“… I did not know much about EU”

I’ve just read the following on Margot Wallström’s blog:

“This weekend 400 citizens, selected randomly from all 27 Member states, will meet in the European Parliament in Brussels for a Deliberative Poll. 87.9% of Europeans have either “never” or “only a few times” discussed EU matters with citizens from other EU countries. In order to understand what they would think if they actually met and talked, this project (launched under our plan D as in Debate, Dialogue and Democracy and carried out by “Tomorrow’s Europe“) brings together a microcosm of Europe. They will discuss two sensitive and important topics : economic and social welfare in a globalised world and the EU:s international role. Deliberative Polling is a scientific method to measure public opinion before and after it has deliberated.”

..and the first questions that came to my mind were: how ‘randomly’ were these people selected? What kind of project is this? Was anybody from Romania? Why, for Heaven’s sake there’s nothing about this in Romanian mass-media?

So, I looked up: Tomorrow’s Europe is a project by which “A scientifically representative sample of the European population, composed of several hundred of citizens selected through a poll held in the 27 Member states of the EU, will be informed in a balanced manner and brought together for three days of deliberation. They will discuss the political and institutional future of the Union. They will then be polled again. ”

362 European citizens, from the 27 member states, aged between 18 and 80, participated last weekend to the first EU-wide Deliberative Poll, where they discussed challenges and opportunities facing the European Union in the medium term. They exchanged opinions and asked questions to a panel of experts and politicians.
A Romanian ‘randomly selected’ EU citizen , Elena Marka Urszuly (?!), an advertising consultant, is quoted on the “Tomorrows Europe“’ website: “I was able to express myself despite the fact that I did not know much about the EU.”

99% of the Romanian citizens “do not know much about the EU”, dear Elena. Don’t you hate that?