26. Voters without borders – Valerie Sternberg

The EU is an attempt to accomplish democracy at the European level, but there is a glass ceiling: The heads of government have the final say, not the elected representatives in the European Parliament. And when electing those representatives, it’s a national affair. It’s not even possible to run a Europe-wide campaign.

Enter Volt, the very first pan-European party, founded in 2017 to create politics for a federal Europe across European borders.

Its co-president Valerie Sternberg qualifies as a true pan-European, being a German who has studied in Italy and Great Britain and worked in Belgium.

”Deep inside I identify as a European and a Hessian, but to be honest, when I am abroad I say I am German, because for some reason this still seems to be the category we are interested in”, she says in this episode.

The Brexit result was a shock and an a-ha moment for Sternberg.

”I realized I had to do something. Brexit was the trigger for all of us who started Volt.”

She identifies as Brussels when she comments on Boris Johnson’s Brexit trick:

”We treated you with respect and tried to find an outcome that would be acceptable for both parties, and all of a sudden this agreement is not taken seriously. It’s a terrible signal about what treaties mean, and about all international law.”

”Brexit is also based on a flawed view on sovereignty. I don’t think Britain will regain their sovereignty as they perceive it and just advance their own goals.”

Volt tries to free itself from old ideologies, traditional party lines and ”the employee-employer divide we are still stuck in”, Sternberg says.

”Democracy lives out of compromise and consensus and finding a middle ground.”

Climate change and migration are the two over-arching challenges for Europe on the global scene. Internally, the institutions must be reformed and democratized, according to Volt and Valerie Sternberg:

”Why is the most powerful body in the EU the national heads of government when we have representatives directly elected by us in the European Parliament?”

Does she, then, believe in a future Europe without borders?

”National identity is still strong, so scrapping nations soon would feel artificial. But what could happen is an incremental change towards a European democracy, a European government combined with local government. Then, eventually, we would not need the nation states.”

Volt campaigned for the EP in eight different member states in the elections of 2019, and in one of them, Germany, the party managed to get its candidate Damian Boeselager into the parliament. It also has 30 representatives in national and regional assemblies.