Proposals for EU constitutional reform
Though plans are very much underway to hold a Conference on the Future of Europe, examining the reforms to the EU's core functioning, there is still not much engagement in the substance of the matter from politicians or European society in general.
In this regard, the EPC paper setting out some proposals is undoubtedly positive. However, some of the specifics seem to be slightly off in my view. Why? The essential problem remains a lack of radicalism and a tendency to prefer the preservation of the existing institutions over root-and-branch reform.
A good example of this is found in the analysis of the situation regarding European parties. The EPC paper quite rightly highlights that European parties struggle to function as actual parties of the kind that we interact with and recognise at the national level. The suggestion that parties should be able to register as pan-European entities and campaign in European elections is entirely sensible. But when it comes to getting national parties to actually sign up to this reform, the paper seems to fall short. Indeed beyond simply hoping that there is enough pressure to force national parties to come on board with this loss of power and autonomy, it's not clear what mechanism there is to make this reform actually effective. In the end, power and finances would still lie with the national parties and European parties would be unable to exercise influence over the MEPs after they are elected (they are no whips in the European Parliament precisely because European parties are so hollow).
A more radical proposal would suggest that European parties be the sole parties that citizens vote for in European Parliament elections. Instead of voting for the national affiliate of the EPP or Renew Europe, citizens would directly vote for these citizens. We could build on the idea of a European electoral authority proposed by the EPC paper and allow the European parties to draw up their own candidate lists or at least influence the candidate selection process (as in all democracies this is in practice a game of give and take with the local level and the central party). European parties could then run directly in all countries and would not have to rely on the national parties (a system which carries mixed results, including parties that don't really represent the European group, such as Fidesz in Hungary, and many countries where not all groups are present). Through this kind of ambitious reform, we could have real European political parties, which meaningfully act as coherent units in the European Parliament, and with whom citizens can engage.
And by allowing European parties to run and campaign directly, we could get around the problem of national parties refusing to support this reform. Those parties and political families that fail to get behind the reform would then likely run poorer campaigns than those that do and would lose out electorally. In addition, we could provide further incentive by allowing parties a campaign funding bonus if they campaign at the European level, compared to campaigns that operate only at the national level. These measures together would encourage a campaign that runs across Europe and that tackles fundamentally European issues - which, after all, should be the entire point of European elections. The days of siloed national campaigns talking about local issues that have little if anything to do with the EU's actual powers would then be behind us.
Similarly we need to tackle the issue of transnational lists. These have become very popular in pro-EU and federalist circles but in the whole they still appear to be a red herring more than a vital reform. If we take the principle that democratic reform in the EU should keep the link between voter and elected official as direct and simple as possible, then the addition of transnational lists and an extra add-on of voting procedure and seat allocation and calculation for the selection of the Commission President seems some way off the mark. The only evidently positive feature would be giving citizens the opportunity to vote for a European party without needing to rely on the presence of a corresponding national party (for example, voting for the EPP in the UK). But under the more radical reform to European parties proposed above, this could be achieved anyway without needing to do anything with national parties.
And finally, the most important criticism of the EPC paper is its focus on systemic fixes rather than tackling the fundamental distribution of power. Under this approach one sees that the Commission holds some executive power and tries to make it work better as an executive. The more radical approach, and likely the one that citizens would respond best to, is to open up the question of what power we want the Commission to have in the first place. Suggestions to make the Commission a more powerful executive seem somewhat out of place when it's far from obvious that many European citizens want the Commission to be an executive at all. In this regard, perhaps the best complement to reform of the European elections and the European Parliament is not a stronger Commission but rather to transfer the Commission's executive powers to the Parliament and to form the Commission entirely from the elected MEPs, not simply the Commission President.
Ultimately, this kind of radical shift of powers is unlikely to take place, if only because the national governments are unwilling to give up their control over the appointment of the Commission. But these are the sorts of questions we should opening up for debate with Europe's citizens if we want to make this endeavour a success. Getting bogged down in the technical details of seat distribution is really of more interest to politicos and politicians than it is to most citizens. If we are to satisfy the general population with these reforms then it is the grand narrative arc that we should consider first and foremost, developing proposals that can match such a narrative and which can truly inspire citizens to renew their confidence in the EU's institutions.
Image via Flickr
In this regard, the EPC paper setting out some proposals is undoubtedly positive. However, some of the specifics seem to be slightly off in my view. Why? The essential problem remains a lack of radicalism and a tendency to prefer the preservation of the existing institutions over root-and-branch reform.
A good example of this is found in the analysis of the situation regarding European parties. The EPC paper quite rightly highlights that European parties struggle to function as actual parties of the kind that we interact with and recognise at the national level. The suggestion that parties should be able to register as pan-European entities and campaign in European elections is entirely sensible. But when it comes to getting national parties to actually sign up to this reform, the paper seems to fall short. Indeed beyond simply hoping that there is enough pressure to force national parties to come on board with this loss of power and autonomy, it's not clear what mechanism there is to make this reform actually effective. In the end, power and finances would still lie with the national parties and European parties would be unable to exercise influence over the MEPs after they are elected (they are no whips in the European Parliament precisely because European parties are so hollow).
A more radical proposal would suggest that European parties be the sole parties that citizens vote for in European Parliament elections. Instead of voting for the national affiliate of the EPP or Renew Europe, citizens would directly vote for these citizens. We could build on the idea of a European electoral authority proposed by the EPC paper and allow the European parties to draw up their own candidate lists or at least influence the candidate selection process (as in all democracies this is in practice a game of give and take with the local level and the central party). European parties could then run directly in all countries and would not have to rely on the national parties (a system which carries mixed results, including parties that don't really represent the European group, such as Fidesz in Hungary, and many countries where not all groups are present). Through this kind of ambitious reform, we could have real European political parties, which meaningfully act as coherent units in the European Parliament, and with whom citizens can engage.
And by allowing European parties to run and campaign directly, we could get around the problem of national parties refusing to support this reform. Those parties and political families that fail to get behind the reform would then likely run poorer campaigns than those that do and would lose out electorally. In addition, we could provide further incentive by allowing parties a campaign funding bonus if they campaign at the European level, compared to campaigns that operate only at the national level. These measures together would encourage a campaign that runs across Europe and that tackles fundamentally European issues - which, after all, should be the entire point of European elections. The days of siloed national campaigns talking about local issues that have little if anything to do with the EU's actual powers would then be behind us.
Similarly we need to tackle the issue of transnational lists. These have become very popular in pro-EU and federalist circles but in the whole they still appear to be a red herring more than a vital reform. If we take the principle that democratic reform in the EU should keep the link between voter and elected official as direct and simple as possible, then the addition of transnational lists and an extra add-on of voting procedure and seat allocation and calculation for the selection of the Commission President seems some way off the mark. The only evidently positive feature would be giving citizens the opportunity to vote for a European party without needing to rely on the presence of a corresponding national party (for example, voting for the EPP in the UK). But under the more radical reform to European parties proposed above, this could be achieved anyway without needing to do anything with national parties.
And finally, the most important criticism of the EPC paper is its focus on systemic fixes rather than tackling the fundamental distribution of power. Under this approach one sees that the Commission holds some executive power and tries to make it work better as an executive. The more radical approach, and likely the one that citizens would respond best to, is to open up the question of what power we want the Commission to have in the first place. Suggestions to make the Commission a more powerful executive seem somewhat out of place when it's far from obvious that many European citizens want the Commission to be an executive at all. In this regard, perhaps the best complement to reform of the European elections and the European Parliament is not a stronger Commission but rather to transfer the Commission's executive powers to the Parliament and to form the Commission entirely from the elected MEPs, not simply the Commission President.
Ultimately, this kind of radical shift of powers is unlikely to take place, if only because the national governments are unwilling to give up their control over the appointment of the Commission. But these are the sorts of questions we should opening up for debate with Europe's citizens if we want to make this endeavour a success. Getting bogged down in the technical details of seat distribution is really of more interest to politicos and politicians than it is to most citizens. If we are to satisfy the general population with these reforms then it is the grand narrative arc that we should consider first and foremost, developing proposals that can match such a narrative and which can truly inspire citizens to renew their confidence in the EU's institutions.
Image via Flickr
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