Archive for July, 2009

Earlier in this month, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called for a political discussion on the ramifications of the German constitutional’s court judgement on the Lisbon Treaty. Don’t hold your breath on the content or scope of this supposed debate – I doubt whether it will really take place at all.

Because a proper debate would open up all those democratic deficit questions that the EU as a whole just does not like, or is unable, to deal with.

It would force the bloc to examine the real role of national parliaments vis à vis the European Parliament and take a long look at the question of whether giving the European Parliament more powers makes the EU more democratic. It does not. It simply means the EU parliament has more power. And this while citizens for the most part still look to their national parliaments as the expression of their democratic will.

The scope of the court’s judgement is significant. It gives Germany’s constitutional court the last say on EU law and questions the European parliament’s democratic legitimacy. It also raps Germany’s own parliament over the knuckles for failing to keep an eye on EU affairs.

This is true of most parliaments and their members across the member states. National MPs either do not care or are unaware of the extent of power held by their European counterparts.

The Lisbon Treaty, assuming it comes into force,  involves parliaments more in EU law-making.  But what is needed is more interaction on a day-to-day basis  – a constant interchange between MEPs and MPs. This would keep euro-deputies in touch with the democratic base while allowing the implications of draft legislation to get a wider audience.

This requires a change in mindset from both sides – from MPs to admit that Brussels is where the legislative action is taking place and from MEPs to remind them of that their actions need to be rooted in wider democratic approval.

National parliaments everywhere should also have more say over their governments’ negotiations in Brussels. MEPs and other have been quick to claim that this means the EU would descend into chaos and no government would be able to negotiate. This answer is too glib. Yes there would have to be constraints and rules worked out so that national parliaments could not hold ministers to hostage on other issues or not give them any room for manoeuvre.

But to not hold the debate at all would be a mistake.

The discussion has to come soon – better that the EU’s political class takes the courageous decision to have a ‘warts and all’ debate now before it is forced upon them by some sort of internal crisis in the bloc further down the line.

Looking to September

This will be my last blog until the end of August but September is already shaping up to be an eventful month.

Things to look out for include the shaky alliance of convenience between the EPP and the Socialists. In (technical) political bed for all of five seconds, they are already mauling each other over Jose Manuel Barroso.

The centre-right EPP wants a vote on his candidacy to be president of the commission  for a second time taken as quickly as possible.  Its leadership was irritated that a July vote did  not take place because of objections about Mr Barros from the left. But now it is furious as the Socialists and Liberals continue to be obstreperous – they want certain things (here and here) in return for their vote.

Matters came to a head at the last meeting of the political group leaders on 16 July.  EPP chief Joseph Daul threatened to no longer back Martin Schulz to be president of the EP in the second half of the legislature, if there was no September vote.

The result was beautiful compromise thought up by Guy Verhofstadt, or The Hof as he is known by anglophones in his group. The draft agenda for September now duly includes the Barroso vote but only in (doubt-raising) brackets  and small-letter proviso saying the vote still depends on a decision by political leaders on 10 September. What a fiasco!  Bring on the day where the commission president is directly elected.

All of which brings me to Martin Schulz – can he keep the rank and file happy and get to be EP president in two and half year’s time? Hmm…

And what of The Hof - much more of this calling for a new  Jacques Delors and I would say he angling for someone to say that he, Guy Verhofstadt, is in fact the next Delors – with a Belgian twist.

Lastly, spare a thought for a thought for the man causing this parliamentary power tussle.  It’s not likely to be much of a holiday August for Barroso. He will no doubt be trying to cobble together a programme that gives as much window dressing as possible to the Socialists and the Liberals to get him a vote but without upsetting his natural EPP fan base. Tricky stuff.

Despite there, nominally at least, being a vote on Barroso in September, I am still not convinced he has it in the bag. It’s a secret ballot after all. And there are signs that he has his enemies with the EPP, too.  See the comments by German MEP Ingeborg Grässle.

So, interesting times ahead. On that note – have a wonderful summer.

Ireland is in a bad way. The property bubble has burst. Unemployment is up. Productivity is down. The grisly statistics are there for the reading.

And, in an event that may or not be related, an image of the Virgin Mary has just been found in a tree stump.

Read about it here.   I like the local priest’s prosaic comment.

The last time the economy was in the doldrums and unemployment was soaring was in the 1980s. This was also about the time the Virgin Mary was last perceived to have made an appearance.

In 1985, Ballinspittle, a small village in Co. Cork, became the focus of worldwide scrutiny (not to say fervour) after a statue of Mary in a roadside grotto was said to have moved. The issue dominated public and private discourse. Later, when thousands made their way to the statue to see for themselves, it apparently did not just move but also levitate, bleed and shine.

It is hard to exaggerate how different the country is now to what it was then – an economic backwater where the church still played an overbearing role in people’s lives.

Now, of course, it is completely changed. In one short generation, Ireland leapfrogged other nations to have the second highest GDP in the EU and church influence has shrunk considerably (not least due to a series of abuse scandals and mind-boggling hypocrisy).

While turning the country into a self-confident nation that attracted immigrants (rather than mass emigration from among its own youth), the sudden wealth brought a whole different set of problems and a lot of soul-searching about the state of Irish society. This soul-searching has heightened since the onset of the economic crisis.

All that to say that I am curious what sort of reactions the re-appearance of this religious phenomenon will elicit in today’s Ireland. The Irish Times reports that hundreds of people have made their way to the tree stump. Hundreds more are expected. A 24-hour vigil has been set up and locals want it to remain a permanent fixture in the town (Rathkeale in Co. Limerick).  It’s already proven to be a boost to the local economy.

Incidentally, Ballinspittle was near where I used to live aeons ago so I passed by the grotto on occasion as a child.

I always craned my neck out of the car window to see if the statue would do a little move for me.  It never did.  Mine was idle childhood curiosity.  But there were plenty of people who sincerely believed in and hoped to witness the miracle themselves.

It was good for tourism, too.

On Wednesday two candidates will go head to head to discuss their vision for the European Parliament should they become its president. It’s a good idea. And there should be more such debates in Brussels.

But unfortunately the event is undermined by the workings of the institution itself. It is already almost certain who will be in charge of the parliament for the next five years.

Bar an upset, the centre-right EPP will make their usual power stitch-up with the Socialists and share the presidency between them. This means Poland’s Jerzy Buzek, already selected by his group for the job, will be president for the first half of the term and a Socialist – possibly Martin Schulz, currently heading the group – will take over in the second half.

In Wednesday’s debate Buzek will face Graham Watson – a British Liberal who until a few days ago headed the Liberal faction in the European Parliament. So far, these two are the only declared candidates.

So Watson, who set out his stall for the job several months ago, can talk up a storm. But it won’t make any difference. And whatever Watson’s qualification for the post ( it is noticeable that he recently abandoned all earlier talk of transparency in the hope that such a power stitch-up would land him the post), he should get credit for being open about running for the job and actually doing some – gasp! – broad cross-party canvassing to drum up support.

The post itself is not hugely important, but the deal behind it is a bad way of conducting business.

The institution and its MEPs never tire of pointing out that parliament is the only directly-elected EU institution and therefore the most democratic.  I don’t see much in the presidency deal that is democratic nor does it say much for a mature institution in line for a substantial increase in powers under the Lisbon Treaty.

In addition, the parliament enjoys shouting at the European Council for secretly making deals on posts such as the European Commission president.  A little bit of pot and kettle perhaps?

What the parliament needs  is more politics, more transparency and a whole lot less complacency.

The passing of the six-month rotating presidency system into the annals of EU history come the Lisbon Treaty will mark the end of one interesting tradition – the raising of hitherto-unknown-beyond-their-own-borders EU leader to political celebrity status. Albeit temporarily.

Take the current Czech PM Jan Fischer. Until yesterday, journalists hung on his every word. Today, I imagine, he could roll all of the Czech presidency’s gaffes into one long EU-torpedoing sentence and he might get a line in the Czech news agency.

Now prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is in the hot seat. Every word he utters will be treated as the EU’s approach to that issue. His predictions on the economic crisis and a climate change deal will be headlines in themselves.

That is the trade off for the half-year running of the union, which requires massive resources, political, diplomatic, organisational and monetary. The leader of the moment gets to opine on all sorts of issues (no particular expertise is required) and he or she gets to hobnob with the Obamas and the Putins of this world.

And each presidency brings with it its own particular traditions – the Swedes are pushy on transparency and have relatively good green credentials.

The Lisbon Treaty, which ostensibly puts an end to the EU’s external relations circus, turns the presidency into a trio-run thing over a period of 18 months. It is not the leader of the country holding the presidency that will hold forth on all things EU but the new EU president.

So for the presidency country it looks like it will be all grind and no shine.

I am curious to see how this plays out in practice. Assuming the Lisbon Treaty is ratified in autumn and goes into place on 1 January next year, Spain will be the first country holding the presidency but without the starring role.

Much has been made of the Czechs somewhat haphazard presidency where both the message and the messenger at times teetered on the brink of the farcical.

But I am not yet convinced that the new system won’t throw up the same range of absurdities and grandstanding as the present one. Is there enough room on the European stage for a European president, an EU foreign minister and an EU commission president – all to some degree externally representing the EU? And what of the presidency trio exactly?