Other agenda items
103. Other institutions — the EP, Court of
Auditors, Economic and Social Committee, and Committee of the
Regions — will also be directly affected by EU enlargement.
104. The Commission draws attention to the consequences
for the EP of the enlargement now envisaged; it will require
a substantial reallocation of its seats (which it has been already
agreed[129]
are to be limited to 700 whatever size the Union eventually attains).
We note, however, that differences between relative population
and seat allocations can be startling: for example, Germany, with
a population of 82 million, has 99 seats in the EP; Luxembourg,
whose population numbers some 420,000, has six seats. We agree
that the limit of 700 should not be breached: the EP could not
function with a larger number of members; so there will have to
be reallocation. We see the force of the Commission's argument
that in a Union of States seats in the EP cannot be allocated
on a basis strictly proportional to population, but are inclined
to the view that there should be adopted a revised version of
the existing formula which is less favourable to the smaller Member
States. We agree in principle with the EP's own proposals for
a two-stage adjustment to enlargement, comprising transitional
arrangements for the period 2004-2009 and a final adjustment (to
be in place for the 2009 EP elections) which would produce a proportional
allocation of the 700 seats on the basis of the population of
the EU plus all the applicant States, but with the proviso that
no State should have fewer than four seats[130].
105. We have noted with interest the Commission's
proposal (which the EP supports)[131]
that the entire territory of the Union constitute a single constituency
for the purpose of electing a number of members of the EP on European
lists. The Commission's intention in making this proposal is to
"encourage the development of Europe-wide political parties
and produce members who could claim to represent a European constituency
rather than a purely national one."[132]
However, implementation of such a proposal would further undermine,
at the level of the EP, a fundamental feature of representative
democracy as understood in the United Kingdom, which is that a
member of a parliament represents all persons in the district
which elected him or her. A member is not simply a representative
of a political party and certainly not of interest groups. To
maintain the vital link between the member and the persons he
or she represents, it is essential that the constituency be of
manageable size. A member of the EP who claimed to represent voters
throughout the Union would end up representing no one but him
or herself. In our view, an alternative approach of greater interest
would be to create constituencies which cross national frontiers,
where circumstances make that appropriate. It is the case, for
example, that certain suburbs of Aachen in the FRG are located
in Dutch territory and a single MEP could conveniently represent
the city and its hinterland (including those Dutch suburbs). There
would, of course, be some difficulty in calculating the number
of MEPs from each Member State and, perhaps, administrative complications.
106. The Court of Auditors (the "ECA")
has the duty to examine the legality and regularity of the Union's
revenue and expenditure and to ensure that its finances are soundly
managed[133].
Currently, the Court of Auditors consists of fifteen members appointed
for a renewable term of six years[134].
Like the other institutions, the question arises as to whether
it is desirable to maintain the principle of one member per Member
State, or whether the ECA would function more effectively if the
membership were limited. Further questions arise as to the term
of office of the members[135].
More fundamentally, and especially in light of the problems that
led to the resignation of the previous Commission and the continuing
difficulties with guaranteeing the legality and regularity of
the Communities' finances, there have been suggestions that the
IGC should take the opportunity to consider strengthening the
ECA's powers, in particular in the fight against fraud.
107. The Commission considers that "there is
no really convincing argument in favour of the appointment of
a national of each Member State" and, far from expanding
the Court, its efficiency would be improved if it consisted of
fewer members than at present: the Commission prefers a limit
of 12, whilst the EP simply suggests a fixed number of members.
Presumably to make this proposal more acceptable to Member States,
both the Commission and the EP suggest that there would have to
be rotation of members, which would work only if members' terms
were not renewable. The Commission makes no suggestions about
changing the ECA's powers; but the EP proposes that the Court
of Auditors should "have the right of direct access to the
financial control of national and regional authorities when and
in so far as they are involved in spending from the EU budget"[136].
Member State Governments, on the other hand, assume that the ECA
will consist of one member per Member State and are more concerned
to improve the efficiency of its organisation after expansion,
by, for example, increasing the powers of the President and splitting
it into divisions with specific tasks[137].
Some of them are also willing to consider radical approaches to
improve financial management, particularly of the large percentage
of EC expenditure that is not directly controlled by the Commission
but is channelled through national and regional authorities: the
Italian Government has suggested that the ECA should be given
the right to appeal to the ECJ when Member States have failed
fully to comply with a request for information; and the Dutch
Government has proposed a raft of measures, including amending
the Treaty to allow the Commission to appeal to the ECJ if, in
its view, Member States had inadequate systems for the management
and control of Community expenditure, and amending the Treaty
to require Member States to give their national audit institutions
the same powers with respect to Community funds as the ECA[138].
108. The Economic and Social Committee was
set up to provide the EU institutions with a representative advisory
body on economic and social issues. In some areas of EU policy,
the Council and Commission must consult the Committee; in others,
they may do so if they wish; and the Committee "may issue
an opinion on its own initiative in cases in which it considers
such action appropriate"[139].
The Committee consists of representatives "of the various
categories of economic and social activity, in particular, representatives
of producers, farmers, carriers, workers, dealers, craftsmen,
professional occupations and representatives of the general public"[140]
. At present, it has 222 members (between 6 and 24 for each Member
State[141]).
EU enlargement raises one obvious issue, that of the size of the
Committee and the distribution of seats between Member States,
but two other questions have also been put before the IGC. First,
should the Committee be made "more representative of the
different sectors of organised civil society in the European Union";
and secondly, should the role of the Committee be widened and/or
strengthened by, for example, requiring the Council and Commission
to justify their decisions when the Opinions of the Committee
are not acted upon, or widening the requirement for the Commission
to consult the Committee when drawing up certain types of proposals[142]?
109. There is broad agreement that, if the Economic
and Social Committee is to continue to function properly after
EU enlargement, its membership should be fixed at the current
level (and, therefore, redistribution of seats among Member States
would be necessary)[143].
However, there have been lively disagreements over the composition
of the Committee. The Commission notes that the Committee's original
task was to complement the consultative rôle of the (then)
non-elected Parliamentary Assembly, but the Committee's rôle
has not been changed to reflect the significant alteration in
the composition, powers and rôle of the EP. The Commission
concludes that the IGC should take the opportunity to make the
Committee "more representative of the civil society"
of the EU[144].
This has been interpreted in some quarters[145]
as an attack on the current pre-eminence within the Committee
of two blocks representing employers and employees, with other
elements of civil society being corralled together into a rather
disparate third block[146].
As a result, the Committee has said that it "is resolute
as to the need to maintain its three-group structure [with Group
I bringing together employers' organisations, Group II employees,
and Group III the rest]"[147].
Less controversially, the Commission suggests that the Committee
should be allowed to decide for itself whether it should issue
an opinion on proposals. The Committee agrees: it considers that,
to be more effective, it has to be selective in its work. It is
firmly of the view that its powers should be strengthened to achieve
this: it suggests that the principle of compulsory referral might
be extended to areas such as culture, migration policy or even
non-discrimination, but in any event it should be free to judge
whether a proposal merits an opinion; and it believes that the
opinions which it produces at the request of an EU institution
should be followed up, at the very least to the extent that the
institutions should inform the Committee of their response to
its opinions[148].
It also suggests ways in which its expertise might be used at
an earlier stage, to improve the information available to the
Commission when drawing up proposals[149].
110. The Committee of the Regions is a consultative
Committee consisting of representatives of regional and local
authorities. It has the same total membership and distribution
of seats as the Economic and Social Committee, and there are similar
requirements for it to be consulted [150];
and the same issues of size, broadening the composition and amending
its rôle arise.
111. The Commission proposes that the membership
of the Committee of the Regions should be limited to one third
the number of MEPs (that is, no more than 233) and the distribution
among the Member States should be the same as that used for the
EP in order to reflect more closely the population sizes. Apart
from this, in the Commission's view, the current arrangements
for this Committee should be retained[151].
The EP and the Committee of the Regions suggest a higher membership
for the Committee (a maximum of 350), and the introduction of
a right for the Committee to bring an action before the ECJ in
order to safeguard its right to be consulted[152].
112. As yet, these three bodies have not been seriously
considered by the IGC, and in general the proposed changes are
not of such importance that they are likely to occupy the IGC
for long. We therefore proffer rather tentative conclusions on
them. In the face of Member State opposition, it appears unlikely
that the ECA will be restricted in size. More interesting are
the proposals to increase its powers, which, if their proponents
advocate them strongly, will be a real test case of whether the
Member States in general are willing to take unpalatable decisions
to improve the management of the Community's finances. Given our
longstanding interest in this issue, we shall keep a close watch
on developments. The few Member States that have commented
on the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the
Regions at all[153]
express themselves satisfied with the current size and remit of
these bodies — and, presumably, the IGC will therefore deal
simply with the question of redistributing seats after enlargement,
as this requires Treaty amendment. The only issues of significance
arise in relation to the Economic and Social Committee's composition
and powers. There have in the past been complaints from organisations
representing SMEs and co-operatives, and from groups like consumers'
organisations, that their concerns are not given sufficient attention
by the Commission, and strengthening their rôle in the Economic
and Social Committee would help to alleviate this problem: the
IGC should give serious consideration to whether the current composition
of this Committee provides the most useful gauge of civil society
opinion in the EU. In our view, it is also desirable that the
Economic and Social Committee should have greater powers to decide
its own priorities by, for example, declining to give an opinion
on routine or comparatively trivial proposals. We also think that,
to underline the importance which the EU attaches to consultation
of interest groups, there should be a formal requirement for the
EU institutions that have requested opinions from the Committee
to follow them or to give a response to the Committee explaining
why they have failed to do so: consultation is valueless when
the views expressed are simply ignored.
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