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Barroso’s second term priorities
October 16, 2008
It was one of the worst kept secrets in Brussels, and now it’s out in the open. On the sidelines of the European Union’s summit in Brussels, centre-right EU political leaders have informally nominated José Manuel Barroso of Portugal to stay in office as European Commission president for a second five-year term.
With the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and German chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as that of Europe’s consummate political fixer, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, it was never likely that Barroso would face much opposition on the centre-right.
True, his reappointment is not a foregone conclusion. Many centre-left politicians across Europe are not keen on Barroso. However, his free trade views are music to the ears of Gordon Brown, the UK’s Labour premier. And because the centre-right parties seem likely to remain the largest political group in the European Parliament after next June’s elections, Barroso is in pole position to hang on to the job he likes so much.
Two trends, seemingly contradictory, stand out in Barroso’s presidency so far. On the one hand, the Commission is less powerful and less of a pace-setter, compared to the EU’s national governments, than it was, say, in the 1985-95 era of Jacques Delors. On the other, Barroso himself dominates his fellow commissioners, and sets the tone for the whole Commission, in a way that only Delors has ever really matched.
Truth to tell, the Commission needs forceful leadership now that it has 27 members, one for each EU country. There is a real risk of fragmentation, or drift, in such a large group. In any case, some commissioners don’t exactly appear to be snowed under with work.
But the EU also needs a strong Commission that can stand up to national governments and powerful business interests when necessary. The Commission must robustly defend the integrity of the EU’s internal market and uphold the principles of fair competition.
This point has been obscured to some extent during the recent tumultous weeks of the global financial crisis. But it may turn out to be the key issue for a second Barroso term.
We will be able to recognise real EU reform (and not the sham reform of the Lisbon treaty) when we no longer see elected heads of government like Barosso resigning as Prime Minister of Portugal to take up more powerful unelected positions in Brussels.
The monopoly of legislative initiative should be removed from the Commission, whch should become a pure civil service under the direct control of the heads of government in the EU Council. The idea that unelected beucrocrats can hold the monopoly on legislative initiative for law superior to any other for 500 million people is truly obscene and has no place in the democratic world. EU Legislative initiative should reside with a combination of MEPs and national parliamentarians but for this reform to be acceptable it would first be necessary to make EU law (beyond the area of common market regulations) inferior to national law. This would go a long way to killing off the notion of of the EU Commission as some sort of embryonic European government.
Posted by: Freeborn John | October 16th, 2008 at 4:32 pm | Report this commentOne thing the current financial crisis has shown up is just how flat-footed the EU Commission is - and Barosso, too, in my estimation. This was a time for fleet-footedness, quick thinking and some weighty diplomacy. Sarkozy did, at least act on the diplomatic front (both in calling the heads of state sessions and in persuading Angela Merkel to join in), whilst Gordon Brown did the quick intellectual stuff that was needed.
Where was Barosso meantime? He’s OK leading a carefully orchestrated set-piece, but here he was lost for waht to do, it seems to me.
Interesting to speculate that the mini-summit of the 12 eurozone countries plus the UK could be the template for a future EU Economic Council.
Posted by: Derek Tunnicliffe | October 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Report this commentI don’t doubt that Freeborn John sincerely means what he writes nor that he sincerely believes that the ideas he espouses provide a better basis for Europe’s governance than those on which the EU is currently based. Unfortunately, his comment demonstrates such a deep ignorance of European history and of the EU’s (and the Commission’s) purpose that it is difficult to take them seriously.
This may be a mistake, as many people in the UK seem to share Freeborn John’s conviction, but it would be so much easier to engage in a debate with people of his conviction if they at least showed a modicum of understanding of why the EU’s institutions are they way they are. As it is, one would have to start from first principles every time and this is simply tedious.
Posted by: Carlomagno | October 16th, 2008 at 9:05 pm | Report this commentCarlomagno: Nobody wants European governance.
Posted by: Freeborn John | October 16th, 2008 at 10:59 pm | Report this commentThe President of the European Commission should be elected by the citizens of the European Union. Not appointed by few leaders in back-door talks.
European parties should indicate the names of their candidate for President of the Commission before the European elections in June 2009. This possibility is already in the Treaties.
If Barroso is the best candidate for the job, I am sure citizens of the EU will understand that and vote for the Euuropean party that supports him. Could it be simpler than that?
Posted by: Alexander Hamilton | October 17th, 2008 at 7:29 am | Report this commentFreeborn John
With respect: As a British citizen with historic family links to other European nations, I know of too many deaths in my family caused by or permitted by warfare in Europe. I want European governance - as a means to avoid further wars.
Regards,
Posted by: D.X.Machina | October 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am | Report this commentFreeborn John,
A market requires governance. We all want a European market.
The Commission drafts legislation, but as it is, the initiative often comes from the Council.
Posted by: Dave | October 17th, 2008 at 10:14 am | Report this commentThe new (European) Alexander Hamilton seems to be as wise as his American counterpart more than two centuries ago.
We need more than European governance: democratic EU government.
In this respect the ongoing intergovernmental drift of the European Union, with Barroso at the Commission helm, is worrying.
Instead of hankering for Sarkozy to become the next semi-permanent president of the European Council, why not let him take charge of the European Commission instead?
Posted by: Ralf Grahn | October 17th, 2008 at 11:15 am | Report this commentD.X.Machina: I cannot agree with you that the EU is responsible for peace in Europe and if you believe it is how do you explain that there is peace in the rest of the world?
Hobbes justified the state as the necessary means to protect weak individuals from the strong, saying that without a strong central authority armed with the ’sword of justice’, individuals would live in a ’state of nature’ where bandits were free to roam the land raping and pillaging in a ‘war of all against all’. Kant extrapolated (in ‘Perpetual Peace’) this idea to international level arguing for a “League of Peace” (foedus pacificum) or ‘federation of free states’ that would prevent rogue states from warring with one another, but up until 1945 the relationship between states remained essentially that of the ’state of nature’ because no state would agree to be bound by a strong overarching central authority. There are those that believe the EU to be Kant’s federation, but I think it fairer to say the Congress of Vienna system (which aimed to preserve peace in Europe after the Napoleonic wars) is closer to what he had in mind. The League of Nations after WW1 was a similar institution. They did a reasonable job but ultimately failed for lack of what Hobbes called ‘the sword of justice’; the coercive (military) means to force rogue states into compliance. This is a function which the UN Security Council provides today.
Those who say that the EU prevents war between its members should remember that it (like the League of Nations) lacks the ’sword of justice’ to force a belligerent member into compliance. The EU can only use QMV or fines to resolve relatively minor disputes between its members. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that a state can only be an EU member if it already has a working relationship with the other members. The experience of Eastern Europe testifies to this as former countries of the Warsaw Pact only joined AFTER the Cold War ended. Peace between its members is therefore a necessary condition for the EU’s existence rather than a consequence. The relationship between the EU and peace is that economic interdependence between its members creates the condition that any member-state which rattles its sabre towards another is threatening the overseas customers - and therefore the prosperity - of its own citizens. However the emergence of a genuine global market now creates the same condition worldwide. At best one can say that the EU played a short-term role in re-enforcing a peace that was never-the-less a pre-condition for its existence.
The UN cannot claim to have kept the peace in Europe either because the 5 permanent members with vetoes in the Security Council essentially remain in the state of nature with one another. Any dispute that involves the UK, France and USSR/Russia on different sides cannot be resolved by the deployment of UN forces because one party would veto it. The UN has however played a peace-keeping role in lesser disputes, e.g. in the Balkans.
NATO is the only body able to legitimately claim to have kept the peace in Europe during the East / West conflict through its deterrent effect. NATO however is not responsible for peace between its own members in Western Europe either. Good relations between NATO members is (as for the EU) a necessary condition for NATO membership.
Peace in Western Europe in the last 50 years is not due to any international organization. It is due to the spread of democracy. The democratic peace theory holds that no two democracies have ever gone to war with one another, or at least are highly unlikely to go to war with one another. The EU, by hollowing out our democracies, actually makes conflict more likely and on a larger scale. EU integration is after all based on the unification of Germany in the 19th century starting with a customs union (’zollverien’) and leading via confederation to a centralized and undemocratic state that started two world wars.
Posted by: Freeborn John | October 17th, 2008 at 12:55 pm | Report this commentRalf Grahn and A. Hamilton: Directly electing EU officials such as the Commission president would not solve the problem of EU democratic legitimacy. This is because the peoples of Europe do not constitute a single polity that will agree to be bound by a pan-European majority. The principle that the majority decides has never been accepted outside the nation-state, which indeeed is the very reason that nation-states such as the Republic of Ireland were created in the first place. International organizations that make decisions binding on their members only retain their democratic legitimacy through the rule of unanimity such that no national polity can be coerced into doing things against the will of its majority. The EU problem of democratic legitimacy began when it abandoned unanimity in favour of qualified majority votes, and has grown into a true crisis as successive treaty changes have extended the use of QMV into ever more politically sensitive areas. This crisis cannot be corrected by directly electing the Commision, but only by returning the authority to have the final say to nation-states and the voters who comprise their national polity. The simplest way to achieve this would be make most EU law (i.e. that beyond common market regulations) inferior to national law such that national polities can elect governments able to overrule the application of EU law on their territory when they desire (including EU law that was agreed by their predecessors at national level). Without such a change democracy in Europe will steadily be nullified as the ever-swelling body of superior EU law builds up preventing democratic national legislatures from acting in any area where undemocratic EU law exists.
Anyone who believes that electing the Commission president is a solution to the EU problem of democratic legitimacy must explain the apparent paradox that directly electing the EU Parliament and increasing its powers since 1979 has been coincident with rising concern that the EU is a threat to democracy. If they cannot explain this apparent paradox, then they must accept that directly electing the EU Commission in the same way as the EU Parliament would also fail to give the Commission democratic legitimacy.
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Posted by: Freeborn John | October 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm | Report this comment“In those countries where different races dwell together … the power of the imperial parliament must be limited as jealously as the power of the crown, and many of its functions must be discharged by provincial diets”. (Lord Acton ‘Essays in the History of Liberty’ describing the Austrian Empire in 1862).
Freeborn John - and long may the EU preserve your ability and right not to agree with me
Regards,
Posted by: D.X.Machina | October 17th, 2008 at 5:07 pm | Report this commentFreeborn John: whilst you are right about the lack of polity within and between European peoples, you are wrong about international organisations requiring the rule of unity. eg third-world states often complain about the unwanted (by them) conditions placed on them by the World Bank.
I agree that the EU has more formal autonomy than an organisation such as the World Bank but that was deliberate. The idea was - and still is - that this will ensure they won’t represent any particular national or other group interest.
The EU is NOT a government: it is more a referee. If, as others have suggested, you took time to find out how the EU is organised and how decisions are taken (ie by national state heads) then your arguments might be better accepted.
Posted by: Derek Tunnicliffe | October 17th, 2008 at 6:33 pm | Report this commentYou have expressed an opinion D.X.Machina that the EU is necessary to prevent wars. I have expressed both opinion and reason why it is not. I would be interested to know your reasons for holding your opinion.
I would also like to know the reasons for R. Grahn’s and A. Hamilton’s opinion that electing the EU Commission would give its binding decisions a democratic legitimacy that the elected EU Parliament has never been able to achieve.
Posted by: Freeborn John | October 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm | Report this commentDerek Tunnicliffe: I don’t think Jose Barosso resigned as Prime Minister of Portugal to become a referee. The EU Commission has the monopoly of legislative initiative for law superior to any other for 500 million people. Its legislative proposals require approval by a qualified majority of member-states in the Council of Ministers to become law but unanimity is required from all 27 member-states to amend a Commission proposal (unless our elected governments are supported by the EU Parliament). And even if the Commission fears that such unanimity may develop it can (as per article 250 EC) remove a proposal to prevent it being modified. Such powers are not those of a referee. They give the EU Commission massive power to set the legislative agenda in Europe, power that it has used for 50 years to advance its own bureaucratic self-interest in transferring yet more powers to the EU institutions. Not once in 50 years has the Commission ever made a legislative proposal that would return power to the democratic institutions of the nation-state. Therefore the Commission is very much a player in the game of disenfranchising the voters of Europe and no mere referee.
Posted by: Freeborn John | October 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm | Report this commentIn the next few months , we are going to see real action or real incompetence :
a) In the financial markets,in derivatives/swaps and in mortgages/futures/commodities/etc.,we need an OPEN MARKET , an open place-website to track with total TRANSPARENCY the derivatives action,so if Brussels and Washington D.C. can muster the will to do this, we all win…if not, we need to vote the rascals out.
b) the USA Congress just extended ( and P.Bush signed ) Tax Credits for Renewable Energy like Solar for another 8 years to December 2016 ( wind energy got only one year and most of the rest 8 years ) ,so now there is no more excuses, the long term business sense is there, the return is there and our workers ( in the EU and USA ) need the jobs here : if we start building factories in the EU and USA for solar, wind and water turbines,geothermal sites in every region for long term projects,fuel-cells and hybrids ,new advanced batteries, coal to liquid and synthetic jet/prop fuels, deep water platform systems for the Arctic and Atlantic , composites, new nano-tubes applications, new light-rail trains and new trade channels, with new training for all the displaced workers and new financing using the savings from the above Open Markets, the rascals could stay in, and maybe we should vote for them again ,so let’s see what they do in the next 3 months …
c) we need a new vision in Afghanistan-Pakistan , like many USA and EU Generals are saying , with a Conference of all : all Tribes, Pakistani and Afghani leaders, Taliban leaders,farmers,all the extreme groups… because if we want Peace, we cannot be afraid of anyone,we cannot be afraid of talking to anyone , even the worst terrorists ! it’s time to make smart deals and start selling roads and trains, computers, power plants, schools, refrigeration systems,tractors and hospitals , it’s time to sell growth and progress to win over the extremists.
and although a disagree with P.M. Berlusconi a lot,i agree that Europa and Russia share a common culture,markets,religion,geography,history,common enemies,etc., etc., and it’s time to make a deal between Russia and the EU, from the Canary Islands and Greenland to Vladivostok…sounds great,practical and realistic.
Like everyone agrees : this has been a huge Warning signal , it’s time for Energy Independence ( the usual manipulators are keeping Oil down for now to calm the calls for Energy Independence and Alternative Energies ) and a mayor overhaul of the financial markets refining existing rules and regulations and above all a massive manufacturing and training re-start, a push to expand smart and honest global trade, to expand commerce and friendship between all Nations.
Posted by: financialtools1@gmail.com | October 17th, 2008 at 10:45 pm | Report this commentWhen governments speek of the necessity of strong engagement among States to stop the financial crisis, I cannot understand those who request stronger powers for their own state legislators. We need a real european government, a real european parliament and real european laws. that is the only way europe will remain competitive in a globalised world. And, like the council of 12 plus Gordon Brown demonstrated, those countries wich are the pioneers of European integration should go ahead and lead (e.g. adopting an european constitution), and those who are sceptics will join and follow when they realise its needed (remenber the times of the EEC and the EFTA?).
Posted by: Miguel Pires | October 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm | Report this commentI spent my summer reading a range of books on Europe. It is clear from that reading that “the EU itself is a weak institution, heavily reliant on its member states”. I quote from the magisterial text by Anand Menon “Europe: the State of the Union”. Anand menon is a recognised expert on the EU, and is Professor of European Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK. I recommend his book.
Legislative action rests with the Councim of Ministers and the EU Parliament conjointly. All decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers.
The Commissioners might come up with their own proposals but many come from the heads of member state. The Commisioners are then responsible for “working up” proposed legislation. The Council of Ministers always has the last say.
Does Barrosso “rule Europe”? It’s not even clear whether he “rules” the EU Commission.
OK, lessons finished for today.
Posted by: Derek Tunnicliffe | October 18th, 2008 at 6:21 pm | Report this commentSome final thoughts on the topic of Barrosso, and on his role in the financial crisis.
First, the crisis has illustrated that whoever holds the EU presidency can be critical. There are some heads of state who are known to be less than enthusiastic about the EU. If one of them had been in the seat under the present format of changing presidencies (every 6 months), what might have been the outcome?
Also, if there were to be a permanent president, what qualities would be needed? From what I read, here in France, Brown has not exactly shone in his daily routine as PM - but, given the challenge (ie this crisis), he has been the man of the moment. Maybe that’s an issue for Barrosso to consider during his second term?
Finally, a question on the Stock Market “swings”, the “huge” gains and losses the headlines record. These swings are percentage gains/losses, they say nothing about the number of transactions posted. Just how large have been the swings really?
Posted by: Derek Tunnicliffe | October 19th, 2008 at 9:47 am | Report this commentwould Miguel kindly explain why “We need a real european government, a real european parliament and real european laws” ? this seems to be the kind of mantra among believers that defy reality.
as noted before, in the context of the crisis that has developed, and is developing, the EU Commission failed to provide leadership, and most likely this leardership was not necessary. it has been provided by the various heads of state.
I also fail to understand the comment that “the EU itself is a weak institution, heavily reliant on its member states”. that the Council still has the power to veto decisions is one thing, that the Commission is weak is quite another. it sets the agenda, that is mightily important. also, the book referred to may describe the past, because that is not what is intended in the new treaty, and beyond.
Posted by: from far away | October 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm | Report this comment