Jürgen Habermas calls on media to think European

In order to overcome the Greek crisis Europe must involve its citizens more in political decisions, writes German philosopher Jürgen Habermas in the liberal business paper Handelsblatt, but notes that Europe lacks a common communication sphere for this purpose: "This sphere must emerge from a reciprocal opening up of national public spheres to each other. To accomplish this we don't need different media, but rather a different practice among those that already exist. They should deal with European issues not just as such but also report on the political positions and controversies that these issues provoke in other member states. Because the European Union has so far been carried forward by the political elites, there is still a dangerous asymmetry between the democratic involvement of its peoples in what their respective governments can 'notch up' for them in the subjectively distant Brussels scene and the indifference, and even apathy of EU citizens regarding the decisions of their parliament in Strasbourg. ... The more the media focuses on making people aware of how much EU decisions affect their everyday lives, the greater the citizens' interest will be in also making avail of their democratic rights as EU citizens."

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