Joaquin Navarro-Valls on the crisis of democracies

For Joaquin Navarro-Valls, former spokesman for John Paul II in the Vatican, all European democracies are going through a crisis of confidence for lack of consensus. "There is a gap that is impossible to bridge between politicians and citizens. This dissociation of political life and real life as experienced by people creates an environment that favours demagogy and defeatism. The problem actually almost always begins with a loss of hope that ends up dragging everything down with it, including politics, into a general whirlpool of pessimism ... . Democracy is only maintained thanks to citizens' involvement in the life of institutions. This is why institutions need to give an active role to citizens ... . In the absence of this participation, democracy is incomplete, it goes into crisis and only partially works."

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