APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by The Federal Trust
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
The Federal Trust is an independent think tank
founded in 1945 on the initiative of William Beveridge, and is
committed to exploring federal solutions to issues of governance
at national, continental and global level. Currently, the Trust
is working on various research projects, encompassing issues as
diverse as citizenship, good governance in the EU, the WTO, corporate
social responsibility, and devolution in the UK. We welcome the
European Scrutiny Committee's calls for evidence for its inquiry
into democracy and accountability in the EU and the role of national
parliaments. We will be happy to provide further evidence, in
an oral or written form, if required.
All the questions posed by the Committee stem
from one problem: the alienation of the European citizen from
the institutions of the European Union. This "disconnection"
is evident from low turnouts in elections for the European Parliament,
from frequent Eurobarometer polls surveying public opinion, and
quite specifically from the low turnout on the occasion of the
Irish referendum of last June.
How then, to connect the citizen with European
institutions? The countless solutions to this problem fall into
two main domains. On the one hand, there are those that seek to
"reconnect" the citizen directly to the Union, for instance
through the direct election of the President of the Commission,
or through the use of Europe-wide referendums. Other proposals
aim to reconnect the citizen indirectly, by increasing the scope
of national (or indeed, regional) parliaments to influence or
hold to account European institutions in the name of the citizen.
This brief response will address points essentially
from this second category, by examining in a first part the implications
and consequences of a charter of competences, and by commenting
in a second part on the proposals for increasing the role of national
parliaments in the EU legislative process.
SUBSIDIARITY, THE
CHARTER OF
COMPETENCES AND
THE CITIZEN
Supporters of a charter of competences claim
that, once the question of "who does what and at what level"
has been explicitly answered, then the citizen would gain a clearer
appreciation of the EU's work and national and regional institutions
would be spared any encroachment by Brussels on their prerogatives.
This would lead to better accountability of all political institutions—European,
national and regional—as their roles would be more closely
defined than at present. There would be better input into the
policy process, and more efficient output, provided power were
exercised at the most suitable level. In principle, therefore,
a charter of competences would help to reconnect the citizen to
political institutions, and would increase his or her participation
in the political process through an efficient application of subsidiarity,
backed by an explicit document.
In practice, however, the idea of a charter
of competences is controversial. Even supporters of the proposal
are divided as to the nature of the charter, with Mr Blair calling
for a political document, and others for a more legally entrenched
text. Some fear the negative consequences of a charter of competences:
would it lead to litigation between the different levels of government?
How, if at all, could it be adapted as the EU evolves? And some
question the very feasibility of drafting such a document. How
to reconcile in a single system, for example, the hugely varying
degrees of autonomy accorded by EU member states to their provinces,
regions, autonomous communities, Länder, or communes?
After considering the pros and cons of a charter
of competences, the Federal Trust believes the optimal solution
to lie in the drafting of a document, a legal part of the Treaties,
laying out unambiguously the prerogatives and powers of the Union.
This "constitutional settlement" would
both limit the domains of competence and establish procedures
for their exercise by the supranational institutions. This will
help define the contemporary nature and objectives of the EU,
and set out rules for increased transparency, accountability and
openness in Brussels. The reconnection of the citizen to the EU's
structure necessitates a clear answer, once again, to the question
"who does what?". For the citizen to understand the
value of supranational common policies, there must be a comprehensible
and unambiguous statement of the EU's objectives, and of the means
it has at its disposal that make it the suitable level for action
in a particular field.
But this charter of competences would steer
clear of codifying the relationship within each member state between
central and regional entities. It would limit itself to cover
only the prerogatives and duties of the Union's institutions,
including areas of mixed European and national competences, but
reserving all unspecified competences to the national level. It
would not distribute responsibilities between national and sub-national
levels. This is necessary in order to respect the political diversity
of the European Union's members—countries as different as
the Federal Republic of Germany, unitary-minded France, or our
own or Spain's peculiarly devolved system. This would allow for
the existing differences in competences between, say, a German
Land like Bavaria and a French région like Brittany, as
there would be no need for an EU-wide declaration on these entities'
prerogatives. The responsibility to apply subsidiarity, or the
execution of power by the most suitable level of government, within
the national framework would therefore fall on the member states.
National parliaments that are committed to accountability, democracy,
and a close connection between government and the citizen will
also apply the subsidiarity principle to the exercise of powers
within their own territory.
However, the charter should not be totally silent
as regards sub-national entities. The right of regionally elected
assemblies to participate in the input of the EU legislative process
needs to be addressed. The Treaty of Nice established that only
persons with a regional electoral mandate could sit in the Committee
of Regions, and that once that mandate was over, they would lose
the right to sit there. Nice has therefore already begun the process
of ensuring the participation of the regionally elected in a consultative
role within the legislative process. The more precise nature of
such participation now needs to be made clear. Unfortunately,
the European Commission's White Paper on European Governance,
published in July 2001, only proposes a vague "pro-active
role" for the Committee of the Regions. This development
is to be welcomed, but it needs to be considered along with the
wider question of the role of national parliaments, discussed
below.
Finally, the charter of competences would also
need to be flexible enough to ensure it could adapt to evolving
circumstances: the competences of the EU should be defined unambiguously,
but they should not be set in stone. The main purpose of a codification
of the EU's prerogatives should be to clarify the Union's roles,
and not to limit the development of common policies. There should
be a review clause, possibly attached to a recurring timetable,
such as 10 years.
LINKING NATIONAL
AND REGIONAL
INSTITUTIONS TO
THE EU LEGISLATIVE
PROCESS
The principal justification for increasing the
role of national and regional parliaments in the EU legislative
process is the oft-proclaimed shortfall in legitimacy from which
the Union's institutions are seen to suffer. This perceived democratic
deficit, deemed to affect all branches of the institutional triangle,
needs to be examined more closely. While elections to the European
Parliament attract few voters, that is insufficient reason to
denounce the body as undemocratic. The Council of Ministers meets
behind closed doors, and is often bogged down by excessively time-consuming
procedures. But it is the representative of elected governments,
and therefore suffers from no lack of legitimacy. The problem
lies mainly with the semi-appointed semi-elected Commission, the
executive branch of the Union. It is perceived by many as unaccountable,
however much cognoscenti know that its legitimacy is anchored
in the Treaties.
Any proposals to increase the role of national
and regional parliaments, bodies which are considered more legitimate
because the electorate turns out in greater numbers to vote, must
focus on this shortfall: the lack of accountability of the executive,
as well as seeking ways to strengthen the legislature. Yet some
proposals for an increased role for national parliaments in the
EU process misguidedly focus on the creation of a "second
chamber", as an apparent democratic boost to the legislative
branch of the Union. (Certain observers present this body as an
actual third chamber, the Council of Ministers already serving
the function of an upper chamber). It is hard to see what advantages
a further chamber to the European Parliament could bring. Would
a delegation of national politicians appointed to a third chamber
attract any more allegiance from the electorate than MEPs elected
to the European Parliament? Besides, prior to 1979, the European
Parliament was composed of delegates drawn from the national parliaments,
a formula that was abandoned precisely because direct election
was deemed to be more democratic and allows for greater popular
accountability.
In so far as reform of the legislature is required,
it should concentrate on two practical steps. The Council of Ministers,
that existing upper chamber, seen as a chamber of European states
to the European Parliament's chamber of European peoples, must
fully assume its legislative duties, and deliberate in public
and take public responsibility for its decisions. More power and
responsibility must be shifted onto the lower, directly elected
chamber, the existing European Parliament, for example through
an extension of co-decision and a remodelling of the budgetary
procedure.
National parliaments can and should be more
involved in the legislative structure of the EU. But this should
not be done by creating a further distant and ineffective chamber
to add to the structure above the European Parliament, but by
increasing the input that national parliaments enjoy in the EU's
legislative process. National parliamentary committees should
be better informed about and further involved in the committee
work of the European Parliament. The COSAC structure should be
strengthened, with more frequent joint meetings of national and
European parliamentarians, and possibly the creation of COSAC
sub-committees specialising in particularly contentious issues.
And national parliaments should be given—or should take—more
powers to supervise the activities of their respective governments'
ministers in the Council, demanding information before as well
as after Council meetings.
Aside from increasing the consultative and scrutiny
contributions of national parliaments to the European Union's
legislative process, it is important to focus on the question
of input into the executive. Scrutiny of the European Commission
is indeed ensured adequately by national governments through the
Council of Ministers, and by the European Parliament. But the
national and regional parliamentarians hold relatively little
power to shape the policies proposed by the Commission.
It is here that national and regional parliaments'
roles can, and should, be profitably extended. Whereas regional
bodies are represented at regional level through the Committee
of the Regions, and civil society is consulted through the Economic
and Social Committee, national parliaments have no direct input
into the formation of proposals by the Commission. If regional
parliaments are going to be given a more "pro-active role"
in policy formation at the stage of prior consultation, it seems
only logical that national parliamentarians be given the same
access to shaping the orientation of the Commission's proposals.
Like the Committee of the Regions, and the Economic and Social
Committee, they should be consulted formally on all legislative
proposals before they are decided by the Commission, and their
opinions should be published along with the Commission's explanatory
memorandum.
National parliaments indeed do need a greater
role in the implementation of European legislation. It is in these
areas that the debate on the future of Europe should seek to examine,
rather than the proposals for an ineffective and superfluous third
chamber.
8 October 2001
|
