Is Russell Brand the UK's Beppe Grillo?

Last week comedian Russell Brand guest edited the left-wing New Statesman, and called for a revolution in his editorial. In TV interviews he's gained a lot of attention, both supportive and derisive, on his views of political apathy and his message to young people not to vote.

So is Brand the UK version of Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian that's rocked the Italian political establishment through his blogging and the success of the 5 Star Movement?

No. The answer is no. He's not.

And actually comparing Brand to Grillo should give people pause for thought, because it's in the differences that we can see what Brand's prospects of success are. Supporters say that Brand has made a lot of good points about how ineffectual the current system is, and detractors point out that Brand hasn't got anything to replace the current system with. Brand does make some good points about invested interests and now the left needs to boil its abstract thinking down to real life experiences. But it's the childish focus on revolution where the whole thing unravels.


Vive la révolution?

First thing's first: Brand is actually calling for a revolution. Brand doesn't just assert that apathy is a rational response to a system that has failed to cater to the needs of the population - he urges people to stop voting for the explicit reason that it's a release and that opting out of the electoral system will speed up the growth of tensions leading to revolution.

This point needs to be addressed. While supporters have defended Brand for not coming up with a post-revolution system to work towards (he's been busy editing a magazine), this isn't good enough. A revolution involves the use of force, either in taking lives or injuring people, or by taking away people's political rights. (When Brand says "I take the right!", it should be remembered that a revolution removing a government would negate the political voices of the people who had voted). It's because of this use of force in the context of a democratic system, which is geared towards discussion and majoritarian rule, that people demand to know the alternative before they are supposed to violate the rights of others.

So when Brand says that it's up to those in power to provide answers, he's making a flashy statement and promptly denying responsibility for it. The joke excuse of having a magazine to write is a slap in the face - the point of that opportunity was for him to set out his political stall. He could have just criticised the way politics worked and people would have agreed and left it at that; it's because he called for a revolution that people rightly are asking what would that entail.

Earlier I said it was a childish approach to revolution, and that's because of his attitude to violence:

"At this point I’d attended a few protests and I loved them. At a Liverpool dockers march, the chanting, the bristling, the rippedup paving stones and galloping police horses in Bono glasses flipped a switch in me. I felt connected, on a personal level I was excited by the chaos, a necessary component of transition, I like a bit of chaos however it’s delivered. The disruption of normalcy a vital step in any revolution. Even aesthetically, aside from the ideology, I beam at the spectacle of disruption, even when quite trivial."

Coming from a part of the world where we have riots and protests over political symbols and wouldn't mind a bit of normalcy, I'm not so comfortable with this "bit of a laugh" spin on things. In fact, it starts to sound as if it's the fact that politics bores him, and only this kind of politics entertains him enough to be worthy of the name - which is a very self-obsessed outlook to have on things.


He's no Grillo

While Grillo doesn't seek to be elected to the Italian parliament, his 5 Star Movement has entered parliament with a bang, winning 25.55% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies and 23.79% in the Senate elections. They're not in power, but they've made it much harder for a government to be formed (it's a Grand Coalition), and they are able to use this as a campaign for their core issues, including political reform. Grillo and the 5 Start Movement are "anti-politics" in the sense that they're against corrupt politicians and want to see politicians serve the people more, but they haven't rejected the ballot box as a means of change or political activism.

Taking parliamentary seats - and depriving mainstream parties of those seats - is probably the most disruptive political activism of all. It denies the system from ignoring your legitimacy, it disrupts or even prevents the exercise of power by the targeted elites, and it provides the institutional power an positions as a platform for change. As Brand has not formulated an alternative to democracy, I assume that he's not against democracy as a concept and doesn't have much of an argument against this except the "all politicians are corrupt liars" line. Until he comes up with an alternative, then he hasn't explained why people shouldn't use elections to try to change things, and he certainly hasn't put a good case forward for the institutional reasons why the current system could never work (just that these politicians are all in bed with big business).

In truth it would be harder for Brand to achieve the same results in the UK due to the first-past-the-post electoral system. But the point is that this kind of campaigning implies organisation, working with others and, well, lots of work. And I can't see Brand committing himself to that. Waiting for the inevitable revolution (while getting to talk about it in the media, naturally), seems to be more his style.


P.S. Humour and politics

Strangely Brand doesn't seem to get what a good mix of politics and humour could be. Humour spices up a political message if it shows up the opposing argument, highlights the ridiculousness of the current situation, or adds character. But there's also a danger that you just shoot yourself in the foot with it and show up your own message. Brand's own example is this:

"When Ali G, who had joined protesters attempting to prevent a forest being felled to make way for a road, shouted across the barricade, “You may take our trees, but you’ll never take our freedom,” I identified more with Baron Cohen’s amoral trickster than the stern activist who aggressively admonished him: “This is serious, you c***.”"

Humour to deflate, highlight and add character works in politics - humour painting your own side as hopeless kind of stops people from taking it seriously. I can see how an activist might be worried that a celebrity is just using them for a laugh, rather than actually being for that cause (especially if they turned up as a comedy character known for showing people up). It's the difference between having a laugh while doing something, and ending up being the laughingstock. And as a comedian, Brand really should get that...

Of Red Cards, Democracy and Subsidiarity

When UK Foreign Minister William Hague made his Koenigswinter speech in Germany last week, his Red Card idea caught the media's attention. Currently if enough national parliaments get together, they can give a draft EU bill a "Yellow Card", which sends it back to the Commission to reconsider it on the grounds of subsidiarity (on whether or not the substance of the draft law is appropriate to be decided on the EU level or not). The Red Card idea is essentially an extention of this, with national parliaments being able to block draft legislation for proportionality and subsidiarity reasons.

So is it a good or bad idea? If it means each individual national parliament being able to block EU legislation, then obviously it's ridiculous. You cannot have national vetos for everything - the Single Market Act introduced qualified majority voting to make the project realistic in the first place. Indeed, the poor quality of the legislation from that period, with Member States adding on caveats, exceptions and exemptions to nearly everything means that it's practically much better that the EU operates in a more open and parliamentary manner than before.

Going back to national vetos will increase the emphasis on backroom deals and lead to poor legislation drafted more by diplomats than democrats. But I don't think that's what Hague was going for (after all, all his talk of furthering the single market would flounder in the face of 28 national vetos); it's more likely that he meant that it would take a number of national parliaments to block draft legislation. I both agree and disagree with Hague on the Red Card idea.

Here's a bit of what he said in his speech:

"The European Parliament plays an important role in holding European institutions to account. It can play a very positive role, as it has along with Commissioner Damanaki in the current reforms to the Common Fisheries Policy. But if the European Parliament were the answer to the question of democratic legitimacy we wouldn’t still be asking it

I think instead that the solution lies in promoting the role of national institutions in European decision-making – because ultimately it is national governments and national parliaments that are accountable to our electorates. They are the democratic levers voters know how to pull. I want to offer some thoughts on how we might do that in a moment

This idea of the right balance between national and European decision-making, and respect for the concepts of proportionality and subsidiarity, brings me to my third key challenge. How can we build a European Union that acknowledges and respects the diversity of its Member States? One that recognises that our national approaches to and ambitions for the European Union may sometimes differ?

[...]

We should explore whether the yellow card provision could be strengthened or extended to give our parliaments the right to ask the Commission to start again where legislation is too intrusive, and fails the proportionality test. And we should think about going further still and consider a red card to give national parliaments the right to block legislation that need not be agreed at the European level."

First of all, I disagree with him that strengthening national parliaments is the only way that democratic legitimacy can be increased (bear with me, I will get to the "agree" point eventually). The Eurozone crisis is a key example of this, with political battles going on within national parliaments, but little pan-European structures in which to express these political differences, debate them, and come to a majority approach while honing the policy to take account of criticism, you end up with an incoherent approach.

For the Cypriot bail-out, it was a clash of national parliaments and national leaders. Much of the resentment can be found in the ad hoc nature of the bail-outs, and how the battles are fought along national battle-lines, with little opportunity to be heard on an equal stage, and with no equal and systemic policy that applies fairly to all. This feeling of political inequality, the lack of political leadership at a European level, and the inability to properly debate and influence the central policy is the fundamental basis of disillusionment with the EU (at least in the Eurozone).

You cannot fix the democratic issues with the EU by adding more institutional complexity and blocking mechanisms. To have political accountability, you need a political space that you can influence to create policy that is accountable to voters. The European Parliament and the Commission, if tied closely to the Parliament, would be the best place to start, because it would give a focal point for debating and making policy that can be influenced via direct elections (even with the Council and national parliaments having checks on them).

Because greater instituional complexity and more blocking mechanisms in the system really leads to greater inefficiency and an inability to reach decisions. If the EU cannot make decisions, then that would lead to even greater disillusionment. (And the next European elections can be a good starting point for debating and influencing the big issues with the EU today - see this article by Simon Hix and Christophe Crombez).


That said, increasing the power of the national parliaments can increase democratic legitimacy in the EU when it comes to "...build[ing] a European Union that acknowledges and respects the diversity of its Member States...". At the moment subsidiarity is hard to define - not the idea that power should be exercised as closely to people as possible, but the day-to-day practice of it. The Yellow Card system was a great idea, but it needs reform (a longer time period for national parliaments to object, and national parliaments need to organise greater communication between them to make better use of the procedure).

A "Red Card" system - with, say, a majority or qualified majority of national parliaments being able to block draft legislation - could be a good way of developing a culture of subsidiarity. When the Commission analyses draft laws for subsidiarity and proportionality, it considers the arguments, but there isn't a clear and objective answer to the question, and nor can subsidiarity be effectively defined in a day-to-day way by the courts. There needs to be a political culture of subsidiarity, based on an understanding between national parliaments (and citizens) and the Commission (and the rest of the Union legislature) about what should be done at the EU level and what should be done at a national or more local level. This can really only be done through political debate and contest, and a Red Card system could give national parliaments the tools to start marking that space.

Of course there will be clashes and debates between the EU institutions and the Member States/national parliaments over this - that's the point! But it's a more effective way of building an accepted idea of subsidiarity and decentralisation in the EU over time than relegating the question to impact assessments and wonkish policy documents.


(As a side-note, here's a graphic explaining how EU laws are made [via Kosmopolit]).

Irish President Michael D Higgin's address to the European Parliament

Today President Higgins of Ireland addressed the European Parliament on the Union and citizenship. (The President of Ireland is a ceremonial head of state that is directly elected, and, sadly, it is difficult to imagine a head of government in Europe giving such a speech today).

I recommend the speech, but to quote a few extracts:

"[T]he inspiration and the achievements of the founders of the European Union we inherit as legacy cannot be taken for granted. Today, citizens in Europe are threatened with an unconscious drift to disharmony, a loss of social cohesion, a recurrence of racism and an increasing deficit of democratic accountability in some decision making of an economic and fiscal kind. These threatening clouds hang over a Europe that in more hopeful times, chose to base its anthem, rather than on anything contemporary, on Friedrich Schiller’s poem ‘Ode to Joy’ and its musical setting by Ludwig Van Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony.

Parliaments do matter and must continue to matter. Centuries of effort have been invested by European citizens in securing the vote. It is to parliament citizens look for accountability, for strategic alternatives. If national parliaments, if the European Parliament, were to lose the capacity to deliver accountability where else might it be found? Is there an alternative that can meet the requirements of a deliberative democracy? I believe not and parliaments must draw on the resources of experience, of inherited intellectual capacity, in all its diversity and above all, from the best of contemporary intellectual work in a pluralist way.

[...]

We cannot, however, ignore the fact that European citizens are suffering the consequences of actions and opinions of bodies such as rating agencies, which, unlike Parliaments, are unaccountable. Many of our citizens in Europe regard the response to the crisis in their lives as disparate, sometimes delayed, not equal to the urgency of the task and showing insufficient solidarity with them in their threatened or actual economic circumstances.

They feel that in general terms the economic narrative of recent years has been driven by dry technical concerns; for example, by calculations that are abstract and not drawn from real problems, geared primarily by a consideration of the impact of such measures on speculative markets, rather than driven by sufficient compassion and empathy with the predicament of European citizens who are members of a union, and for whom all of the resources of Europe’s capacity, political, social, economic and intellectual might have been drawn on, driven by the binding moral spirit of a union.

[...]

Instead of any discourse that might define the European Union as simply an economic space of contestation between the strong and the weak, our citizens yearn for the language of solidarity, the commitment to cohesion, for a generous inclusive rhetoric that is appropriate to an evolving political union that is anxious to reach a future of peace, prosperity, inclusion, and in a sustainable way.

This is a serious challenge, not least because if we were to fail we run the risk of an economic crisis leading to a crisis of legitimacy for the Union. A Union that in its founding treaties is fundamentally founded on values – respect for personal dignity; freedom; democracy; equality; the rule of law and respect for human rights."

European Citizens' Initiative and Let Me Vote!

At the start of the month the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) turned one year old. The Commission has claimed it a success - Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič noted that:

"The Commission has received requests for the registration of 25 proposed citizens' initiatives, of which 16 initiatives were registered; two of these have since been withdrawn which means that we currently have 14 ongoing initiatives. The 8 initiatives that were refused did not meet the condition for registration in that they covered areas that fall outside the powers of the Commission. One request for registration is still under analysis.

Contrary to initial concerns, no – to speak with the language of the ECI Regulation – "abusive, frivolous or vexatious" ECIs have been submitted."

However the experiences of the Right2Water campaign may highlight the difficulties of running such campaigns under the "geographical balance" criteria and a variety of national rules on signature collection. As the Commissioner noted:

"So far, just one initiative, Right2Water, has managed to reach the goal of one million signatures – and well within a year, clear indication that it can be achieved with the right support and marketing. They are still collecting signatures, however, because they still need to meet the geographical balance required by the ECI regulation, and I wish them well with also reaching this target in due course."

Justin Stares has written over at Public Service Europe about the difficulties Right2Water faced:

"In Belgium, they have to give their date and place of birth plus their full address - meaning they have to write down their home country twice. If an individual fails to do so on the grounds that repetition must surely be redundant, there is a chance his or her signature will be invalidated. "If the authorities are very strict when checking our signatures then we can throw away half of them," says Sanchez. "If you write Stoke instead of Stoke-on-Trent they could say no, but there is pressure on the commission to be flexible." Requirements should be standardised across the EU, he says.

Country signature thresholds are based on a formula that produces sometimes bizarre if not outright ridiculous results: around 9,000 signatures are required in both Lithuania and Denmark, despite Denmark having a much larger population."

I'd recommend you read the full article.

The ECI legislation will be up for review in two years time. Despite the problems with the ECI, I hope people will keep campaigning and putting pressure on the Commission and European Parliament to consider their proposals. Without the pressure and voices of the campaigners, it may be difficult to push for reform of the problems with the system when the review is launched.


Stephen Spillane has highlighted on of the ECIs currently collecting signatures, Let Me Vote! This ECI is a campaign for EU citizens to be given the right to vote in the national elections of the Member State that they are resident in, giving them a voice in the policies of the country where they pay their taxes. Stephen will be looking at other ECIs over the next while too.

Return of the Currency Commissioner?

The Commission has just launched a blueprint for Economic and Monetary Union (PDF). I haven't had time to read it yet, but from the EUObserver article, it looks like the idea of a Currency Commissioner has returned:

"This time frame would also see "further budgetary coordination (including the possibility to require amendments to national budgets or to veto them)," says the paper.

[...]

Other steps to consider would be giving "clear competence for the EU level to harmonise national budgetary laws and to have recourse to the Court of Justice in case of non-compliance." Final steps to full economic and monetary union would only be taken in the "longer term" and would require "major treaty reform" suggests the paper.

This would likely include a possibly large central budget with stabilisers – meaning money would be transferred to member states in trouble.

“As a final destination it would involve a political union with a central budget as its own fiscal capacity and a means of imposing budgetary and economic decisions on its members.”"

Back in October Germany's Finance Minister, Schaeuble came up with the idea of a currency commissioner that would be able to veto national budgets. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now - federalism does not mean this sort of centralisation. As I wrote last month:

"You cannot "depoliticise" the fundamental matter of national budgets, because you cannot pretend that budgets and economic issues are simply matters of technical wizardry, with expert options being implemented for desired outcomes - desired outcomes are political matters, and deserve a meaningful airing in a publically accountable body: the national parliament. While there is an argument for certain budgetary contraints on Eurozone Member States to ensure the functioning of the common currency - in exchange for solidarity between Member States, it should be stressed - at the end of the day Member States should be able to set their own budgets.

Rather than trying to come up with tighter and more rigid and better enforced rules for the Eurozone, we should be working to divorce banks from the sovereigns to make banking a European matter within the Eurozone, and creating a system where Member States can go bankrupt, without endangering the system and with some support for recovery after bankruptcy. A flexible and politically accountable system would work much better than Schaeuble's approach - there needs to be political accountability for national budgets at the national level, and at the European level for those elements of European solidarity."

This idea should be killed off, and killed off quickly.

Blairite Europe

Yesterday former British PM Tony Blair made his big speech on Britain and the EU at the Business for New Europe event. You can read the speech in full here. So after writing at length about Labour and the EU on Monday, is there anything in the Blairite vision of the EU?


Eurocrisis

On the Eurocrisis, I partly agree with him.

"...the flagship policy of Europe is listing dangerously. As I have said before, to save it, I believe, requires a kind of ‘Grand Bargain’ approach rather than incremental steps, in which Germany agrees, effectively, to some form of mutualisation of debt; the debtor countries carry out profound structural reform; and the ECB stands fully behind the bargain. There are some signs this may happen. But even if it does, Europe will suffer for some time to come."

There have been calls for some form of debt mutualisation for a while now (and some Parliamentary amendments pushing for it), and it's hard to see how the current bailouts - which in Greece's case have led to the country's debt ballooning to 190% GDP rather than falling - actually help solve the fundamental problems of the Eurozone rather than  helping the balance sheets of creditors.


Narrative

Blair pushed for a change in the narrative away from peace towards power:

"...the truth is the rationale for Europe today is stronger not weaker than it was back 66 years ago when the project began. But it is different. Then the rationale was peace. Today it is power. Then it was about a continent ravaged by war in which Germany had been the aggressor and Britain the victor. Today it is about a world in which global geo-politics is undergoing its biggest change for centuries. Power is shifting West to East. China has emerged, with its economy opening up, one which will grow eventually to be the world’s largest. Its population is three times that of the whole of the EU. India has over a billion people. Brazil is two times the size of the largest European country, Indonesia three times and there are a host of countries including Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and Egypt larger today than any single EU nation.

What is more, as technology and capital become globally mobile, in time there will be a re-alignment of GDP and population i.e. the larger your population, the bigger your economy. The USA remains extraordinarily strong, its military easily the largest and best equipped but the time when it has been the world’s only superpower, is passing."

The speech was clearly intended as an argument for Britain's membership of the EU, and as an attack on Euroscepticism in the UK, so the speech doesn't offer much in terms of the direction that Britain should go within the EU. He restated the case for membership based on economic advantage and global power. In a sense I agree - on Monday I was arguing that collective European decision-making should give the people and the Member States more opportunity to decide their economic and social future - but Blair's vision is almost completely dominated by the terms of international power relations.

It's a vision with some truth to it, but little appeal. Most Britons aren't as concerned with Britain's global position as Blair is - indeed, Blair's premiership isn't exactly an encouragement for British global involvement. The message, without much on sharing the economic and social power democratically among citizens, and the messenger, who comes across as being more concerned with the power of great office-holders than anything else, does not make a convincing narrative and is not really one that the left should or could adopt.


Euroscepticism

If it doesn't quite live up to being a bankable European narrative, it is good to have a public figure talk publicly about the advantages of EU membership, although many pro-Europeans on the left, myself included, will not enthusiastically welcome a Blairite vision of Europe. When it comes to the EU, there needs to be a place for political families of the right, left and centre. The pro-European voices from these families will inevitably conflict, but the Eurosceptic voices from the same families will have their own arguments and will need to be engaged with on their own terms. Yesterday Blair couched his argument in terms of the national interest, and the basic pro-European argument may need to be made there, but it's limited in providing a narrative that goes beyond the balance sheet approach.


Tony Blair for president?

There's been some speculation about whether Blair still wants to get a position in the EU, and he launched a Twitter account yesterday dedicated to his views and work on Europe. (There was also an unconnected website (mockingly) advocating him for the European Council presidency). I wasn't a fan of the idea the first time 'round...

UK Labour and the EU

In Britain, Labour is in a curious spot. After it allied with Eurosceptic Tory rebels to defeat the government on a non-binding motion on the EU budget, Labour Leader Ed Miliband tried to outline a sort of pro-European realism (interview with The Telegraph here), which has managed to convince neither the Eurosceptic Telegraph or pro-European Jon Worth. Jon Worth argues:

"Would Labour dare say it has a “hard-headed” approach to schools or hospitals? No it would not, because being seen to be harsh on such issues is at odds with the values of the party, the values that we are all better off if we work together to achieve collective goals.

Labour’s rhetoric should be that to achieve what we need to achieve in the UK, we also need the European Union. An unrestrained free market, with Britain outside the EU, would mean less social protection, more of a race to the bottom on tax, harsher conditions for workers. The social systems of countries across the European Union should be an inspiration for the UK. Labour has made noises saying the German social model is to be admired; the means to achieve it is at EU level."

Leaving aside the tactical issues with Labour trying to present itself as an option for those who want to be tough on the EU (see Jon's post for more), the central issue for Labour when it comes to the EU is that it finds it almost impossible to articulate a centre-left vision on Europe. Occasionally there are noises on the left that leaving the EU would lead to a more deregulated (and unequal) Britain, with less economic and political clout. But such a basic idea is hard to express, since the major narrative in Britain on the EU is of the internal market as an indisputably good, but fundamentally technical, arrangement that has been cluttered up by the EU "extras" of social, environmental and home affairs policy. (I have previously argued that as the trade-off for opening up and giving up national controls, Member States projected parts of their social contract [parental leave, etc] on to the European level to balance the socially negative parts of market liberalisation out, as a kind of quasi-European Social Contract).

Labour, while realising that the internal market is political when it comes to employment rights and the social impact of competition across Member States, mainly accepts this narrative - at least in general - and only occasionally defends established benefits won at the European level. This basically means that Labour agrees that the EU is just an intergovernmental deal-making machine, but the UK happens to come out of the cost-benefit analysis a bit better than the right thinks. This argument isn't a credible position because it doesn't deal with Euroscepticism either in general or on the left - that the EU goes too far in the technocratic imposition of free-market policy - and it says nothing of the issues of democratic deficit or even suggest a vision for the reform.

Also, the idea that the EU's credibility problem could be solved with a few reforms - and vague and undefined reforms at that, because apparently just demonstrating the ability of the UK win any reform will prove the EU's credibility - is a patently tokenistic approach. It focuses too much on bringing trophies back from EU summits: a short-term and shallow way of conducting politics that will not make a convincing EU policy.

So what should Labour do? It may seem academic at first, but Labour needs to look at it's values, and build up from there. It needs to say why, from a centre-left perspective, (a) a European level of governance is a good thing to be a part of, and (b) what participating in that means in terms of reforming the EU, and what Labour stands for in the EU.


A Social Democratic/Labour vision for Europe

I've already written about the failings of the intergovernmental argument for the EU - the basic peace argument and a simple cost-benefit analysis of membership doesn't answer the pressing questions of representation and participation. Earlier this month, the Guardian/Observer outlined a harsh anti-vision to parallel that of the Eurosceptic press in Britain: that withdrawal will mean less economic sovereignty and more deregulation - essentially that the UK will have less power to steer itself through the global economy. A more positive vision from the centre-left would be to articulate a vision where participation in the EU enhances not just the UK's position as a Member State, but allows the people to participate in economic decision-making to a greater degree than if the UK wasn't a member. Implicit in the concern on the left that withdrawal will lead to deregulation and rising inequality is that the EU, by building the richest market in the world, gives the UK a share in the economic power needed to maintain its social contract.

When it comes to the internal market, it should not just be accepted that the internal market is a good technocratic arrangement - the left doesn't think that the market at home is an unalloyed good or that it's unpolitical, so why should it be accepted on the European level? The idea of the internal market not just being about free markets, but fair markets would reconnect Labour's Europe policy with its values, and give it something to stand for during the European elections. At the moment, Labour can hardly be said to be giving people a choice at elections, or thinking much about why it wants seats in the European Parliament at all. What connection does budget cuts on a European level have with Labour's domestic mantra that more investment in the economy is needed? What connection does Labour's rejection of a European Financial Transaction Tax have with its position on the financial sector? What's Labour's position in the Socialists and Democrats Group in the EP compared to the Tories' ECR on the internal market?

This also speaks to the type of reforms that would matter at the EU. Trophies won at EU summits have a short political shelf-life and exclude people from power, rather than opening up the EU to democratic participation. It may be argued that being part of the EU gives the UK more influence, but what use is that to people if the power is wielded more by diplomats than democrats? The national interest does not define everyone, and people should be able to participate in the opportunities that pro-Europeans argue being a member opens up for the Member States. Reconnecting Europe policy with centre-left values would link up questions of economic regulation, social justice and democratic representation and participation in a way that lends itself more to a credible and coherent vision.


Labour and the EU

Of course, my opinions on the left and Europe are far from representative of the UK Labour party, so you couldn't just turn Labour around into advocating that the EU becomes more democratic and less intergovernmental. But looking again at Labour's values when it comes to market regulation and social justice should be the starting point when formulating its position on the EU. It needs to ask itself if it thinks that being part of the EU means that the UK is more able to construct the kind of social and economic future that Labour would be in favour of,* and what kind of future does Labour want to articulate.

This doesn't mean that Labour politicians should ramble on about Labour values and the EU any time it comes up - this is more about knowing where you're coming from so you can be credible in where you're going. For example, when employment rights and the EU comes up, Labour could talk about being for the internal market, but that it needs to be fair (e.g. protect parental leave across the EU so a minimum standard cannot be undercut), and that the rights of all workers should be protected. Labour could also say how they want the internal market to be more effective or fairer, and contrast its position with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. (Having examples of what Labour is doing in the European Parliament would be a help too).

Being able to say what you're for and what you want to change is, obviously, an essential part of being a political party. If Labour can't say what it's for based on its claimed values, then it shouldn't draw attention to its lack of ideas on Europe.

*The right could do just as well politically in the EU, however.


Postscript: UK Europhiles

Jon Worth also made a good argument about the bad position of UK Europhiles, though I disagreed with him on having a "let a thousand flowers bloom" approach to winning referendums:

"I don’t think the “letting a thousand flowers bloom” model is a viable one for a pro-[anything] side in a referendum. A strong case – and persuasive narrative – needs to be built around the rationale for the EU, single market, etc., if it’s to win support. Pick and mix when challenging the status quo (which is the UK’s mindset towards the EU no matter how established the EU institutions may be) will not work. Personally the lesson I’ve learnt from referendums in Ireland is that political parties are simply not designed to fight them properly, and that civil society groups win referendums."

While I stick to that, if Labour, and other pro-Europeans on the right and centre, articulated their own narratives for why EU membership is good, that would strengthen the pro-European position. It would supplement the core argument by giving people of different political backgrounds a path to buy in to the core argument. However, for a referendum, the core argument of a campaign for something would need to be pretty coherent for it to win.

The Politics of Appointing Borg

The European Parliament has to decide whether or not to confirm Tonio Borg as the new Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy after John Dalli was controversially brought down by an OLAF investigation. Borg has met with opposition in the EP for his conservative views, particularly on divorce, abortion and cohabiting couples. The Greens, ALDE, United Left and Socialists and Democrats have concerns over Borg suitability and might reject him. Although Borg performed well in last week's hearing, saying that he will stick within the treaties and Charter of Fundamental Rights, these concerns remain, and the Parliament has released a check-list for consenting to his appointment:

"[Borg] should publicly commit to the following:

• The delivery of the legislative proposal on tobacco products by January 2013;
• The adoption of legislative proposals on animal cloning and novel food by mid-2013;
• The full respect of the March 2013 deadline for the ban of animal testing for cosmetics;
• Better enforcement of EU law on animal transport;
• Full respect of the EU Charter on Fundamental rights, in particular of Article 21, as well as of EU anti-discrimination legislation and case-law;
• Recognising the innate dignity of all citizens of the EU, regardless of their sexual orientations, actively working to address health inequalities and to acting against stigmatisation of people with HIV and AIDS;
• Actively supporting EU policies with regard to women’s rights."

There seems to be some confusion over the concerns these political groups have over Borg's appointment and  their connection to his prospective portfolio. While the battle over values echoes that of Rocco Buttiglione's rejection, the wider ideological battle is less obvious because the EP isn't electing the Commission en bloc, but is deciding on a replacement Commissioner, so the debate within the EP has been a bit more focused on the specific portfolio, so critics have been linking his conservatives views to the area of health, despite the EU's lack of power in this area. As Martin Holterman writes in his great article on how political Commissioner appointments could/should be:

"Judging, for example, from the headline of this opinion article on Public Service Europe, Mr. Borg’s critics seem to consider their objections to concern his “suitability” for the Health and Consumer Affairs portfolio in particular. They are not worried about the ideological balance of power in the College of Commissioners, and they are not even necessarily worried about ideology in general, but rather they seem to argue that his ideology will get in the way of his job performance in concrete ways. The author of this opinion article,Monika Kosiñska from the the European Public Health Alliance, for example, lists the candidate’s views on abortion, homosexuality and immigration as being particularly problematic. This is particularly curious because I’m not entirely sure how the Health and Consumer Affairs portfolio touches on these fields."

But while the views of the candidate and his or her specific competence are important, the general ideological  views of the candidate and the political make-up of the Commission does matter and is an important political issue. Commissioners vote on draft proposals before they are put to the Council and the Parliament, so the political viewpoints of each Commissioner matters for all areas of Commission policy, not just his or her own portfolio. Just this week Commissioner Reding introduced a watered-down version of her boardroom quotas law - watered down due to opposition that included fellow Commissioners who could vote to block the proposal.

This collective responsibility of the College of Commissioners means that its political make-up is a valid issue for the Parliament in deciding on new Commissioners. The fact that respect for women's rights is included on the list, and that the Commission is putting forward draft legislation in this area, shows that the ideology of the candidate is a relevant and live issue, and MEPs in the centre-ground and on the left should make it clear that the Commission should reflect the political make-up of the Parliament (or, better yet, the majority in Parliament). How will he influence policies in the areas of employment, social affairs, or justice and home affairs? For the political groups on the left, they should not vote for a candidate who holds such emphatically opposing political views unless something is won by way of coalition or concession.

Police Commissioner Elections and Devolution

Yesterday I voted in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales. The Police and Crime Commissioners will take over the role of the police authorities, through which local council members and independent members. The PCCs will control the budget of the police force and be able to hire/fire the chief constable. They will also set local policing priorities.

The idea for PCCs was presumably partly inspired by the de facto firing of chief constable Ian Blair in London by London mayor Boris Johnson, and the desire to bring the police under local democratic control. While I think there should be democratic oversight of the police, it's wrong to politicise policing so directly - it would be better for democratically elected councils with several responsibilities to hold the police accountable rather than a directly elected individual to do the job.

The campaign hasn't grabbed the national imagination - or the local for that matter - and in general the candidates have stressed that policing will stay independent, so there hasn't been the politicisation of policing that opponents to the plan, like me, feared. But with the powers of the office limited to setting the overall vision of the police, deciding on the chief constable, and making budgetary decisions where the PCC has little control beyond allocating the resources given to him/her, in the future the PCCs are likely going to turn into super-powered elected lobbyists for their policing region, lobbying for more money for more police. To some extent this has happened with the position of London Mayor, so it seems more likely to happen to this smaller office.

It would be better for local democracy to decide on the size of the area that's best suited to bringing decision-making in general closer to people without it being too far removed. If bigger local councils or regional assemblies could decide on matters such as policing and also have some control over the purse strings, then it would give people more control and responsibility over how to approach policing locally. This could be part of a more general devolution of power locally, though this runs up against the unpopularity of regionalisation in England.

Empowering local democracy is a good aim, and some lobbying for the local area is a good thing - after all, MPs are supposed to represent their constituency in the national debate on issues and bat for it - but it needs to have some rational structure that allows people to engage fully with what the priorities across several local issues should be. Proper devolution would create bodies big enough to take on responsibility for their areas and have the power to make substantive decisions, without being too far removed (a tough balance). This would open up a more engaged local debate and boost turnout, rather than creating a English and Welsh political landscape that's littered with elected offices of varying sizes with little rhyme or reason as to how they join up to make streamlined, effective and accountable local government.

Trichet's Political Union

Former ECB President Jean Claude Trichet has written a bit about the kind of political and economic union he'd like to see:

"[After considering the Fiscal Stability Treaty and moves towards banking union:]

But none of this is enough. Instead of imposing fines on countries that transgress rules and ignore recommendations, as the SGP was supposed to do, the European Commission, the European Council, and – this is essential – the European Parliament should decide directly on measures to be immediately implemented in the country concerned. Fiscal and certain other economic policies should be subject to activation of a eurozone “federation by exception.”

The idea that sharing a single currency also means accepting limitations on fiscal sovereignty is not new. A “federation by exception” merely draws the logical consequences from the ineffectiveness of the fines envisaged by the SGP, and is fully consistent with the concept of subsidiarity that has been applied since the SGP’s introduction: as long as national economic policy complies with the framework, there are no sanctions.

Perhaps the most important element of the “federation by exception” would be its strong democratic anchor. Its activation would be subject to a fully democratic decision-making process, with clear political accountability. More precisely, decisions to implement measures proposed by the Commission and already approved by the Council would require a majority vote by the European Parliament – that is, those representatives elected from the EU’s eurozone members.

In such exceptional circumstances, the parliament of the country concerned should have the opportunity to explain to the European Parliament why it could not implement the recommendations proposed, while the European Parliament could explain why the eurozone’s stability and prosperity are at stake. But the final word would belong to the European Parliament.

In the past, I have suggested establishing a eurozone finance ministry, which would be responsible for activating economic and fiscal federation when and where necessary, and for managing new crisis-management tools like the European Stability Mechanism. It would also be responsible for overseeing the banking union, and it would represent the eurozone in all international financial institutions and informal groupings.

But, most important, “federation by exception” would ultimately cease to be an exception. The finance minister would be a member of the EU’s future executive branch, together with the other ministers responsible for other federal departments."

This turns the idea of the democratic deficit on its head. The problem of the EU has been that it needs to be made more democratic and accountable to citizens, and that national electoral mandates have not provided that democratic legitimacy. There may be a need for a proper economic union to create a sustainable Eurozone, but if there needs to be some common policies, they should be, well, common policies rather than a selective intrusion into Member States. The kind of political union proposed by Trichet would bring a democratic deficit into Member States: those elected on a European mandate should make decisions on common European policy and not on national policy.

While economic union means that common policies are set, it is up to the Member States to decide for themselves on their economic policies. The aim of a common European economic policy is for the Eurozone to work as a currency area, not for the European institutions to set national policies in detail. So while by being part of the Eurozone Member States have to act in the common interest of the Euro so it isn't threatened or destabilised, it's up to the Member States to decide on their economic policies and how they will invest and pay down debt. Not only is Trichet's plan politically unacceptable, but it wouldn't work - if the national parliament is unable to meet the conditions of loans or of Eurozone membership, then it's because there isn't the political will within the Member State to take the necessary actions and drafting in another elected body to take those decisions won't be effective either, since it would lack democratic legitimacy and since the national administration is of course under the control of the national parliament and other state institions.

It takes a pretty strange concept of subsidiarity to propose the European Parliament standing in for the national parliament...

Europarty Congress Season and a Third Term for Barroso

There have been some comments in favour of Barroso winnning a third term as Commission President. It's interesting that the comments come from Reding, who was considered one of the front-runners for the race in 2014. However it's not an idea I'd warm to exactly - I'm not the biggest fan of Barroso - but it does raise an important question for the European conference season: how will the Europarties approach the next European elections and the election of the next Commission President?

The Commission President is nominated by the European Council (by Qualified Majority Voting), but it's the European Parliament that elects the Commission President, and later the President elect's nominated College of Commissioners. Since the Parliament elects the Commission, the European Council nominates a candidate from the same Europarty as the one that won the election. The European People's Party endorsed Barroso for the presidency in 2009, and the Party of European Socialists failed to make any nomination so the presidency wasn't an election issue. The centre-left PES governments of the UK, Spain and Portugal backed Barroso, preventing a common PES candidate, but the PES has committed itself to picking a candidate for the post in the future, and will hold primaries for deciding its candidate. The vote adopting these procedures will take place during its September Congress:

"The European Socialist Party is due to vote to change its party statute on 29 September. The plan is to have national parties put forward a candidate for commission president. The final socialist nominee is then expected to be unveiled in February 2014, just ahead of the June elections"

EUObserver reports that ELDR, the liberal Europarty, also intends to consider procedures for selecting a candidate:

""We will be making a recommendation to our party congress this autumn on what the procedure should be for the selection of a liberal candidate for the president of the commission. And we would see that process taking place in the autumn of next year," Graham Watson, leader of the European Liberals, told this website.

He said it is the first time the party has ever tried to set down rules for the procedure. Previously names "sort of emerged" from a "conclave of liberal leaders."

The European People's Party is likely to discuss the possibility of candidate selection as part of its election strategy at its conference.

Being able to vote for a policy platform and for candidates for the Commission presidency is essential if the EU is to become more democratic and open. This Congress season will be an important early test to gauge the commitment - and ability - of the Europarties to present alternatives when it comes to election time. It's not enough to blame the Commission and the Member States from the Parliament Chamber: Europarties have to be able to present and fight for alternatives if they're to pass themselves off as political parties.

The PES Congress will take place at the end of the month in Brussels, the EPP's will be held in October in Bucharest, and the ELDR Congress will be held in early November in Dublin.

Excessive Deficit Regulation

The Excessive Deficit Regulation (PDF) builds on the six-pack legislation’s provisions on budgetary surveillance.

The Regulation

The Regulation would establish a common budgetary timeline (mid-term budgetary framework to be published by 15^th April, draft budget laws published by 15^th October, and budget laws should be adopted by 31^st December), and require the creation of national independent fiscal councils for monitoring the implementation of national fiscal rules for achieving budget balance.

For budget monitoring, the relevant information is (simplified list taken from Article 5(3)):

(a)    The targeted budget balance as a percentage of GDP;

(b)   The projections at unchanged policies for expenditure and revenue as a percentage of GDP;

(c)    Targeted expenditure and revenue as a percentage of GDP;

(d)   A detailed description of measures to be included in the budget to bridge the gap between the targets in (b) and (c);

(e)   The main assumptions about expected economic developments and important economic variables, based on independent macroeconomic growth forecast;

(f)     Any additional indications on how recommendations to the Member State will be met.

The Commission will give its opinion on the draft budgetary laws by 30^th November, and national parliaments can require a Commission presentation to them. There will also be an overall assessment for the Eurozone.

When a Member State is under the excessive deficit procedure it falls under closer budgetary scrutiny, with regular reports to the Commission on the execution of the budget on the general government and sub-sector levels. Under Article 7(6), the Commission can require a Member State to carry out and report on a comprehensive independent audit of its accounts and provide additional information on its progress on the excessive deficit. The Regulation would increase the Commission’s power in monitoring Member States’ budgets and involvement in budgets where there is an excessive deficit procedure in force.

European Parliament Report.

For the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, Elisa Ferreira (S&D) drafted the report for the Parliament’s response at first reading. The report was endorsed in Committee by 18 to 12, with 14 abstentions, and in plenary by 501 to 138, with 36 abstentions. The report was endorsed by an EPP-S&D-ALDE-Greens/EFA coalition.

The report submits 81 amendments that will be the Parliament’s starting negotiating point with the Member States in the Council. The main changes are:

- Greater reference to employment and social partners to be added to the recitals;

- It would add (non-binding) calls for a Financial Transaction Tax and a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base to the recitals;

- Specifies that the Regulation does not affect wage formation or collective agreements;

- Would define “particularly serious not compliance” as a deviation of 1% GDP in one year or an average of 0.5% GDP each year for two years from the budgetary objective if there are no exceptional circumstances;

- Gives some more flexibility with the deadlines;

- “Expected economic developments” will include an estimation of the assumed macroeconomic multiplier effects (so stimulus packages can be taken into account);

- Specifies that the Commission’s power to specify content of draft budgetary plans is through delegated acts, which brings it under closer control and scrutiny by the Parliament and Council;

- The European Parliament can also require that the Commission present its budgetary plans to it and the relevant EP Committee, as well as the Eurogroup, will discuss the Commission’s opinion on national budgetary plans and the budgetary situation in the Eurozone. The Commission may update its opinions in the light of these discussions;

- Overall assessments of the Eurozone shall also include stress tests that provide “an indication of the risks to public finance sustainability in the event of adverse financial or budgetary developments.”

- The requirement of Member states to report debt issuance to the Commission and the Eurogroup will be included;

- The Commission will be required to present a report on a roadmap towards Eurozone Stability bonds and present a proposal for a Eurozone sustainable growth instrument aiming at mobilising approx. 1% GDP per year over 10 years, including an increase in EIB capital and project bonds, to be invested in European infrastructure, science and technology;

- Eurozone Member States may agree an annual coordinated public debt issuance framework (this is for a future proposal, however);

- A European Redemption Fund shall be established based on joint liability and strict conditionality for 25 years (after which it will be wound up), covering debt over 60% GDP of non-assistance programme Eurozone Member States on a roll-over period of 5 years. There will also be a fiscal consolidation strategy and a structural reform agenda. The ERF’s day-to-day management will be under the Commission following a regulation by the EP and Council;

- Under the excessive deficit procedure, the relevant Member State will present its national plan, including areas of European Added Value, such as EIB credit lines;

- The Commission shall present a report, and possibly a proposal, on a European Debt Authority to the Parliament and Council that would be responsible for managing and coordinating all issues relating to the annual debt issuance plan of the Member States.

Thoughts

The report is clearly very ambitious, particularly inserting the creation of a European Redemption Fund, likely as a way of aiding Italy and Spain. The Parliament is keen to introduce a greater scope of variables to the process and to highlight the importance of social partners, respect for wages and collective agreements, and European solidarity through national plans indicating EIB and other economic help. It’s also clear that the Parliament is using this opportunity to push its ideas on to the agenda and to overcome being overshadowed by the European Council summitry that’s dominated the past 2-3 years of crisis. The Parliament has also tried to introduce more democratic and parliamentary controls over the Commission’s power, especially in ensuring the oversight of its delegated powers by the Parliament and Council. By reserving a right to demand Commission reports and the right of debate, the Parliament tried to ensure that all these plans are open to political debate and discussion.

Still, the need for the Parliament to cram requirements for further reports and debates on further aspects of Eurozone reform highlights how one-dimensional the current “fiscal union” is. The more radical elements are sure to be thrown out or heavily watered down – I don’t expect to see the redemption fund survive negotiations with the Council – but there are some grounded ideas for improving the content of reporting, planning, and of improving democratic oversight.

Amartya Sen: Democracy, Austerity and Social Justice in Europe

I came across this interesting article by Amartya Sen via the CELS: "What happened to Europe?" It's a very broad article, but covers the connection between politics (and democracy) and austerity, social justice and European integration. An extract:

"That austerity is a counterproductive economic policy in a situation of economic recession can be seen, rightly, as a “Keynesian critique.” Keynes did argue—and persuasively—that to cut public expenditure when an economy has unused productive capacity as well as unemployment owing to a deficiency of effective demand would tend to have the effect of slowing down the economy further and increasing—rather than decreasing—unemployment. Keynes certainly deserves much credit for making that rather basic point clear even to policymakers, irrespective of their politics, and he also provided what I would call a sketch of a theory of explaining how all this can be nicely captured within a general understanding of economic interdependences between different activities (emphasizing in particular the fact that someone’s expenditure is another person’s income). I am certainly supportive of this Keynesian argument, and also of Paul Krugman’s efforts in cogently developing and propagating this important perspective, and in questioning the policy of massive austerity in Europe. 

But I would also argue that the unsuitability of the policy of austerity is only partly due to Keynesian reasons. Where we have to go well beyond Keynes is in asking what public expenditure is for—other than for just strengthening effective demand, no matter what its content. As it happens, European resistance to savage cuts in public services and to indiscriminate austerity is not based only, or primarily, on Keynesian reasoning. The resistance is based also on a constructive point about the importance of public services—a perspective that is of great economic as well as political interest in Europe.

THERE IS A CENTRAL ISSUE of social justice involved here—that of reducing rather than enhancing injustice. The public services are valued for what they actually provide to people, especially to vulnerable people, and this is something for which Europe had fought. Savage cuts in these services undermine what had emerged as a social commitment in Europe at the end of World War II, which led to the birth of the welfare state and the national health services in a period of rapid social change in the continent, setting a great example of public responsibility from which the rest of the world—from East Asia to Latin America—would learn.

In order to understand the inadequacy of Keynes as a guide to solving the European economic crisis, we have to ask: what kind of an economist was Keynes in terms of his vision of a good society? Keynes did say—famously, and accurately enough—that paying laborers to dig holes and then to fill them up can be a very good thing, because of its impact on increasing effective demand to combat a recession or a depression. This is fine as far as it goes, but Keynes had extremely little to say on what social commitments a state should have—what public expenditure should be for, other than for just strengthening market demand through state intervention."

 And:

"[...]

If we add to this economic argument the long-term concern in Europe about some form of social justice and the more immediate political worry about the undermining of the European sense of solidarity, we can see what a disaster the recent European financial policies have been. The case for resisting the savage cuts in public services can hardly be ignored. This is not because the commitment to social justice must always be paramount, but surely it must be a serious concern that cannot simply be discarded by bankers and financial leaders. There is, of course, always a need for rational scrutiny and examination of what a country can afford and what it cannot—taking into account all the relevant factors, including the changing age distribution of the population. But this is not the same question as checking what a country can afford with inefficient economic and financial management, with fuzzy thinking on exchange rates and market demands and economic competitiveness."

The first two pages are a bit of European integration history, and the substantive argument really gets going from page 3 onwards.

A much needed referendum debate

Sigmund Gabriel of the German opposition SPD (PES) has called for Eurobonds as a necessary part of the solution to the Eurozone crisis, and for the referendum required to permit German participation. Although Gabriel is just one of the Troika that heads the SPD (Steinbrueck and Steinmeier are the other two), the - increasingly frequent - judgments from the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe have made it clear that further integration may require a referendum. So there has been a bit of a debate lately on when and how a referendum should be held over Europe - notably coming from the Finance Minister.

The German Constitution can be changed by the German Parliament (which is why it could be argued that the independence of the Bundesbank from political interference and pressure is slightly mythical), but Karlsruhe has essentially stated in its Lisbon Treaty Judgment that at some point a referendum would be needed. So despite the outcry from the governing parties that the SPD are being irresponsible in backing Eurobonds:

"Merkel spokesman Georg Streiter said the a German referendum "lies a very long way in the future"..."

Any fiscal union will need explicit consent from the people of the Eurozone, and there has to be an open political debate about the alternatives with competing proposals. The step-by-step approach that has been taken so far (in Europe generally, but in Germany and by Merkel especially) has a corrosive effect on the confidence in national and European political leadership and ability, and in the idea that there is a solution. What we have now is a strategy that breeds cynicism, to the extent that it's hard to know if there is a strategy at all and we have to engage with a new type of Kremlinology centred entirely on the contents of Merkel's head! Without even a debate on the future of fiscal union, it's hard to see any political deal produced at the end of this process being accepted after all the suspicion and bickering that will likely continue for another 2 years, if not longer.

So the debate is necessary for any plan to have a hope of working. Speaking in favour of Eurobonds is not the same as making an open commitment to Eurobonds to be introduced as soon as possible (the SPD are still quite close to the government on conditionality, but with more solidarity); it needs to be part of a deal that covers conditions and democratic oversight. It cannot be a technical fix introduced at breaking point, but the product of an open political process. Utopian to hope for given all the summitry, but necessary if we're to have any hope of creating a workable compromise.

Note: Juergen Habermas' (et al) article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (here in German) has been linked to the SPD's move, and Habermas will be involved in the SPD's manifesto for the next German elections. Other interesting articles on the SPD's website on Eurobonds and meeting their Spanish counterparts here and here.

Council Transparency and VoteWatch

BY CC DrabikPany.

Last week I was at the (re)launch of the VoteWatch website, which now covers Council votes as well as European Parliament votes. The Council votes on display are put together using information already publically available, though it’s currently not machine readable so the information needs to be collected manually.

A lot of the comment so far has focused on the rates of voting no in the Council (and that the UK and Germany seem to vote no the most, while France and Lithuania always voted with the majority). There are some debates over what this means (including that it’s more indicative of being able to play the political game beforehand if you can agree to the text when it comes to the vote), but I agree with Ronny that the rates of voting no are very small. In fact, only in 35% of cases where there is qualified majority voting and not unanimity, were there any dissenting votes (90% of votes are run on the QMV procedure - you can read the VoteWatch report here). So while I might be surprised that Ireland is in agreement with Italy a lot of the time, and in 100% agreement with Germany in the area of the environment, it’s only to a slight degree, since (near) unanimous agreement is the rule rather than the exception.

The panel discussion covered some interesting questions, such as the transparency of the political negotiations in the lead up to the vote and the transparency of amendments. It turns out that there are several shadow or practice votes in the Council groups working on the legislation, which generally see closer results than the final vote, and that amendments are proposed in many ways – formally submitted in writing, submitted in an informal style, and introduced orally, which may make it difficult to record in the same way the European Parliament records its amendments. (It was also noted that amendments are whittled down in number and merged in negotiation before being put to the vote. However, the Council is nowhere near this level of transparency yet). It could also be argued that with an array of groups working on legislation and several shadow votes, it would be difficult to keep track of everything and to judge its influence. After all, it seems to be a question of how negotiations should be led, and if these shadow votes are aids to negotiation, perhaps they should continue to be held in secret, especially since their significance individually is hard to measure.

A lot of the debate centred on whether the greater transparency of the Council votes via VoteWatch – and it is a great blow for transparency of the EU that the painstaking work of bringing these votes together in a readable way will be carried out finally – will affect how the Council operates. Will it withdraw more into the background? Will Member States change their voting habits (more likely to vote against in some cases, less likely to vote against where popular measures, such as lower roaming charges, are at stake?)?

The tension at the heart of the Council when it comes to transparency is diplomacy versus democracy. While it’s true that negotiations and diplomacy are a part of parliamentary life, when it comes to the Council it’s of a different class altogether. The justification against transparency is that there are key negotiations at stake and that the Member States should be free to pursue them. There should be some space for confidential negotiations, like in any legislative body, but there’s the rub: the Council is operating as a legislative body. Where the Council acts like an upper house of a parliament, we should expect those levels of transparency and clarity of procedure.

There won’t be a groundswell of public concern for this, and we should focus on pushing the boundaries of transparency under the current structure, but where the structure of the Council presents arguments that something should be kept secret for negotiation’s sake, we should be willing to ask: why should it be structured this way? Does it need to be secret at so many stages? Aren’t you legislating for us?

ACTA rejected in the European Parliament

A victory yesterday for the Parliament and the demonstrators across the continent who have been keeping up the pressure against the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement: the treaty was rejected by 478 votes to 39, with 165 abstentions. A conservative amendment to send the treaty back to committee and wait for the ECJ judgment on the treaty's compatibility with EU law was also rejected leading up to the vote, resulting in right-wing MEPs abstaining from the vote - supporting the treaty, but afraid to nail their colours to the mast in the face of public controversy. Though 22 Member States have ratified the treaty, the approval of the EP was needed before it would come into force anywhere in the EU.

The public controversy and campaign against the treaty is now the model for using the Parliament to make the EU more democratically accountable. It was not just an online campaign, but included demonstrations all over Europe, and political pressure building through the national parliaments. It helps that the issue was one of online politics, with a constituency that would probably find it the easiest to mobilise across borders. Will we see other such European civil society campaigns? Digital and civil rights related issues will probably remain the most natural campaign issues. When it comes to the digital marketplace and the internal market, as well as crime and child protection on the internet, the EU is a main actor given that these technological developments have appeared and grown as parts of the economy during the internal market's existence, and since purely national regulations don't make quite as much sense as an approach here.

Direct campaigns on this scale are quite difficult to create and sustain, and generally seem to be best directed towards the rejection of a draft law or treaty, and don't often happen in many states. So will this help stimulate the opening up of the European Parliament? So far many of the Parliament's stands have centred mainly on its place in the institutional triangle with the Commission and Council. While there was some institutional self-interest in this case (the EP wants to be more involved in treaty negotiations), the political groups took their positions to garner public support. It was perhaps also an ideological battle since the right in the Parliament was broadly in favour of ACTA or an ACTA-like agreement, while the liberal and left wing groups were more ready to oppose it. Environmental and economic issues are also important and high on the public's agenda, but it is harder to build a campaign for such complicated policy areas for a positive change rather than rejecting proposals. Hopefully the ACTA case will spur political and electoral innovation by the Europarties and parliamentary groups by demonstrating that there is a politically aware public to tap into.

ACTA itself may be dead, but governments are likely to continue to try to push further and further on enforcement mechanisms for copyright without a reappraisal of copyright in a digital world. It's a very important debate, and it would truly be impressive if the European Parliament tried to take a lead in the debate on how to adapt copyright so creativity in the economy and the arts is encouraged and promoted, yet prevent the misuse of copyright in the courts and in society in a way that actually dampens creativity and could in some cases endangers free speech if badly enforced. It's not enough to halt the mindless and crude enforcement of a flawed system; we need to be proactive in adapting.

If the European Parliament is smart, it can capitalise on this and serve as a platform for an important 21st Century debate. And if they don't, we should force them: we've proven we can have an impact on the European stage.

Europe's soul is distinctly parliamentary

The European Council has stumbled from summit to summit over the course of this crisis, and the European Parliament, despite being the most democratically legitimate EU institution, has not been the site of the central debates about how to fix the Eurozone. Nosemonkey has just written a great article on the need for more democratic legitimacy in the EU, and the ability to finally make a decision. However, I disagree with him - and the German Christian Democrats - that a directly elected president is the answer. I don't think a presidency could work in practice because Europe's soul is distinctly parliamentary.

Out of the 27 (and soon to be 28) Member States, all but France and Romania are either parliamentary republics, or constitutional monarchies with a parliamentary system. Even France and Romania are only semi-presidential. Parliamentarianism is part of the political culture of the Member States, and part of European political culture generally. In the EU system, the European Parliament elects the Commission and the Commission President - who is nominated by the European Council on the basis of which Group in the Parliament won the election, which is reminiscent of the role of the monarch in many European constitutional monarchies.

Of course, the declining election turnout for the Parliament has caused a crisis of legitimacy for the institution. Without a clear platform for electing an executive, and because European elections are second-order elections, voters have few clear political options on the European stage. Europarty primaries and common campaigns centred around a Commission presidential candidate (read: prime ministerial) might eventually change that, but it's a long hard slog and is unlikely to give the boost in legitimacy needed overnight. In contrast to this, an elected president, usually seen as a directly elected European Council president or a combination of this role and the Commission President, is a relatively simple institutional tweak, a small treaty change, and it would establish a clear leadership position for election.

I don't think it would work culturally or institutionally.

Culturally, a presidential system would present too clear of a binary choice in a continent used to coalition-building on the national level. I don't necessarily just mean the Member States used to coalition government (though many of them are), since even in parliamentary systems where there is a single-party government, parties tend to be broad churches. It also provides for a strong government, which I  believe is culturally embedded across the continent, but not government that is simply built around one person, despite the growing presidentialisation of the parliamentary system (France is a bit of an exception here, although with a strong president, there is a strong executive). Parliaments provide a space for ideological debate between political factions, and a government based on a coalition of support across a majority of society as represented in parliament. While a directly elected president may have a strong mandate on paper, I think that this would be culturally undermined by the suspicion that the presidency's interests and loyalties are too narrow, and not sufficiently representative.

A presidency would also be quite weak institutionally, since he or she would sit in the European Council as head of an institution in which he or she had no power base. Sure, whoever is elected would have greater legitimacy than the national leaders in the context of the European Council, but those leaders represent important and valid electoral interests, and will not - and should not - simply bow to a European President. The president would also lack a power base in the European Parliament, and could be politically different to the Parliament's majority. It's hard enough for cohabitation to work in France or the US without trying at the same time to build up a profile and confidence in an elected EU president. Without a natural power base around which to build coalitions or majorities for proposals, the presidency would likely dash electoral hopes raised in the election due to the inability to honour his or her manifesto. This goes back to my point about the culture for strong government: weak elected governments rarely win a second term, institutionally weak systems are rarely respected. And who would vote for an institution that cannot deliver? Is that not the argument for the declining European election turnout?

I have the personal bias of believing in parliamentarianism, but it seems to me to be the only system that could possibly work on the European level. There needs to be a broad coalition which a majority can not just buy into at the time of a momentary choice between two candidates, but generally as well. This is best done by a parliamentary coalition comprising of a majority of opinions, not a single individual. The Commission could evolve into a cabinet with a Prime Minister figure at its head.

A lot of time and effort would need to be made to even attempt to deliver this, but a presidential system is the same old attitude of tinkering with the institutional set-up when you get down to it: real work needs to be done at the local level, and only political movements - parties - running for election on common platforms can provide the incentive and promise realistic results in order to sustain this work. Which is why I believe a working Europe could only ever be a parliamentary one.