If citizens knew…The European Parliament has more and more weight and responsibilities in the elaboration and endorsement of Community legislation. In the perspective of the next European elections, the public's attention should be drawn to this aspect at least as much as to the battles of ideas. People know about the ideological issues. Every voter knows more or less what it means to vote left rather than right or for the sovereignists as opposed to the federalists. If citizens are not passionate about the European elections it is because they can't see what the EP is doing and what its powers really are. They are unaware to what extent the EP, through its votes and resolutions, can influence their daily lives.
There is talk of intergovernmental Europe's progress, whereby the states alone really have power, although the majority of decisions have already been taken in codecision between the EP and Council, and although this system will further develop with the Lisbon Treaty. This is not just theory, this is a daily occurrence. A major part of public opinion appears stuck in a time warp where it believes decisions are still taken by the “Brussels institutions” without further definition, and where Parliament is, above all, just a talking shop. In Brussels, it was decided that…this formula persists in the press and elsewhere, and citizens interpret the word Brussels as being something remote with Brussels bureaucrats being more elusive and abstract than their counterparts in national bureaucracies. There is an element of truth in this sensationalism but it is rapidly ceasing to be the case and is an image one should strive to change. The European elections ought to represent an occasion for beginning this process, if they are, indeed, presented effectively.
EP decides almost as often as European Council. The previous considerations may have created the impression of a theoretical position being put forward. Let's therefore connect these considerations to what's actually going on.
The guidelines and decisions made by the European Council last week, to tackle the economic and financial crisis, are in large part subject to debates and voting at the Parliament, even if information channels have failed to pick this up. The release of €5bn from the EU to fund, for example, energy projects, have to be approved by the Parliament, which will undoubtedly request amendments. Legislative acts for putting financial regulatory reform into practice will have to be agreed by the Parliament and the Council. Paragraph 4 of the European Council conclusions explicitly stipulates that the texts must be approved without delay in codecision on: rating agencies, insurance company solvability, own-fund requirements for banks, and cross-border payments. The EP committee in charge of this dossier has just approved, by a very large majority, the element most awaited for, on rating agencies, and it demands that they have six months to comply with the new rules. Negotiations with the Council to provide a detailed definition of an effective and genuinely European regulation on this subject will begin next Tuesday. At the same time, the Parliament and Council reached an agreement on the new phase for creating a single energy market for electricity and gas.
An unknown context. The few examples mentioned (we could cite a lot of others) are part of the general framework where 60% of European legislation is endorsed in codecision between the Parliament and Council, and this percentage will grow to 90% with the Lisbon Treaty. The confidential and bureaucratic EU will disappear. If citizens knew to what extent the contents of laws that will largely determine their daily lives will depend on their election choices, who would not go and vote?
As well as being the legislator, the EU votes on the Community budget (it can reject it) and can overturn the Commission or decide on its composition by refusing to accept one or other of the commissioners. Who is aware the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) is to a large extent, an accomplishment of the EP or that the Energy/Climate package, that will determine European and perhaps world policy in these areas, is the fruit of bitter negotiations between the EP and Council, with mediation provided by the Commission? Who is aware of the fact that the main problems confronting people can only be resolved through a European solution?
According to a recent poll, barely one in four citizens is aware that the new European Parliament will be elected in two months' time. The others either know nothing about it or only see the fighting going on over the composition of lists and will vote, if they vote at all, on the basis of purely national criteria and motivations.
We should be running down the institutions a little less and talking more about the EP's powers.
(F.R./transl.rh)