June 19, 2007
Leadership on tricky laws should allow the European Parliament to ditch its inferiority complex
It is hardly a secret that the European Parliament’s formal powers fall short of those accorded to a "proper" national legislature. One of the more tiring consequences of this situation is the Parliament’s lingering inferiority complex, which expresses itself all too often in grandstanding, overblown rhetoric and a deep desire to be constantly consulted, informed and patted on the back by the Brussels big boys - the Commission and Council.
Given the unique nature of the Union’s constitutional set-up, the Parliament will almost certainly remain a somewhat stunted creature for a long time to come. Member states will never give up their de-facto veto over lawmaking and their exclusive rights in many other areas, not least foreign policy.
Yet all this has not stopped the Parliament from emerging as an increasingly powerful player in the past few years. The latest example of the chamber’s growing clout may well have surfaced this week, when the Parliament’s transport committee voted on an ambitious plan to fully liberalise the Union’s €90bn postal services market.
Postal services are a hugely divisive issue. The Commission last year proposed that the last monopolies in the mail market should disappear by 2009 - a plan that has sparked street protests from trade unions and a rather hostile response from France and a bunch of other countries.
Ministers have been debating the issue on and off since January, but have been completely unable to bridge their differences on the two most important issues: the date for full liberalisation and how to guarantee that letters are still delivered promptly in remote and thinly-populated regions.
Enter the European Parliament. Its three biggest political groups have just struck a deal that pushes back the date to 2011, and gives ill-prepared member states even more time to phase out national monopolies. The agreement is a far cry from what the liberalisers wanted, and is undoubtedly unfair towards countries such as Britain, which have already fully opened their market.
But at least MEPs were able to thrash out a deal that is supported by a vast majority of the chamber - something the refined diplomats of the Council are nowhere close to achieving.
The same thing happened on two other highly contentious pieces of legislation. Both the services directive and - to a lesser degree - the Reach chemicals law split EU member states down the middle, making compromise very difficult. In the end, it was up up to Parliament to sift through many of the most difficult issues and produce an agreement that left all sides moaning but that at least got the matter off the table. Once national governments were faced with a deal backed by Parliament, they found it more than convenient to fall into line.
Graham Watson, the leader of the Liberal group, the third largest in parliament, says the chamber is increasingly becoming the place to forge consensus in sensitive areas of market reform. "You have 27 ministers who cannot agree so they turn to the parliament to forge a compromise. That is making Europe more political."
For a chamber that is made up of so many different nationalities and political convictions to achieve leadership on a string of important, complex and politically explosive legislative dossiers is no small feat. If the Parliament can pull it off again on postal services, it would be truly impressive.
The much-derided European Parliament, in other words, is gradually turning itself into a heavyweight player. As such, it should ditch its complexes sooner rather than later.
I have never understood why the EP is so often referred to as “toothless”, or as having less powers than a national parliament.
Sure, its ability to participate in legislation does not cover all policy areas. But in those areas that it covers, it is a very effective legislator. In fact, it is arguably a more effective legislator than national parliaments. I don’t mean this only in the context of the recent successes such as REACH and the Services Directive. I agree that these may well turn out to be seminal moments in the EP’s history, but from a technical point of view, the EP’s effectiveness is long-established. Or to be more precise, it has been well-established since the advent of co-decision.
Some years ago I did a study of the ability of the EP to amend and reject legislation, compared to the Westminster parliament. The EP gets far more amendments through the co-decision process than the House of Commons does, and the EP has used its veto several times too. In the period I researched (1992-1997 if I remember correctly), the Commons had never managed to stop a bill proposed by the Government, whereas the EP had done it twice. There is a lot to be said for a parliament that is not organically linked to the body that has legislative initiative.
So for me, the successes on REACH and the Services Directive are just the latest and most dramatic in a series of expressions of the power the EP has gained under co-decision.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | June 20th, 2007 at 12:57 pm | Report this comment“EU: AN ASSOCIATION BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INDEPENDENT, CONSENSUALLY ALIGNED-?EQUAL-NATIONS?- NOT A SUPER-STATE, FORGED BY THE SURREPTITIOUS AMALGAMATION OF THE EU’S PEOPLES”!!!”
The concept of an EU of politically AMALGAMATED PEOPLES was never part of the agreed-to propositions that led to its formation as the European Economic Community (EEC), in the 1950’s.
The misguided development of a ‘European Parliament’ several decades later, predictably- now in 2007- has led to calls (from an intellectually dishonest few) for individual EU member nations to lose their paramount-status as “comparative equals” in the EU’s voting system (Council of Ministers, Commission & committees), to be subsumed BY A POPULATION-BASED-SYSTEM, in which medium sized & smaller EU member nations? voices + their potential influence over ALL types of EU decision making will be rendered nonexistent.
How to fix the EU parliament?
EU mp’s ought to be appointed by the govt-of-the-day of their respective nations.
The main motivations behind the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) (precursor to the “EU”) were so that this “association of economically & socially aligned, independent nations” would, by its structure, be an obstacle against repeats of the worst facets of the continent’s history- damaging competition, ego-driven militarism & costly, destructive wars.
It was also to enable a concurrent, joint approach to development of member nations? economies & their underpinning legal principles & social/health programmes.
A passively ‘outward-facing by-example’ group of economically & socially ‘aligned’ NATIONS is all that was conceived & proposed initially; worked towards over the following decades- & all that is required for these laudable, & needed, functional objectives.
EU member nations going further in integration, (as the rejected, so called EU Constitution would have mandated, or, as some of those who support further EU expansion are alleging: ‘that further EU expansion would demand further integration of member states’) will, through the back door, result in the EU functionally ceasing to be a ?European community? of equal nations & would result in the EU becoming an amalgamated unitary state…
Super-states’ leaders, like those of lesser states, are always going to be tempted to use their latent military & other types of clout on the world stage.
Sometimes for good. But also, not for good.
The wrong right-wing party taking power in a ?new? super-state?s parliament could, without justification, decide to trammel the rights of minorities, suspect ethnic/cultural groups; the poor; women &/or people of religious beliefs within its own borders.
It could decide to do the same outside its borders.
In these types of cases, given the neutered abilities of member nations’ governments to affect the decision making of the “new” super-state’s “super parliament” (due to member-nation?s surrendering traditional authorities/responsibilities to the super-state’s super-parliament)
- countries the size of Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia or bigger countries like the United Kingdom or France, could do almost nothing to prevent their resources being used by the super-state?s government for corrupt or inappropriate purposes.
- member nations disagreeing with a super-parliament run amok, would have no options other than to secede from the super-state, with disastrous economic & other effects- if the super-parliament allowed secession of member states.
Mandatory dissolution of EU member nations’ borders- by misrepresented EU directive’s- or a re-named constitution-in-disguise does not need to be part of any future EU.
The same can be said for an EU defense or foreign policy Minister, or the adoption (either by implication or treaty) of a single currency by all- or new- member states.
Although improving EU bureaucratic function is desirable, using this as a false-logic excuse for further integration of EU member nations will defeat the very laudable purposes that motivated the EU’s (EEC’s) founding.
Worse, this will enable a scurrilous political elite of the continent to have a forum, & vehicle, for an agenda which has nothing to do with fairness, human-rights or shared economic progress-> an agenda predicated on a wish to have a world voice that their respective nations would not have alone- a job for the UN or Nato, not an EU on steroids.
The EU?s member nations need to remain aligned- TO VARYING & FLEXIBLE DEGREES- economically, legally & socially, as part of a passively outward looking association.
The world as a whole needs an EU of ‘independent’, but
willingly-aligned-for-good-purposes nations-> not an ego-motivated ’super-state’, in which many of the EU’s member nations are effectively rendered to fodder for the international agenda’s of a minority, & forced to participate in & contribute to purposes/projects that their
peoples may be adverse to.
Roderick V. Louis
Posted by: Roderick V. Louis | June 21st, 2007 at 10:28 am | Report this commentVancouver, BC, Canada,
rvlouis@patientempowermentsociety.com
Thanks Roderick for the interesting post. Not sure what it has to do with the topic of the thread, but some worthwhile stuff.
I must say, however, that I think many of my fellow eurosceptics shoot themselves in the foot by use of words like “stealth” and “surreptitious”. This all smacks of conspiracy theory, and very few people like to believe in conspracy theories. I think many readers will see the word “surreptitious” and simply switch off… (yawn - another one of those dotty EU conspiracy theorists).
I prefer to use an approach that is fact-based, rational, and unemotional. If that also involves correcting myths and tempering the hyperbole of fellow travelers, so be it. I think it will be the only approach that works in the long run.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | June 21st, 2007 at 11:14 am | Report this commentBy the way as I am sure you know the EP used to be appointed by the Member State governments, but due to the hard lobbying of eurosceptics concerned at the lack of transparency and accountability that resulted, it was changed to be directly elected, as it has been since 1979.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | June 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am | Report this comment