M@C: INTERVIEW: German philosopher Habermas calls for EU referendum - by Matthias Hoenig and Eva- Maria McCormack Mar

INTERVIEW: German philosopher Habermas calls for EU referendum - Europe

INTERVIEW: German philosopher Habermas calls for EU referendum - by Matthias Hoenig and Eva- Maria McCormack Mar

Hamburg - German philosopher Juergen Habermas Tuesday called for a EU-wide referendum in which citizens across the bloc should decide whether the EU should have a directly elected president, as well as a foreign minister and an independent financial basis. In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Rome treaties which marked the foundation of the EU, he said Europe's governments should 'dare democracy' and hold a referendum on the future of the bloc, to be scheduled together with the 2008 European parliamentary elections. Previous attempts to consolidate the European institutions had not failed due to the opposition of the people in Europe, said the philosopher and sociologist, who has received worldwide acclaim for his critical theory of rationality 'In most countries of the continent there are sleeping majorities in favour of further consolidation of the EU,' said Habermas.

'The deeper reason for the paralysis in the dynamics of integration is that different governments are governed by different targets in regards to the EU,' he said. Rather than putting the real question of what the bloc ultimately should be to the test, the national governments were avoiding the conflict that is to be expected in this crucial issue, he said. Note EU-Digest: Twentieth-century German philosopher Jürgen Habermas attacked the belief that modern scientific knowledge and research are objective and value-free. Habermas argued that reason and science have become tools of domination, rather than emancipating humans from myth, suspicion, and tyranny.