International

Last week there was something of a commotion over the German social democrat European Parliament Chair Martin Schulz’s idea that next week’s vote on the multi-annual budget should be held behind closed doors.

His opposite number in our own national parliament in The Hague even wrote to him in response, and as far as I’m concerned he was completely correct: elected representatives of the people shouldn’t be hiding away. A parliament ought to be open to interested members of the public. From that point of view, however, there is a great deal of room for improvement.

Everything should be okay when Schulz’s proposal comes to the vote, because increasing numbers of MEPs are opposed to secret ballots. There are, however, other developments which are still more important, yet which have provoked less fuss. The EP meets behind closed doors more and more frequently to discuss legislative proposals with the Council of Ministers. True, the parliamentary committees meet first of all in public, but after the EP’s position has been determined by votes in these committees, this openness disappears and secret negotiations begin. Only when agreement is reached with the Council does everyone get the chance to see the results, so no more than a handful of MEPs – there are thirty to forty in each committee – determine what will happen in relation to a legislative proposal. The real business of the EP is therefore done behind closed doors. This certainly doesn’t seem to me good for contact with the voter, so I would be in favour of a rule which said that - in general - negotiations would begin after the plenary has voted on the Parliament’s position. In addition, regular discussions of progress should be held in public.

All important decisions regarding reimbursement of MEPs’ expenses or on our general integrity are taken in the ‘Bureau’. And if you aren’t on the Bureau, it’s hard to find out afterwards just what went on there. In addition, only the actual decisions taken in the Bureau are made public and you are dependent for receiving information in good time on your political group’s representative there. Fortunately I work well with the Member who represents the United Left (GUE-NGL), the group to which the SP is affiliated. Yet expenses and integrity are issues that are of interest to a lot of people, judging by the number of emails I receive about them, so it hardly seems proper that negotiations concerning such matters are held behind closed doors.

Lastly there remains the question of the new glass doors which Euro-MPs have been given so that we can protect ourselves from unwanted visitors to our offices. In itself I understand why the measure has been taken, because the group gets quite a lot of hassle from lobbyists who turn up unannounced and put pressure on assistants to be allowed to meet me or to take whatever it is they’re handing out. But if it has been decided that part of the EP building will be screened off, then the public area must really be public. Visitors must then, once they have passed through the security check, simply be allowed in, whether or not you have a meeting with a MEP. As things stand this isn’t possible and I’ve seen a lot of tourists standing peering through the entrance not quite believing that you really can’t go into any part of it, only into the separate visitors’ centre, the so-called Parlementarium. Things could certainly be more welcoming.

All in all the EP appears a great deal like a closed stronghold. If we carry on like this, nobody will have any right to complain about the gap between ourselves - the parliamentarians - and the public. This gap grows first and foremost out of the fact that the public have much more to do with their national parliaments, but if you do have a European Parliament, it should at least be transparent, both physically and in terms of substance.