Europe démocrate

There are many genuine federalists who believe that the European Parliament will gain ever more powers, and hence the EU will become more and more democratic. I used to be one myself.

However, when I began to study the real processes that take place in the EU institutions and that lead to real decisions and laws, I lost my illusions. Let's take for example this famous Eurotalk phrase "codecision", which in normal language should mean "deciding with".

First let’s have a look at the flowchart provided by the Commission:





From this picture, I think everyone will agree that the process is complex. When you meet such an intricate problem, you have two choices. You may try to analyze it detail by detail. Or you may assume that such a complexity is designed to make you fail, either by lack of legal knowledge, or by lack of time.

It is commonly regarded as a tactic from the Commission’s, whenever technical meetings of specialized ministers of the European countries take place, to provide them with documents that are so complex and so long to read that the ministers don't have the time to master them within the strict schedules, and end up having to follow the Commission.

Therefore I chose to begin by cutting the Gordian knot, and assert a general political principle. You will see in the following if this principle is valid or not.

It is my belief that the European institutions are not made for the expression of several opinions in a democratic manner, but rather for the rule of one political party only. That it is a sort of soft, technocratic coup d'état, by moving above the national democratic level.

I can describe this one political party as center-right in terms of economy, and center-left in terms of society choices. For the economy oriented towards free-trade and the challenge of any institution through competition, for society oriented towards minorities, individual choices and open immigration. The common point being a hatred towards anything that looks like national cohesion.

Let’s get back to the codecision process. I have made a selection below of the steps, concentrating on the aspect of who actually writes the text that will eventually become law. The difference between first or second reading has been voluntarily omitted. I chose the case of a « victory » of the Parliament:

1) The Commission presents a text to the Parliament.

2) The Parliament writes amendments

3) The Council of heads of States disagrees, and the conciliation committee is created

4) The Commission presents a new « package », i.e. a new text

5) The delegates of both Council and Parliament meet in the committee, with schedules so tight that they cannot master the text and can only vote Yes or No.

6) The conciliation committee says No, and the law is not adopted.

The important part to notice is that it is not the amendments of the Parliament which are put to vote in the conciliation committee, but the "package" rewritten by the Commission. And even if the amendments of the Parliament are fully included in the "package", in case of a "victory" of the Parliament its amendments do not become law, they are rejected together with the law.

If the law is rejected thanks to the Parliament, the Commission keeps the possibility to present it again, for example by cutting it in smaller bits, or by including it in a larger text, or by waiting for another legislation, or even as such during the same legislation

Now since the question was whether the European Parliament is an upper chamber or not, let me add two « details »:

- The delegation of the Parliament to the conciliation committee is composed of three vice-presidents of the Parliament, plus twelve MEPs appointed by their parliamentary group. Hence the MEPs who wrote the amendments can be a minority of the delegation.

- Throughout all steps of the process, informal meetings take place to draft the new proposals, organized by the Commission and with arbitrarily chosen members of Council and Parliament. The MEPs who wrote the amendments can be kept unaware of what is taking place in those informal meetings.

Now as regards the differences of powers between the Parliament and the Council of heads of states, two other « details »:

- The Council has been largely consulted by the Commission, by informal meetings again, even before the law is presented to the Parliament, before the first step, before the proposal is made public.

- The Council, being lead by national heads of states, can influence the MEPs who are also national politicians, either by party affiliation, or by threats and rewards for their national careers.

Impossibility to impose amendments, political weight inferior to the other chamber, informal meetings being held without the knowledge of members… from this I conclude that the European Parliament is in fact an upper chamber. Something slightly superior to a consultative body, but inferior to a true legislative assembly.

But which is even more important in the context of this referendum, the Commission can at any moment call an amendment illegal according to the treaties. And it is the Commission that insisted on specifying all those tiny material details in the Lisbon treaty, which reasonably should have been kept simple and readable.

This explains why the only laws that could ever be rejected since the codecision procedure exists, were laws concerning new technologies, which could not be specified in time in the treaties. For example biotechnologies patents or software patents.

And even then, the amendments of the Parliament were not passed, they were only rejected with the Commission’s proposals.

But, even for those « successes » of the European Parliament, knowing the « modernist » mentality of the discreet and only party in power, knowing the amount of informal talks that take place before anything becomes public, it could be suspected that those « successful » procedures were in fact set ups, designed to show to the public an appearance of democracy.

It is as if The Powers That Be considered as the only decent expression of rebellion the concerns of a minority of leftist-centrist yuppyish greenish activists. Once again something that is far away from any sense of national cohesion, either in terms of economy or society.