An EU MEP was robbed in the European district in Brussels. This is terrible and unacceptable. Still, the double standards that are being applied in order to prioritize certain problems und the alleged solutions to them are questionable. In the socially disadvantaged districts of the city people are confronted with such crime on daily basis. Yet, the robbery of an MEP immediately becomes a discussion subject at the EU Parliament plenum. And even more than that.
The President of the EU Parliament personally met Freddy Thielemans, the mayor of Brussels. The issue was discussed with the Belgian prime-minister Herman Van Rompuy. Can every citizen confronted with a similar situation expect the same kind of attention that the President of the Parliament provides his colleagues with?
A “kind of security ring around the Parliament” should be created as a solution. One inevitably recalls the EU-summits during which the representatives of people are being protected from people. Sarah Ledford, a liberal EU MEP from England condemned this intention as “anti-democratic”. At first they create “a desert around the Parliament buildings instead of a lively residential, shopping and entertainment area” and then they “create a security ring to shut people out”, criticizes the British MEP. One can only join her in this case. Socially minded politics looks certainly different.
