International

The European Union staggers from crisis to crisis, but the European Parliament continues to dream of a federal Europe. During next year’s Dutch presidency, a report will arrive from the Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt advocating the transformation of the European Commission into a European government and the abolition of the Council of Ministers, which would be replaced by a sort of Senate. The message from a very large slice of the European public has rung loud and clear for years: could ‘Europe’ be a bit less? This message is seen by federalist primarily as awkward, and despite all the fine talk, the Brussels ‘bubble’ simply doesn’t give a hoot for what ordinary people think.

Last Friday it was announced that a group of twenty-nine journalists from every member state ia to take the European Parliament to court on the grounds that it has failed to give access to the accounts of MEPs relating to spending which has been reimbursed. A splendid move: these data are, to be precise, absolutely inaccessible, despite the fact that every year I request them and despite motions I have presented to the effect that they should be available having in the past received majority support within the EP. That will teach them…

The SP team in the European Parliament, along with lobbying watchdog ALTER-EU, were intending to organise a meeting in the Parliament on how the Code of Conduct for MEPs is functioning. We had concrete proposals to put forward for debate. But what do you know? All of my fellow Members who sit on the various EP committees and other bodies which concern themselves with this Code of Conduct and whom we had invited to attend well in advance, turned out to have prior engagements. Bad luck or evasive action? I fear it was the latter.

As a member of the European Parliament for the SP, I act as spokesman for the United Left Group/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), the international group to which we are affiliated, in the Internal Market Committee. In every report which we debate, three words come repeatedly around: ‘competitiveness’, and along with that ‘growth’ and ‘jobs’. It’s a new mantra for the market-thinkers: if Europe can compete against the rest of the world, economic growth, and employment, will follow. The European Commission even wants in the future to pass judgement on their performance, just as they already do with the budgetary deficit and the state debt. But the mantra ignores the cost of all this: less democracy, fewer good jobs, and an ever-growing gap between rich and poor. In my view we should replace this mantra as quickly as we can with our own SP principles: human dignity, equality and solidarity.