Gisela Stuart MPWorking hard for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton

Europe lost and found // June 5th, 2009 // Speeches, Articles and Interviews

The democratic flaws of the European Union make elections to the European Parliament matter less than they should, says Gisela Stuart in an article for the website OpenDemocracy.

A Chinese politician once told me that there are two ways of governing, which can be compared to running a restaurant by periodically changing either the party in power (i.e. the cook, as in the west) or the policies (i.e. the menu, as in China). An extension of the analogy might see the European Union as like a restaurant that changes neither.

The eve of the elections to the European parliament - to be held across the twenty-seven member-states of the European Union on 4-7 June 2009 - highlights this immobilism, and focuses renewed attention on the flaws in the EU’s fundamental democratic structures.

Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform makes a valiant effort to argue for the importance of both the votes and the institution. No one - certainly no democratic politician - would contest the value of citizens’ participation in such a process and their free choice between candidates. But what is missing in his case is awareness of the EU’s wider democratic vacuum, something that casts a shadow over the forthcoming electoral process.

This is not the perspective of a “eurosceptic” – a label I certainly don’t accept, for I neither question the benefits of collective action at European level nor advocate Britain’s withdrawal. But to find fault with the democratic system as it operates at European level is not to be “against democracy” as such, but to want a better one. How to get there?

It starts with recognition that defining “democracy” is not straightforward. The rule of law; freedom from arbitrary powers; absence of corruption; respect for human rights - all these are facets of liberal order, are also necessary if not sufficient conditions for democracy. Elections are important, but responsibility and accountability in all these areas too are also vital.

The mechanisms of European democracy may in this respect look impressive. The organs of the European Union are a directly elected European parliament, a council of ministers composed of (democratically elected) ministers in the member-states, and the European commission (whose members are nominated by member-states to act in the interests of the union). There is also a European Court of Justice to oversee the rule of law. Overall, the union is said to have only those powers which member-states have expressly handed over.

But at heart there is a fatal lack of articulation and clarity between the levels of power. The EU is not a federal state. If it were, the powers of the centre would be more restrained and there would be more checks and balances. But neither is it a supranational institution sharing sovereignty in a modern, progressive and forward-looking way (whatever that means).

This is seen in European elections. Members of the European Parliament (MEP’s) are elected on closed (national) party-lists. They are accountable primarily to their party hierarchy for the ranking on the list and not their constituents. As there are no true pan-European parties, the elections are fought not on the basis of what the party does in the European context, but by the political parties’ domestic performance.

In national politics, elections tend to produce a definite result. The people know who is in charge, who forms the government. If, after four or five years, they don’t like what has been achieved they can replace their leaders. But in European elections - where the EU’s political “families” bear little or no resemblance to the national tickets - no such clarity is possible.

The lack of articulation and clarity continues in the Europe-wide legislative process. This is so long-winded that when something finally is implemented it’s virtually impossible to trace or hold to account those who first made the decision.

Three reforms would be needed to redress these problems. First, every legislative proposal should have in its open preamble a statement as to why this measure cannot be achieved in the national arena. This would reverse the presumption of the “subsidiarity test”.

Second, every incoming commission and parliament should start with a clean sheet; and any proposal that has not succeeded at the end of the five-year period would fall with the election.

Third, there should be a mechanism for returning competences to member- states.

All these would involve changes in national politics too - in the case of Britain, ending the practice of implementing EU laws by statutory instruments. Their cumulative effect would be to introduce greater political energy, argument and clarity into European institutions. They would begin to address Europe’s responsibility and accountability deficits.

But even they would leave a major problem untouched. The European Union above all lacks something vital to the functioning of a healthy democracy: an essential “demos”, a “we the people” element. Until this becomes a reality - if it ever does - elections to the European Parliament will not matter as much as they should.

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