The European elections in the perspective of the history of democracy
Martí Grau i Segú
Head of Service and Curator of the Jean Monnet House of the European Parliament
We can place our current European supranational polity in a sequence of democratic milestones on our continent . For some , the roots of democracy are very old , going back to Athens in the 5th century BCE . For others , while acknowledging the continued inspiration that classical antiquity provided in the eras to follow , modern democracy is something fundamentally new that sets the enjoyment of individual rights as the core goal of society . Therefore , in its most fulfilled form , it does not condone the existence of disenfranchised people in its midst . In this sense , throughout the 19th century , democratic movements – and gradually , democratic regimes – were unable to establish themselves without espousing successive causes that would guarantee radical equality between individuals . These included the abolition of slavery , the passage from census suffrage to universal ( male ) suffrage and , in the 20th century , the hard-won right of women to vote . If we think that women did not have the right to vote in Switzerland until about 50
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