Co-decision, European democracy and speed

European legislation is not famed for its speed. The EU's institutional triangle of the Commission, Member States in the Council, and the European Parliament means that agreement has to be made both within and between these institutions before draft laws can be passed (where the Parliament is a co-legislator with the Council).

In the "turf war" over the banking union, reported here by EUObserver, an EU diplomat said:

"The debate will be tense. It is not because Council defends its turf, but because MEPs take so long. We simply cannot lose another year."

The banking union will centre on two pieces of legislation: one empowering the ECB as a banking regulator, and the other redefining the role of the London-based European Banking Authority. While the European Parliament has a say over the EBA, the ECB legislation is dealt with by a unanimous Council vote with the Parliament only consulted.

I think the Parliament's right to treat the two drafts as part of the same package. The banking regulation recently put in place fell under areas where the Parliament had a right of co-decision, and the Parliament should get some say over how the new regime will operate before it gives its go ahead to the EBA being changed to fit in with the new rules. It's also about how democracy is valued within the EU system: the European Council gets to set the pace of political debate, and, as we've seen in the past year with the Fiscal Compact, it's not adverse to re-hashing existing law in new, extra-EU treaties for its own political ends. The banking and Eurozone legislation is complex and controversial; we've seen this with the debate over the Fiscal Compact (a treaty that got both the causes and solutions to the crisis wrong), and the place and power of the ECB is an important issue.

This deserves democratic debate and scrutiny. The idea of the Parliament simply being a roadblock to crisis management is just plain wrong. The Council does not have the monopoly over economic or institutional wisdom (let's face it, 3 years of European Council summitry have done little to solve our current predicament), and opening debate up from diplomatic discussions and deal-making enhances the quality of decision-making by opening up the problems and solutions to scrutiny. The idea that the European Council can deliver down commandments and expect to have the Parliament either follow them or be easily ignored is insulting. As we can see from the Council opportunistically changing the legal basis of the Schengen area to exclude the Parliament, the Council is often more about protecting itself and its own interests than about creating common solutions.

And if the ECB is to be both independent as a central bank and have the power of banking regulator, there should be some democratic control and scrutiny. The Parliament may not have a strict legal right to this piece of legislation, but it has some say over financial regulation and should not be expected to stay silent while regulatory responsibility is passed to another, independent, institution.

While speed is important, having an open and more democratic debate is an important core value that shouldn't be overlooked, and which will help us come to better decisions.

Lovers' Tiff?

On the Council of the European Union's website a document called "Relations with the European Parliament (July 2011)" only has an image of a shredded piece of paper next to it.

Hopefully given the positive vision of the Polish Presidency, Warsaw can relight the spark of passion and return Brussels to its natural state of a lovers' paradise. ;)

Now Lisbon's in force, Parliament has nowhere to hide

1st December 2009, and the Lisbon Treaty is in force (well, it has amended the two treaties that make up the constitution of the EU, anyway). It's biggest innovations were the extension of Qualified Majority Voting in the Council and the increase of Parliamentary power - the two are pretty much in step. The European Parliament wasn't powerless before, but now it is virtually an equal to the Council, except in areas of unanimity, such as foreign affairs.

So now there's nowhere for Parliament to hide - it has to prove that it's deserving of these powers; that it's willing to go further in holding the to account, in staking out it's own position more clearly from the Commission and Council, and it must go further in transparency - both from itself, and from the Council and Commission. The Commission President's Question Time needs to become more focused as well: now MEPs have more power, they should prove themselves able to get a good handle on the different issues and ask the awkward questions - this doesn't mean ranting on about political points (I'm looking at you, Martin Schulz), but digging around and making sure you put Barroso and other Commissioners on the spot to open up the Commission to real scrutiny.

The hearing of the Commissioners in the run up to the vote in January must be rigorous, revealing, and truly testing for the Commissioners-designate. In particular, Baroness Ashton's positions on Iran, Russia, the Middle East peace process, energy policy, the Eastern Partnership, etc. must be made clear. Likewise, Oettinger needs to be pushed on how he wants to see the EU's energy policy develop; it's an important portfolio, and one that the Commission has proven quick to move on in Barroso I, with important energy market reforms and the implications of climate change politics - is Oettinger up to the job? The Parliament needs to be willing to reject the Commission if it doesn't correspond to its political views; it shouldn't just rely on there being someone who can be easily recognised as objectionable even through a lazy media glance - a list of good policy reasons should be enough. There doesn't need to be a rejection of the Commission just to ritually assert the Parliament's position, but they should make sure the opportunity to shape it doesn't pass them by.

Finally, and as a greater task, all the parties in the Parliament should work to make their mark outside the Brussels Bubble in the public's minds. Better Parliamentary debates help, and will hopefully entice the media to report on them more, but the parties need to make their presence felt more in the mainstream media and at grassroots level. The Citizen's Initiative could be an excellent way of doing this if done right: a campaign for a certain policy for the media to report on, co-operation across borders with common campaigns, engaging people in European politics ("We need your support! This is what we're trying to do for you in Parliament and the EU!") and it builds up at least some recognition of the Euro-parties (or at least the position of the national parties on European issues, which will be helpful in any case come election time).

The Citizen's Initiative requires 1 million signatures across borders, and the Euro-Parties are supposed to help express cross-border political debate. The link and the logic should be obvious, and the party to latch on to it and to runs campaigns well - and follow them up in Parliament effectively - would be laying good groundwork for the 2014 elections.

Now that Lisbon's in force, we deserve a better working Parliament - more transparency, scrutiny and engagement. There are no more excuses for not trying.

The Observer, Europe and Blogging

Henry Porter's article in today's Observer is interesting for 2 reasons: (1) he repeats the mistake of confusing the ECHR and the EU and the role of the President of the European Council, and (2) he calls for a kind of enlightened scepticism of the EU's institutions - a good idea - that is undermined by the factors that bring about point (1). So I sent the Observer a letter (ok, email):

Henry Porter is convincing in his argument for a better scepticism when it comes to the EU institutions ("I saw the joy on German faces - but now I despair", 8th November). The need for civil society to debate and scrutinize European institutions is great, and the duty of the media to enable continuous debate is particularly strong. However, Henry Porter fell victim to a few assumptions that highlight the lack of media scrutiny in this area, and shows that without this scrutiny, it's hard to have an effective and informed scepticism.

Getting basic facts such as the difference between the European Court of Human Rights and the EU's European Court of Justice wrong (the ECHR belongs to the Council of Europe, a completely different organisation) can make such scepticism ill-informed and misdirected, since placing the blame at the EU's door for the ECHR's rulings would be ineffective. Similarly, the office of President of the European Council has been talked up to be a full-blown "President of the EU" (there's no such post), giving rise to fears of a powerful executive President who would be unelected - when, in fact, the post is one of chairman/woman who would only preside over the European summits, with no vote or veto on issues. The President would be more the role of a parliamentary speaker than a president, though with more publicity.

For such scepticism and political engagement to work, we need to not only see the EU as a set of institutions, but also take part in the political discussions at its heart - the EU isn't monolithic: there are many fractions in the Parliament and the Council arguing for different policies. We can't just blame "the EU" for faults and failings, we must identify who is in power (currently the centre-right EPP, with Barroso as Commission President), and what the opposition (Socialists and Democrats, the Greens, etc) is doing, and question their policies.

It is a demanding task to stimulate this kind of debate, but it's essential. The EU can try to open up all it wants (for example, the Commission President has to face a European version of PMQs before the European Parliament), but without the engagement of ordinary people and the media, it won't work. Will the Observer start scrutinizing the Brussels Bubble?

Conor Slowey

It's annoying to see that important political debates (over liberty versus security, and questions over the ECHR court case on cruifixes in Italy) being diverted off course by ingrained misinformation. The EU is mind-numbingly complex, and it can't just be explained in a short run up to European elections or each time there's a summit: there needs to be constant media scrutiny of the policies and political actors acting in the Brussels Bubble. Though I'd like to see the mainstream media improve it's journalism on the EU - and really open up a continuous debate on the issues and policies confronting the EU (as well as if the EU should confront them in the first place) - it'd be very naive to expect anything to change here.

So if the mainstream media won't do it, could there be a duty for civil society to step in? I'm generally sceptical of the power of blogging versus the mainstream media, although the mainstream media clearly doesn't always get it right, but could bloggers be said to have a certain duty in this instance?

Probably not. Bloggers are probably the most prickly of groups when it comes to independence and implying duties, and I can't see how you could convincingly say that people have a duty to investigate these things, except as, perhaps, the general and vague duty of voters who want to participate in the political process fully.

Still, I think that scrutinizing the polcies, actions and goals of the parties and fractions in the EU is vitally needed (despite the boring detail), and I'd encourage EuroBloggers out there to start looking into the Parties and holding them to account. EuroBloggers (and perhaps particularly myself) are guilty of focusing too much on the institutional/constitutional side of things, but hopefully that will change with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty.

It's certainly an area we'll be keen to look at on Chasing Brussels in the future.

Edit: Jon Worth has gotten wind of this journalistic mistake.