London, 10/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Federal Trust for Education and Research of London, in its series on the future of European parliamentary democracy, is examining the problem of the choice facing European voters and democratic representation at the level of the European Union. Several MEPs and former MEPs have contributed to a book edited by Roger Morgan of The Federal Trust and Michael Steed (who served as a member of the committee which, under the chairmanship of Martin Bangemann, had drafted the manifesto of the European Liberals for the 1979 European elections). The publication, which is the result of lengthy team work (the idea coming from Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff, today MEP, at a time when he headed The Federal Trust), is of particular interest as the issues it covers are central to the debates on democracy of the European Convention on the Future of Europe and in light of the European elections to be held in June 2004. John Fitzmaurice (who has been Secretary General of the European Commission since 1973) stresses that the European Parliament may "usefully aspire to exercise a wide variety of useful functions in response to other power centres of the Union" and that, although it should "maximise its control over the Commission", the Parliament may, "in relation to the Council, play a useful role as the revising chamber entitled to cause the Council to think again in the legislative process or to take on board new inputs in the areas where its mode of decision-making remains essentially intergovernmental" (such as CFSP or JHA issues) Here, unlike national parliaments, the European Parliament can "exercise collective oversight", Mr Fitzmaurice remarks.
Among the current MEPs who contributed to the work, Labour member Richard Corbett asks whom or what MEPs represent. He examines the impact that the electoral system has on the elected European representatives and above all states: "Obviously, representing so many people, MEPs deal predominantly with organised groups. But individual voters can and do contact MEPs on a whole variety of issues" (such as workplace legislation, or environmental or consumer protection laws). Conservative Richard Inglewood mainly studies the control that may be exercised on European legislation by the House of Lords (where he has remained among the hereditary peers, after recent reforms). In his view, "the House of Lords, with its good track record in this field (Ed.: proved by the reports of its Select Committee on European Affairs), is clearly well placed to play a major part" in this respect. Ann McIntosh, former Conservative MEP, contributes to the work with her experience of the dual mandate, both European and national. She says the roles of MEPS and MPs are entirely "complementary" and that "perhaps there should be more holders of dual mandates, to encourage mutual understanding between national and European Parliaments" (Ed.: those noting the growing weight of the work of the Parliament as co-legislator, however, will contradict this). Ms McIntosh poses the problem of how representative MEPs are, and notes that, as an MEP, she initially represented 632,000 voters after the European elections in 1989 but that this was reduced to half a million at the second election in 1994 due to a circumscription boundary change. Hugh Dykes has also experienced the dual mandate, but he had been MEP before the first European elections in June 1979. Dykes, who had left the Tories in 1997 after disagreement with their European policy, joined the Liberal Democrats. He explains the progress made since the first elected European Parliament and notes that, with the introduction of proportional representation in the United Kingdom and other changes elsewhere "we can see considerable alterations in the old party constellations arising in the future" (Ed.: things have already started moving considerably with the election at the European Parliament of the Liberals and Greens, who had been excluded for a long while). Tom Spencer, former Conservative member of the European Parliament, is also very aware of the changes that have taken place in recent years, and recalls the reaction of a senior British civil servant who "observing the European Parliament's plenary in one of its hyper-active moments in the early 1990s" exclaimed: "Good God, if this lot ever acquire real power, we will have to re-write all the political text books. It can only be dangerous to have a Parliament that exists beyond the control of any government". Carole Tongue, former Labour MEP, discloses another aspect: the role of the lobbies within the Parliament. She states that, in 1998-99, "the lobbies nearly drowned MEPs in briefings" on the draft directive on copyright. Her work as an MEP, she concludes, was "exciting and fulfilling, producing tangible results for European citizens".
(The Federal Trust for Education and Research 2003. Dean Bradley House, 52 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AF. ISBN 0 901573 73 6).