Communications Commissioner).

Today Margot writes about the long comment threads which are such an attractive feature of her blog, as they are written by a cross-section of people, most, if not all, confirmed Eurosceptics. Amongst them is a fair smattering of Little Englanders who continuously berate Margot for being, as they say, a moron, an evil, unelected bureaucrat with sinister power over every little aspect of their lives.. Margot today refers to a question which Claude de Bigny has been posing of late - whether her much-vaunted "Plan D" for democracy and so on, is a genuine listening exercise, or merely a "closed" PR exercise.

Some of the Eurosceptics, notably Dr Richard North, are refusing to join in the debate about the future of the EU because they say the EU is not democratic and must, therefore, "be destroyed". This stance upsets Claude as it seems to leave no other option but armed insurrection, a kind of wilful intemperacy which is not at all to de Bigny's fastidious taste.

Margot comments on Claude's question as follows:

" The exchange I found the most interesting recently is between Claude and some others. He says that perhaps some ‘eurosceptics‘ (still don‘t like that term) prefer to stay out of the mainstream and continue to sneer from the sideline in a superior way. I could say today is Wednesday and some people would say that was the fault of the EU and that I am an unelected bureaucrat.

"Claude asks if it is naïve to take me at my word about Plan D. Might Plan D cause a radically different model for the EU to emerge? I don‘t know Claude, but my intention is certainly that this listening to what citizens have to say should be real and should be a serious exercise, with a follow-up. It can not be just “bla bla”."

The challenge is now for the Eurosceptics to show that they are not Euronihilists. The challenge for Margot Wallström is to deliver a debate that is as open and radical in its terms of reference as she implies she is up for.

EUROPA - Margot Wallstr?m, Vice-President of the European Commission: my blog