The European Parliaments Role in the EUs Decision-Making Process - Article Example

Pros and Cons of strengthening the European Parliament’s role in the EU’s decision-making process Introduction The European Union (EU) is a supranational organisation of European countries established as such through the Treaty on European Union, or the commonly known Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Some aspects of the EU, however, already existed prior to the treaty in 1992, through a series of predecessor organisations dating as far back as the 1950s (McCormick, 2002). Currently with twenty-seven (27) member states, the EU’s activities cover all policy areas such as health and economic policy as well as foreign affairs and defence, among many others, but with varying nature of powers, depending on the powers granted to it by the member states. A key activity of the union is to establish and administer a common single market which consists of a customs union, a single currency, a common Agricultural Policy and a common Fisheries Policy (Ibid.). The EU is regarded as the most powerful existing regional organisation, which sometimes resembles a federation or confederation depending on the degree of sovereignty that the member states transfer to the union in certain areas. The member states, however, remain as the Masters of the Treaties, which simply means that the union is not given any power to transfer additional powers from any member states onto itself without their approval. Further, each member state maintains its own policies in some key areas of national interest such as defence and foreign relations (Dinan, 2004). The European Parliament (EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the EU, which, together with the Council of the European Union (the Council), forms the bicameral legislative branch of the EU’s institutions (Peterson & Shackleton, 2002). Touted as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world, the EP, together with the Council, form the highest legislative body within the EU, with powers limited to the competencies conferred upon the European Community by the member states, giving the institution limited control over policy areas which are held by the member states (Ibid.). Composed of 736 members, who are called Members of the European Parliament (MEP), the EP is the second largest democratic electorate in the world, India being first, and is the largest transnational democratic electorate in the world, with about 375 million eligible voters in 2009 (Ibid.). Since 1979, universal suffrage every five years has been conducted to directly elect MEPs, and in fact, another round of these elections has taken place last June 4-7, 2009 in the prosperous medieval town of Utrecht, in the Netherlands across all of the twenty-seven member states of the EU (Ibid.). With the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by all EU member states on October 2009, major changes will take effect by December 2009, one of which is that the European Parliament’s (EP) legislative power will increase as provided for by the co-decision procedure with the Council of Ministers has been extended to new areas of policy (Bonde, 2008). With this new increased power granted to the EP, diverse opinions have been expressed by different groups of varying perspectives. This paper explores the arguments favouring and not favouring the increased and strengthened power of the European Parliament in the conduct of affairs for the EU, assessing each side but not necessarily concluding on which side has the best and most reasonable arguments. Strengthening the EP’s Role in the EU’s decision-making process Pros The European Parliament (EP), which is truly representative of the member states’ people borne of the fact that it is the only body in the European Commission that is directly elected by the people, needs to have more legislative power than what was bestowed it in the previous EU treaties. Upon the creation of the EP, only limited power of legislative consultation was given to it, which, over the years and in particular since 1987, increased to include budgetary control as well as legislative delay, amendment and veto. It has clearly transformed from being only an arena for debates into a functioning transformative legislature (Polsby, 1975). According to Kreppel (2006, pp 11-12), the EP’s strengthened role with an increased power through co-decision procedure mainly lies on the fact that the European Union is firmly based on the notion of separation of powers, wherein its institutions - the Council of Ministers, the Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament (EP) – are each selected through different means and each representing different constituencies with distinct powers. Consequently, the said institutions are integrally linked with the successful completion of the legislative process incorporating all of them to one extent or another, thus effective cooperation among these institutions in the policy-making process is a requirement of the broad structure of the political system itself (Ibid.). Legislative process with the EP’s strengthened role through the critical co-decision procedure makes it possible for proposals from the Commission to be sent back and forth between the EP, the Commission and the Council of Ministers (CoM) several times in the interest of achieving a consensus, and of which, it is possible for either the EP or the CoM to make amendments (Ibid.). If required, however, the EP and the CoM come to a compromise in a conciliation committee together with a representative of the Commission who facilitates such compromise but who does not have any voting powers (Ibid.). In other words, the whole policy-making process requires the participation of the Commission to initiate and propose amendments in the first round; the EP to review and discuss the first and second round of amendments and the ultimate adoption or rejection; and the CoM to review and discuss amendments in common position and conciliation procedure as well as to ultimately adopt or reject such amendments (Ibid.). Despite some underlying flaws of the system, it is quite clear that there is fundamental division of labour in EU’s policy-making process, between different institutions whose memberships do not overlap, ultimately creating a separation of powers system wherein decision-making power is dispersed (Ibid.). Another value or importance attributed to the EP with strengthened role and with increased power, according to Shackleton (2002, pp 38-44) is that, related to the notion of the separation of powers system is the notion of executive-legislative independence which, to be fully functional, must be guaranteed by separation of powers with the ability of each institution to decide with no fear of politically or ideologically driven retribution from the other institutions, which also implies the requirement for each branch to be free from control or dismissal by the other branches, except, of course in the case of legal wrongdoing. Fully independent institutions within the EU fulfil the fundamental purpose of ensuring that the formal separation of powers becomes a functional reality. For instance, the members of the EP, since its inception in 1979, are directly elected on national lists in the member states, and consequently, they can only be dismissed by the people through the normal electoral cycle; likewise the EP does not have the power to remove the members of the Council of the CoM since they, too, are elected, although indirectly, at the national level, therefore can only be removed through political change at the national level, and not by the EP (Ibid.). For a parliamentary branch such as the EP with totally separate as well as sufficient powers of its own, there is no longer a need for a stable coalition supporting the government within, setting it apart from all of the national parliaments operating within parliamentary systems of more or less fused power (Riegert, 2004). Further, this also means that members of the EP are not bound by any political ties and therefore are free to form coalitions on a vote-by-vote basis with no fears whatsoever of initiating any chain reactions which might culminate in dissolution of the parliament as well as early elections (Ibid.). Noury & Roland (2002, pp 28-36), after a study on whether it is appropriate to expand the EP’s power, concludes that it is appropriate and is indeed necessary for the EP to have expanded power through a generalized co-decision legislative policy for the following key reasons: That from empirical evidences, the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been very disciplined and voted not on the basis of their own national affiliations but more on their right or left wing party affiliations. It is, therefore, not a cause for worry that additional power or increased power would lead the MEPs to behave waywardly; Uniform or standard procedure for the parliamentary proceedings of the EP, like the adoption of a generalized co-decision, makes the EP proceedings less complicated and therefore easier for the constituents to understand, making its records more transparent. As well, it also simplifies procedures and increases efficiency within the EP; The coalition formation at the EP is predominantly motivated by right-left politics, as previously mentioned. A more powerful and consequently more visible EP, therefore, would greatly contribute to the enhancement of European-wide debates on the left-right dimensions while the Council focuses on playing the role of a guardian of national interests; and, Increased party cohesion within the EP is realised through mobilisation to attend and vote for certain policies, and participation has been found out to be much stronger when the EP has more power, as observed during the last wave of power enlargement for EP, with significant increases in participation and party cohesiveness. Furthermore, increased power and strengthened role of the EP in the decision-making process of the EU rationalizes the mere existence and the largeness of the EP as an institution, especially that a significant amount of the EU’s resources go to the EP’s operationalisation and all its activities – meetings, committee hearings, etc. Gathering a huge number (736) of members from all the 27 member states, spending resources on their selection and on keeping them, yet giving them only very limited power, just does not make good sense, and simply defeats the very purpose of such institution. Cons The co-decision procedure, which significantly increases the EP’s power, provides for up to three readings of legislation: the first reading, the second reading, and the third reading with conciliation, wherein any proposals can be adopted at any of these stages as long as the Council and the EP agree (Open Europe, 2009). It further provides that, should the Council decide on not accepting the amendments coming from the MEPs at the second reading, and then the third and final stage of the co-decision procedure, the conciliation, must be opened, wherein conciliation talks are required when government ministers and the MEPs do not come to an agreement over a proposal (Ibid.). This very process has received strong criticisms. Bunyan (2009, pp1-9) argues that the new procedures adopted by the EU for its legislative branch raise questions on transparency and openness, among other very important issues, as follows: The usual practice prior to the new expansion of EP power was that in co-decision measures, conclusion could only be had at the third reading and that fast-track trilogies were only for the noncontroversial measures. However, this practice has been legitimized and used for even the controversial measures and conclusions have already been arrived at even at the first or the second readings. Power brokers in the parliament have been influencing and exercising the hidden and often decisive influences with the smaller party groups marginalised, which may eventually result to the parliamentary losing control of the process as influenced by these power brokers, especially that committee meetings and open meetings are not allowed to change anything from the agreements in trilogue meetings; One of the EP’s excuses for asking for more power through co-decision had been the MEPs’ interest to be able to resolve cases regarding immigration and asylum, as well as to be able to defend the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. However, in 2005 when it was given co-decision power with the Council on nearly all new immigration and asylum measures, the EP failed dismally in carrying out this function, with records of immigration and asylum cases or measures not even tackled or tabled, or poorly discussed measures which were therefore rejected by the Council; In an assessment of the co-decision impact on the parliament in July 2009, and in the interest of pointing the key lapses and flaws to the EP for their awareness, the following main points were highlighted: 1) That over the five-year period of co-decision, the EP’s works changed drastically in the sense that 72% of the decisions were concluded at first reading, with about 10.8% at early second reading with the trend being a constant increase in early agreements indicating efficiency but at the same time lack of transparency of the trilogies of undemocratic nature as well as lack of resources for rapporteurs and the quality of legislation; 2) that the committees seemed to have developed different cultures and practices in the completion of files (example: the Civil Liberties Committee had about 84.2% files completed through only first reading, 15.8% at second reading, and none went through third reading) which only indicates that generally, there is a need for only a simple majority in the parliament, as well as there is familiarity among the key players in both the Council and the parliament so that they tended to talk and agree early on the procedure, and the Council Presidency finds it increasingly difficult to find a common position among the 27 member states governments and the early parliamentary input only facilitates consensus-building; and, 3) that Council presidencies seemed very eager to reach quick agreements; and, Given the reports as above, the EP and the Council itself recognised the criticisms especially those concerning legitimacy, transparency and visibility, but did not really show such recognition in their actions. The Working Party on Parliamentary Reform’s report of October 2007 recommended a cooling off period between the votes in the committee on first reading deals and the votes in the plenary session, but which the EP and the Council did not heed at all. Bunyan further concludes that the parliament’s current position after a series of reports has been mainly focused with its internal functioning improvements so that it is able to better negotiate in the secret trilogues and has so far paid very little attention to the transparency of the proceedings and the openness of the documents to the civil society and public so that they can also follow on what is going on in the EP. The most promising, so far, that has come out of these, has been the Council Vice-Presidents’ proposal to have an extended legislative observatory which would contain all the documents and their relevant backgrounds. However, this has yet to be discussed, but with the rule that said documents will be made publicly available only after they have been adopted or have gone through all the necessary processes, and never before or while undergoing procedure. Furthermore, most reports have indicated the general perception of distrust and lack of trust on the institutions of the EU, specifically on the EP, viewing it as mere layer of bureaucrats who have nothing else to do but to retire as MEPs doing really nothing, which would make added powers on the EP practically useless and illogical (Steunenberg, and Selck, 2006). Open Europe (2009, pp2-3) has further enumerated the reasons for the generally lack of trust and respect for the EP, which in the report have been detailed as suggestions but herein culled out (and assumed) as the main reasons for the bad image of the institution: Very high wages and allowances of the MEPs, which are way too high compared to their UK counterparts. By cutting even 20% of the MEPs’ wages and 10% off their allowances based on the June 2009 levels, the EP could help save about 220 million in Euros, and would greatly improve the institution; Lack of transparency about the official figures for the salaries, pensions and expense entitlements of MEPs, as there is just not one single document that is accessible to show all these data, as well as there is no way to oblige the MEPs to publish all their expenses; MEPs have not really been obliged, and therefore have never practiced, to produce receipts for all their expenses primarily because the system provides each one with flat-rate expenses for office equipment, etc. and not really according to actual costs. This makes the EP a very expensive institution to keep, which seems to primarily serve as the MEPs’ milking cow; The highly controversial second pension scheme has not really been scrapped despite pressures to scrap it altogether. Further, this scheme has been the MEPs’ excuse for not reimbursing back to the EU budget all their unused expenses; Lack of transparency about the MEPs’ interests for the public to find out whether their votes have been influenced by financial interests or not; The circus-like and very expensive practice of the EP holding meetings in Strasbourg and in Brussels at certain schedules, entailing tremendous expenditures as well as difficulty for the advocacy groups, the media and other interest groups in the civil society to even know and trace where the nest committee hearings or reading of measures would be; Prevalence of the opaque back-room deals (e.g., the secret deals between the two main party groups in the EP to share the Presidency of the EP throughout each of their five-year term). Such very critical and important decisions in the leadership needs to be fully transparent to help the voters be informed; Publication of the full minutes of Committee meetings has never been done or practiced, making the constituency very uninformed and blind about what the EP has been doing all along, thus the prevalent perception of secrecy in the EP; As a legislative body supposed to be discussing tackling interesting issues and controversial measures, the EP just lacks the interesting debates and discourses that would greatly enrich the legislations coming from the body. However, due to raw deals and already secretly cooked measures between parties and among key EPs, there just isn’t anything to talk about on the floor anymore, which shows on the poor performance and image of the EP as a whole. The people just do not believe that the EPs still need to enlarge their power given the fact that most if not all decisions have already been made even before things are tackled on the floor. In a report covering the pre-elections of the EP, Cendrowicz (2009) of Time Magazine reports that only so few among the EU constituencies care about the forthcoming June 2009 EP elections, with the constituencies blaming the EU in general and the EP in particular, for appearing so remote, abstract, bureaucratic and very dull. Lacking visible personalities with no ruling party or opposition making clear what is at stake, the EP is just a mass of bureaucrats with power split among big political groupings who generally rule by consensus (Ibid.). This, according to the report, has made it difficult for the people to see the sense in voting or even in participating in any EU elections, much less adding power to the EP which is already perceived sufficiently powerful as it is. Further, the EP is seen as a retirement home for the washed-up national politicians, with debates often drifting into some senile-like rhetoric, amplified by translation into 23 official languages (Ibid.). Conclusion The EU has so far been successful in bringing solidarity and peace among the European nations, and, considering its magnitude of responsibility, the several attempts to better the lot of the EU community through treaties is understandable. The structure within the European Commission taking care of the various governance concerns have been well-placed and have evolved through time to better function to serve the members’ needs, following the ever-changing socio-political and economic landscape of the world as a whole. The EP as a legislative institution of the EU has been established to respond to the need for a body to focus on legislative functions. However, the extent and breadth of its powers have been controversial. While it is true that for the body to truly function, the EP necessarily has to have sufficient powers at its disposal, to truly give life to the essence of separation of powers and democracy within the EU. It should not be just a stamping pad for the Council’s actions, as well as the Commission’s. However, it is also a matter of concern that, with the first expansion of its powers in 2005, the EP has really performed dismally and has not really made use of its expanded powers given the political compromises and leadership deals already forged within. Added to these is the fact that the EP as it functions now is just another expense center of the EU. The debates continue on the EP’s powers. However, it is also necessary that the EU itself begins to take a look within and heed serious calls and warnings and do what is necessary. Bibliography Bonde, J.P. (2008). From EU Constitution to Lisbon Treaty. Foundation for EU Democracy and the EU Democrats. Cendrowicz, L. (2009). Why so few care about the European Parliament elections?. Postcard from Utrecht. May 28, 2009.Time online. [Available online] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1901432,00.html#ixzz0YCdfaSMr, retrieved 27 November 2009. Dinan, D. (2004). Europe Recast: A History of European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. European Union Committee of the House of Lords (2008). The Treaty of Lisbon: an impact assessment. London: Stationary Office. p. 335 (S18 Q47). Farrell, D. & Scully, R.(2007). Representing Europes Citizens?: Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation. Oxford University Press. McCormick, J. (2002). Understanding the European Union. 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan. Nugent, N. (2002). The Government and Politics of the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Pinder, J. The European Union: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Riegert, Bernd. 2004. “EU Parliamentarians: An Undeserved Bad Rap” Deutche WelleWorld (on-line), January June 1, 2004 Rittberger, B. (2007). Building Europes Parliament: Democratic Representation Beyond the Nation State. Oxford University Press. Shackle ton, M. (2002). The Institutions of the European Union edited by John Peterson. Oxford University Press. Scully, R. (2005). Becoming European?: Attitudes, Behaviour, and Socialization in the European Parliament. Oxford University Press Shackleton, M.(2002). The European Parliament, in John Peterson and Michael Shackleton (Eds.) The Institutions of the European Union, Oxford University Press: Oxford. Shaw, M. and Lees, J. (1979). Committees in Legislatures: A Comparative Analysis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Steunenberg, B. and Selck, T. (2006). Testing procedural models of EU legislative decision-making. In R. Thomson, F. Stockman, C. Achen, and T. KÄonig (Eds.), The EU Decides. Cambridge University Press. Steuenberg, B. and Thomassen, J. (2002). The European Parliament on the Move: Toward Parliamentary Democracy in Europe (Governance in Europe). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Van der Laan, L. (2003). The Case For a Stronger European Parliament. London: Centre for European Reform. Wood, D. and Yesilada, B. (2007). The Emerging European Union (4th Ed.). Pearson Longman Read More