ITALY: TFF promotes Direct Democracy

Visit the Telematics Freedom Foundation website here: http://www.telematicsfreedom.org/en - Editor


Italy: TFF promotes Direct Democracy

Sepp Hasslberger
11th November 2008
Source: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/italytff-promotes-direct-democracy/2008/11/11

The italian-based Telematics Freedom Foundation promotes a more direct and participatory idea of the democratic process.

Some of the immediate targets are

- user-controlled telematics services

- self-management of democratic organizations and

- national and constitutional legislative changes

to support the widespread introduction of software-based democratic interaction.

Direct Democracy or ‘Continuous Democracy’ is promoted through the development of tools (software, methodologies and infrastructure) that make it possible for citizens to continuously discuss and to directly express preferences on important political questions.

A first concrete step to promote this change “on the ground” is the Lista Partecipata per la Democrazia Diretta, an electoral list based in Rome.

Their software for consensus-building, which allows simple democratic discussions and provides easy decision-making procedures is called Rule2gether and it is available under a GPL public license.

A proposed hardware solution to the problem of allowing those who do not have routine internet access to participate is a TV set-top box running free open-source software that would make communications possible. It is called the Freedom Box or Z-Box.

ITALIA: No Dal Molin - Vicenza

NO DAL MOLIN ALLE COOP: NON COSTRUITE UNA BASE DA GUERRA

lunedì 27 Ottobre 2008 (01h03) :
Fonte: http://bellaciao.org/it/spip.php?article21631

La Coperativa Costruttori Cementisti e quella dei Muratori Cementisti hanno vinto l’appalto per costruire la base: 150 vicentini in delegazione alla Conferenza nazionale delle Coop per dire ai soci: state con noi. Il testo dell’appello in allegato all’articolo

Di Mariano Trevisan, Prc di Vicenza e movimento no dal Molin Dopo il successo della consultazione popolare, dove in una sola giornata ben 24.000 cittadini di Vicenza si sono espressi contro la costruzione della nuova base USA al Dal Molin, il movimento si rimette in marcia con tutta la forza che lo ha contraddistinto per più di due anni. Una serie di iniziative pressoché giornaliere che dureranno un mese e che avranno il loro apice con la programmazione di uno sciopero generale della città di Vicenza.

Come prima iniziativa il popolo delle “pignatte” oggi 25 ottobre è andato a fare “visita” alla Conferenza Nazionale delle Coop. tenutasi nella città di Parma, dove centinaia di soci coop provenienti da tutta Italia erano presenti. Tema del convegno “Rapporto fra struttura, etica e dimensione”, perché da tempo queste organizzazioni sono diventate sempre più industrie e sempre meno cooperative.

Molti si chiederanno quali sono le motivazioni che ci hanno spinti ad andare a questo congresso, lo scopo è presto detto: la Coperativa C.C.C. (Coperativa costruttori cementisti) e la C.M.C. (Coperativa muratori cementisti) sono le due ditte che hanno vinto l’appalto per costruire la nuova Base a Vicenza. Allora quale motivo migliore se non andare a Parma per cercare di toccare le corde sensibili dei soci Coop? Questi soci dovrebbero essere la parte più attenta alle tematiche di guerra e alle basi militari straniere.

Alle sei del mattino, una delegazione di 150 persone in rappresentanza dei 24.000 vicentini contrari alla base, con 3 pullman si sono recati al convegno suddetto, con bandiere, striscioni, volantini e video sull’area del Dal Molin. Abbiamo parlato con moltissimi soci Coop. che si sono mostrati attenti alle nostre proposte e moralmente scossi di come anche le Coop. quando si tratta di fare denari mettano in un angolo l’etica e i suoi sani principi.

Siamo riusciti a concordare che tutti i 150 componenti del No Dal Molin entrassero al convegno e che uno di noi leggesse un comunicato affinché i tanti soci facciano pressione sulla C.C.C e sulla C.M.C. Lo stesso comunicato lo abbiamo inoltrato al gruppo Consigliare Regionale del PRC dell’Emilia Romagna dove il nostro partito è in maggioranza affinché sia messo ai voti e, se approvato anche il Consiglio Regionale dichiari la propria contrarietà a questo appalto e alla costruzione della nuova base USA al Dal Molin.

Ai falsi profeti che vanno dicendo che la nostra è una battaglia fatta contro i mulini a vento voglio solamente ricordare che: i lavori della Base dovevano partire secondo il Commissario Governativo Paolo Costa nel settembre 2006, ad ottobre 2008 la Ederle 2 non è ancora partita e vi posso garantire che non molleremo un millimetro, a furia di paletti, manifestazioni, ricorsi, blocchi stradali e consultazioni, siamo riusciti, noi, piccola armata brancaleone ad ostacolare i progetti della più grande nazione del mondo; gli Stati Uniti d’America.

Vicenza, 25 Ottobre 2008

Di : Vicenza
lunedì 27 Ottobre 2008

ITALIA: Democrazia Diretta en Bolzano - Livro di Thomas Benedikter

Livro: Democrazia Diretta - di Thomas Benedikter

Thomas Benedikter democrazia diretta

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Religion Education jesus thomas

A Ferrara:

Notizia inserita il 6/11/2008

Presentazione del libro Thomas Benedikter

Pbc parla di democrazia diretta

Questa sera, alle ore 21, nella sala riunioni dell'associazione Per il Bene Comune, in piazzale Stazione 15, verrà presentato il libro “Democrazia diretta: più potere ai cittadini”, di Thomas Benedikter. Con l'autore parteciperanno Cinzia Bottene del comitato vicentino No Dal Molin; Giuseppe Carpentieri di Cittadinanza Attiva, Andrea Palamara di Per il Bene Comune.

“Durante la serata – spiega Monia Benini, presidente di Per il Bene Comune - tutti gli interventi saranno trasmessi in diretta via internet sul canale www.mogulus.com/perilbenecomune e i cittadini presenti in sala o collegati avranno la possibilità, anche attraverso la valutazione di esperienze internazionali, di discutere e confrontarsi sulla via d'uscita dalla limitazione della democrazia diretta e della partecipazione popolare a cui ci hanno portato gli attuali partiti italiani”.

ITALIA: No dal Molin - Chi ha Paura del Referendum Vicentino?

Chi ha paura del referendum vicentino?

Giulio Todescan
[18 Settembre 2008]

Mancano circa quindici giorni alla consultazione indetta dal comune di Vicenza sulla nuova base militare Usa [o meglio: sull’ipotesi che il comune si attivi per acquistare i terreni demaniali dell’aeroporto Dal Molin, dove la base stessa dovrebbe sorgere, destinandoli ad uso civile]. Ma tutto è ancora una volta appeso a un filo: questa volta ciò che potrebbe rimettere tutto in discussione è il ricorso portato presso il Tar di Venezia dal comitato per il Sì al Dal Molin, che contesta la validità della consultazione perché toccherebbe temi di politica internazionale al di fuori delle competenze comunali.

I giudici del tribunale amministrativo si sono riuniti ieri; per oggi era prevista la sentenza; ora fonti del comitato per il sì dicono che bisognerà aspettare fino a domani. Se il Tar desse ragione ai ricorrenti, potrebbe emettere un’ordinanza che sospende la validità della consultazione.

Impedendo così che per la prima volta, a cinque anni dai primi colloqui intergovernativi in cui si discusse della nuova installazione militare, siano finalmente i vicentini a dire la loro su un progetto imposto dall’alto.

Il clima intorno a questa consultazione «postale» [in pratica il comune spedirà a casa dei cittadini una lettera con il quesito, che poi si dovrà consegnare domenica 5 ottobre in appositi centri di raccolta] si sta facendo incandescente. E la posta in gioco è più che mai simbolica, politica. Di fronte a un forte no certificato con regolari schede e urne, il fronte che da due anni spinge per la costruzione di questa colata di cemento ad uso e consumo dell’esercito Usa troverebbe qualche difficoltà in più nel far passare l’inizio dei lavori.

Per questo, negli ultimi giorni, gli attacchi contro la consultazione continuano intensamente sulla stampa locale. Aveva iniziato due settimane fa il premier Silvio Berlusconi, scrivendo una lettera al sindaco Achille Variati in cui gli ordinava di abbandonare la strada referendaria.

Ieri, mercoledì 17 settembre, a parlare è il commissario straordinario per la costruzione della base, Paolo Costa. Un intervento che ha la leggerezza di un pugno sul muso: «Questo referendum è intrinsecamente antidemocratico perché teso a rendere inefficiente la nostra democrazia opponendosi alle istituzioni nazionali, le sole titolate a decidere in materia di politica estera e di difesa per conto dell’intera comunità – così sostiene Costa – Non è un problema di democrazia diretta o di democrazia rappresentativa, è che in materia di politica estera e di difesa il ‘potere del popolo’ si esercita solo attraverso il livello di governo nazionale. Per questo il referendum voluto dal sindaco Variati è un esercizio antidemocratico, poiché cerca di prevaricare l’interesse nazionale in nome di un interesse locale non costituzionalmente tutelato». Insomma, il commissario [europarlamentare del Pd ma dai modi «bipartisan»] recentemente riconfermato nel suo ruolo dal governo Berlusconi definisce «prevaricazione» l’ascolto dell’opinione dei vicentini.

La risposta del sindaco Variati non ha tardato ad arrivare: «Costa la smetta di dire stupidaggini – ha detto Variati – Non è vero che il Comune si sta occupando di affari di politica internazionale. Anche con questa consultazione ci occupiamo di questioni ed aree che riguardano il nostro territorio e agiamo all’interno delle competenze dell’ente locale». «Quanto poi all’affermazione di Costa che la consultazione sia antidemocratica, la ritengo una vera stupidaggine, perché il chiedere un parere ai cittadini è l’esatto contrario di un’azione antidemocratica – prosegue il sindaco – E poi non accetto lezioni di democrazia da chi ha dato, a suo tempo, consigli al governo su come soffocare il dissenso della comunità locale sulla nuova base».

Intanto, i primi camion hanno iniziato a portare via dal sito dell’aeroporto materiali edilizi: lavori propedeutici all’inizio del cantiere vero e proprio.

Participatory Democracy Spreads in Italy: The Case of Grottammare

Experiments in direct and participatory democracy in local governance have been proliferating across Italy for some time. The following article highlights the case of Grottamarre on the Adriatic coast. For more information see our previous post related to the institution of direct democracy in Tuscany, Italy in an effort coordinated with Poitou Charentes, France, and Catalonia, Spain (CLICK HERE). Also visit the Italy section of our links resource page (CLICK HERE)

Local Democracy Italian Style

Source: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article202.html

Hilary Wainwright savours the political and cultural dolce vita in the Adriatic town of Grottammare.

Casilda, an elderly but agile woman, accosts the former mayor in the medieval centre of the seaside Italian town of Grottammare. She shouts passionately after Massimo Rossi, a radical leftist elected for his full two terms with one of the biggest popular mandates in Italy. But she doesn’t want to complain about her house or her drains. She wants to make him stop and look at what has happened to the sculpture near her house.

Made three years ago by the Bolognese sculptor Marco Pellizzola, the sculpture is a cage, an elongated version of the bell-shaped devices used in medieval times to carry around pet falcons. The cage is empty. At night it is lit up. Clustered on top of it there used to be eight or so birds, which were seemingly free but uncertain where to go. "They face new choices," said Pellizzola by way of explanation of the ambiguities of the piece’s title - "Prospettiva di Volo" ("the prospect of flight"). The artist chose commonplace birds - pigeons, blackbirds, swallows, and though the sculpture was first exhibited in Grottammare’s medieval main square, he subsequently moved it to a more ordinary part of the old town. The birds became easy prey to passing youth. Now there is only one sad and solitary blackbird left. Casilda wants something done. In Grottammare, an attractive town on Italy’s Adriatic coast, the municipal government is checked and part-controlled by local committees elected by open neighbourhood assemblies. The future of the town’s culture is a vital matter of everyday life.

And culture is broadly interpreted in Grottammare. It ranges from the ruins of the castle built to stave off the Saracens and the network of grottoes installed to reinforce those defences in the Middle Ages (the grottoes are now used to keep bottles of the local wines cool), to the town’s restored art nouveau-style villas and its Orange Theatre, whose last performance was in 1908 when the wooden boards of the stage were ripped up and used to make coffins during an epidemic of Spanish flu. It also includes the beach, which is now set off with a broad, palm-lined promenade with a sky-blue cycle track bordered by a trail of pink oleanders. The seafront is as impressive as Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana, but instead of swanky hotels surrounded by extreme poverty there are enticing "chalets" selling local culinary specialities like fat olives stuffed with fish and lightly fried in breadcrumbs.

Historically, when people in Europe and North America demanded the rights to democratic government in the 18th and 19th centuries, the ideologues of the then ruling aristocracies evoked fear of the mob and the threats popular rule posed to culture. In Grottammare over the past 10 years an extension of citizens" rights has been culture’s protector.

In the late 1980s local construction interests teamed up with bigger companies from Milan to turn Grottammare into an upmarket Rimini: there"d be a mega marina with the biggest yacht park on the coast - a tourist playground of big hotels with a cable car running to the medieval town. Rossi and his mates, radical teachers, doctors, journalists and community workers deeply committed to their town, got wind of this. They were well known because of their involvement with a housing rights centre and the independent local radio station Radio Creativa. Two or three of them had already been elected to the council. They mounted a successful campaign against the development plans.

"We knew people didn’t want this kind of tourism. We argued for a tranquil tourism that was about nature, culture and human relationships - not consumerism," says Rossi, who is a notably innovative member of Rifondazione Comunista, the party that developed out of the Italian Communist Party in the 1980s and which is now heavily involved in the European Social Forum and local social forums across Italy. This group of radical socialists touched a nerve. The people of Grottammare refer to Rimini as if it were a haunting nightmare, and Rossi and company had a reputation for getting things done. In 1994 the Christian Democrats, whose clientelism had dominated the town since the 1960s, were ousted and the Participation and Solidarity (PS) coalition of untried, but also uncorrupted men and women, started work to recreate their town.

The coalition’s first task was to develop a new urban plan for a town that was becoming cluttered with concrete and which was losing its magnetism for tranquillity-seeking Romans and Milanese. (Since PS took office, the number of tourists visiting Grottammare has more than doubled from 254,000 to more than 500,000 a year.) The new government combined a professional efficiency - surveying the threats to the environment, taking sewage treatment back into municipal ownership - with participatory democracy - calling open assemblies in every neighbourhood. "We told [the people] we don’t know what to do any more than you," says Luigi Merli, Rossi’s successor as mayor and an independent-minded socialist who runs a large vegetable market garden.

Out of these neighbourhood assemblies came committees that reported back to recalled assemblies twice a year. "Our job is to put together ideas to discuss with the council, and to check that they carry out their work," says Morena, the president of the Ischia neighbourhood committee. She took me on a tour of the projects that her committee have worked on with the council, proudly describing the integration of tourism with the life of the town: here, a piazza designed by local children where before there was just a church and a car park; there, a space where dog owners could let their pets run free without offending the neighbours; and over there, "the 1 May park" where previously the land was abbandone. In the evening the local youth, wearing T-shirts announcing "summer party Ischia quarter", put on a party on the beach. "We make the town better for us, and it’s better for tourists," Morena explains.

And it’s true: tourists and citizens both benefit from Grottammare’s very un-corporate style of regulation. Work has now begun on converting the previously disused 18th century convent in the old town into 15 or so council houses. The luxurious garden of the villa-turned-town hall now hosts regular festivals, the best touring operettas from Rome, and events to celebrate the culture of the growing number of immigrants living in the town. And while I was staying in the town, I didn’t feel like an outsider at all. The mayor even gave me the keys to the town hall so I could access my email.

Sometimes the enthusiasm to recuperate the past has meant a certain airbrushing of history, however. The guidebooks wax lyrical in praise of the town’s most famous son - Felice Peretti, otherwise known as Pope Sixtus V. By all accounts, Peretti was indeed a pioneering urban planner (he would have blessed the radical socialists whose style of government is now transforming his home town), but he also ran such an authoritarian regime that the pallbearers at his funeral are said to have tipped his body into the Tiber.

Now Grottammare is providing a beacon to other municipalities searching for strategies to resist the privatisation favoured by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The conditions in the town make it a natural political laboratory. With a population of 15,000, it is cohesive but not parochial. A network of small and medium-sized industries and local traditions of design and invention have enabled the regional economy to weather Berlusconi’s low-tax-induced recession relatively unharmed. And, surrounded by towns of cultural interest, like Macerata with its open-air opera, Grottammare is an ideal base for creative tourism.

But there are problems, too. As PS has fulfilled its commitments, popular participation in Grottammare’s system of local government has dropped. There is talk of decentralising budgets to the neighbourhood committees to reinvigorate the process. The people of Grottammare have gained their freedom. Like the birds on top of Pellazzola’s cage (and now restored to their perch), they are ready to fly. But, with all the relaxed humour of an Italian seaside town, they are pondering where to go.

Thanks to Angela Logue, Vittorio Longhi and Derek Clarke for help with translation and more.

France's Ségolène Royal: What Might Have Been...and What May Be

Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate in last year's general election in France campaigned in large part on a platform of expanding participatory democracy within France. Early in her campaign she launched an internet based e-consultation through her website "désirs d'avenir" which allowed citizens to contribute thier input into her platform. She had plans to institute systems of participatory governance and budgeting throughout France. Unfortunately she lost the presidential election to her conservative rival Nicolas Zarkozy. This has not deterred her in her push for participatory democracy however, and she has introduced participatory budgeting in her home region of Poitou-Charentes, which even allows student participation in school budgeting. Now, with the cooperation of the regions of Tuscany, Italy and Catalonia, Spain, she has launched the European Foundation for Participatory Democracy in order to promote participatory democracy throughout Europe. If the initiative continues it's current success, perhaps people in France will take a closer look at her policies and if she runs again, sieze upon the opportunity to expand democracy and governance in France down into the grassroots level where it belongs. - Editor


EUROPE: 'Participatory Democracy Can Resolve Crisis'

With participatory budgeting, one of the most widespread mechanisms, citizens decide on allocation of public funds. Such budgeting was developed at the end of the 1980s in the Brazilian town Porto Alegre, and is now implemented in over 50 cities in Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal and Poland. --Stefania Milan

By Stefania Milan

(Source: http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2007/10/europe_particip.html)

FLORENCE, Oct 19 (IPS) - "Participatory democracy can be the answer to the European crisis," says Ségolène Royal, Socialist candidate in the last general election in France.

Since 2004 Royal has been president of Poitou-Charentes, a region on the west coast of France 400 kilometres from Paris. She heads the local Socialist government.

Royal was in Florence to launch the European Foundation for Participatory Democracy, in cooperation with the Tuscany region of Italy and Catalonia in Spain. The foundation aims to promote participatory democracy in Europe through cooperation and exchange of best practices.

"Including participatory mechanisms in the daily practices of the European Union could promote more proximity of the Union to its citizens, and more transparency," president of the Tuscany region Claudio Martini said.

Participatory democracy devices such as a referendum, participatory budgeting, e-consultations and citizens' juries are intended to include citizens' voices in decision-making processes. They can be consultative, or imply a real transfer of decision-making power from politicians to citizens.

With participatory budgeting, one of the most widespread mechanisms, citizens decide on allocation of public funds. Such budgeting was developed at the end of the 1980s in the Brazilian town Porto Alegre, and is now implemented in over 50 cities in Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal and Poland.

"Participatory democracy is often seen in opposition to representative democracy," Royal said. "But we believe that if citizens do not participate in political decisions, decisions are not understood and shared by the population. Decisions are strongest if authorities agree to put themselves under discussion."

Royal's region, Poitou-Charentes, is in the forefront of implementation of participatory democracy mechanisms. Since 2005, high school students have been invited to have a say in allocation of the 10 percent of the regional budget for education.

Ninety-three schools participate in distribution of 10 million euro per year. Students, parents and teachers are consulted on a regular basis, make concrete proposals, and vote their favourite project. The regional council then distributes funds. So far 706 projects have been financed this way.

Poitou-Charentes is a largely rural region. Many students live in boarding schools and have been lamenting poor living conditions, and lack of services and cultural initiatives.

"There was a lot of criticism that students would finance just anything. But they have expressed a need for cultural enrichment: more music and arts in the schools but also easier access to outside initiatives, including the institution of a cultural facilitator," Royal told IPS.

Participatory budgeting in high schools is also financing driving licence courses for young people at professional schools. In 2008 Poitou-Charentes will set up a citizens jury to evaluate the environmental impact of regional policies.

The relationship between institutions and citizens has changed since introduction of participatory budgeting, says Anja Röcke, consultant to the Poitou-Charentes region.

"The regional school administration has become more transparent and open towards users. The person in charge goes to the meeting with the school community. People understand why decisions are taken, and what the region is doing," Röcke told IPS.

However, participatory budgeting is not a simple process. "Some schools are very active, they seem to understand better what democracy means. In other places the process is still quite top-down, and no one is coming to the meetings. But overall it is a positive dynamic, it is going in the right direction," Röcke said.

Tuscany region has taken the French experience as a model for its own regional law on citizens' participation, adopted in July 2007 following consultations with citizens. Citizens will have six months to give their opinion on matters such as creation of high-impact infrastructure. But "the final decision is still in the hands of institutions," said Martini.

In November Massa Carrara town in Tuscany will host the second 'Electronic Town Meeting' in which 300 randomly selected citizens will use new technologies to allocate the regional health budget, and decide who should pay for certain health services, and to what extent.

Tuscany and Poitou-Charentes are also partners in a European project on e-participation, promoting citizens' participation through new technologies and the Internet.

European Foundation for Participatory Democracy: http://www.demo-part.org/ (Under Construction)

Poitou-Charentes participatory school budgeting site: http://www.democratie-participative.fr/