SP International :: Goals

A better Europe starts now

Chapter 2

A more democratic Europe

A more democratic Europe means a Europe in which citizens have more say over everything which happens. That means in turn that decisions taken in the context of European cooperation must be visible to those same citizens, understandable to them and open to being monitored by them. It means too that decisions must be taken as close as possible to the citizen. In the European Union, just the opposite of this has occurred. Since the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 the European Union has been developing in the wrong direction, at a high tempo and worst of all without the involvement of the citizens. Ever more competences are handed to the institutions of the Union at the expense of national governments and parliaments. European institutions under little or no control, such as the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Council take ever more decisions affecting national legislation without the slightest possibility of democratic control. The European Parliament, distant from the citizens, does not function as a true parliament, lacking the involvement of the public, the potentialities, the means – and the discretion – proper to such a body.

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PROPOSALS FOR A MORE DEMOCRATIC EUROPE

Strengthen the role of national parliaments

The transfer of ever more powers from the national level to the intergovernmental and supragovernmental bodies of the Union is leading to democratic erosion and decision-making under no democratic control. This process most be halted and reversed. The role of national parliaments within the European Union should therefore be enhanced. In the Danish parliament a Committee on European Affairs meets each week to discuss proposed European legislation with relevant government ministers and to decide on what should be the national response to these proposals. Ministers take their mandate from this committee, determining their position in negotiations in the European Council of Ministers. Only by agreement with the parliament may a minister deviate from this mandate. This is the direction in which the Netherlands should also go.

Introduce the 'yellow-card procedure'

The two houses of the Dutch Parliament established in 2006 a joint committee which checks proposals from the European Commission to see whether they are in keeping with its areas of competence, as well as with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. If this is judged not to be the case, then the government is informed and requested on the basis of this information to state its position. This should lead to the introduction of a 'yellow card procedure' under which, if a minimum of a third of national parliaments consider that a proposed EU measure is not in keeping with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the initiative must be withdrawn.

Strengthen the role of national governments

The development which has seen ever more power handed to European Union institutions at the expense of national sovereignty has also weakened the position of national governments. This development should be reversed. The national veto right must not be subject to any further limitation through the ever-increasing practice of decision-making by qualified majority voting (QMV). Instead, it should be broadened and determination of the extent of the influence that the European Union can have on the national state and society returned to the national level.

Limit the role of the European Union

The Dutch people voted no to the so-called 'European Constitution' by a majority of almost two-thirds, and in doing so voted against the development of a European superstate. The European Union must henceforth reduce rather than increasing its interference in the life in the member states and among their citizens. Only where there is agreement that European legislation is unavoidable should power to take measures be given over to it. In this way the shaken confidence many citizens feel in European cooperation can then gradually be restored. Taking a step towards this is the first thing which needs to be done to demonstrate to the public that 'meddling Brussels' has been reined in.

Limit the extent of the economic market

Cooperation in the context of the European Union is at the present time primarily economic cooperation. The time is certainly not ripe for more far-reaching political integration, and there is no support for such among the people of the member states. Other areas of policy can therefore often be better and more speedily regulated on a national level or between a smaller number of states. Education, health care, social policy, transport and housing are best managed close to home, and as far as these matters go interference from Brussels is neither necessary nor desirable. Clear limits should be placed, moreover, on what might be considered appropriate to include within the European Union's 'internal market', not in order to decide whether something can be traded, but whether it should be traded as an economic good. The handing over of European economic cooperation primarily to big corporations, which want to put all mobile and fixed goods at the service of the pursuit of the highest possible profit, was an historic error which has seriously discredited the whole idea of European cooperation, in particular as the internal market has been managed through supranational powers at the expense of national sovereignty. The European Commission has, with the support of member state governments, given free rein within the internal market to neoliberalisme, and against this much which is of social value has proved defenceless. Under pressure from neoliberalism, the member states have been forced by the European Union to plunder and demolish their public sector and social provision, opening ever more sectors to 'market-working', with all the disastrous consequences that has had for both the quality of services and for social cohesion. Economic cooperation in the European Union must be put at the service of everyone, rather than of the self-interest of major undertakings and of the rich.

Limit the role of the European Commission

The European Commission has long been the motor of EU integration. It produces a flood of rules affecting activities in numerous fields. Following approval by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers these become binding on all member states, confronting citizens with rules over which they have not been consulted and which they may not understand. As for any effective monitoring of the work of the European Commission, of this there is no possibility. It is time that the Commission's responsibilities were revised. The governments and parliaments of the member states must renew their grip on European Union policy. The role of the Commission should be limited to the carrying out of that policy. The right to initiate new EU legislation must be transferred from the Commission to the Council of Ministers. This concerns all European Regulations, measures which become effective in the member states without going through any national decision-making

procedures. Only in exceptional cases – and only on the basis of of unanimity – should this system continue to be used. In the case of EU Directives (which oblige member states to incorporate EU measures into national legislation), the right of national parliaments to make policy must be increased. and they must have moor space to interpret and apply such legislation.

Limit the role of the European Court of Justice

The European Court of Justice (ECJ), designed to ensure the uniform application of the European Union's laws in all member states, is sometimes to an even greater extent than is true of the European Commission, the motor of far-reaching integration. The ECJ's declarations often place limits on the competences of national legislators, in favour of the institutions of the European Union. The Court ruled in September 2005, for example, that the European Commission, though 'in principle' having no say in member states' criminal law, could nevertheless in the future make demands regarding criminal penalties for certain offences in the member states. Criminal law must remain a national responsibility. The Dutch government should block any further developments on this point.

Improve relations between national parliaments and the European Parliament

It is not the task of Euro-MPs to represent 'Brussels' in the Netherlands. Instead they should be presenting and promoting the interests of the citizens of the Netherlands within this sphere of European cooperation. This is why relations between the national and European Parliament must be strengthened. This could be achieved by the introduction of the so-called 'double mandate', allowing members of the national parliament at the same time to sit in the European Parliament, as is currently the case for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). This possibility is, following the adoption of a parliamentary motion presented by the SP, currently under study. In addition, administrative pressure within the European Parliament should be limited, for example through a reduction in EU legislation and the elimination of unnecessary sources of such pressure such as the constant to and fro between different meeting places in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Make the Council more transparent

In order to guarantee that national parliaments are able to exercise effective control over the Council of Ministers, greater transparency of decision-making in the Council is of prime importance. All meetings of the Council, whether legislative or not, should in the future be open to the public and broadcast via television and/or the Internet. The press could then also better report European decision-making, contributing to a narrowing of the gap between the political process and the public.

Strengthen the role of the European Parliament

The European Parliament must play a more active role in the monitoring of EU policies. This could be achieved, for example, by giving it responsibility for existing European monitoring organisations, such as the European Court of Auditors, the anti-fraud bureau OLAF and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Increase public involvement

One possible way of making the European Union more attractive to the public would be to introduce the right of "citizen's initiative", a right mentioned in the proposed European Constitution. The idea of giving citizens the right, by means of the collection of a million signatures, to have an issue added to the EU's agenda, deserves more detailed elaboration.

Treaty reform through referendum

The vote against the proposed European Constitution represented not an approval but a rejection of the existing treaties and the practices based on them. The voters conclusion was, "cooperation, certainly, but not in this form." For this reason alone, future changes to the treaties are unavoidable. To date, the procedure has been that proposals for such changes are negotiated between governments and given force by consent of national parliaments. Because amendments to the EU treaties can have drastic consequences, it would be better if henceforth any such radical changes were preceded by public discussion over the proposals and any possible alternatives to them, after which the debate would conclude in a referendum.

[ Summary - The debate on Europe is on its way! - European cooperation – a good idea - A more democratic Europe - A slimmed-down Europe - The size of the European Union - A fruitful agricultural policy - An affordable European Union ]