International

We’ll all be hearing it a lot this week: happy new year. That means, of course, that you’re being wished success and good health, but when it comes to the European Union, what I wish for above all is democracy.  The threats are legion: the rise of the extreme right, limiting of human rights in member states such as Hungary and now also Poland, and the attitude of the EU institutions which despite everything are still determined to extend their powers at the expense of national parliaments. Add to that the might of corporate lobbyists in Brussels, and as a member of the public you would be increasingly justified in asking yourself whether you will be given any kind of hearing in that city and whether your interests will be taken into account.  That’s why I’m wishing everyone, first and foremost, a democratic new year.

The SP group in the European Parliament counts only two of the total of 751 MEPs, yet we can at least bring abuses into the open, as we did last month when the Commission made its building available free of charge to the European employers’ organisation Business Europe for its annual conference. European Commissioner Frans Timmermans has since promised that the same courtesy will be extended to the European Trade Union Confederation, so things have been put to rights. But we’ll have to fight hard to make the power of the corporate lobby yet more visible and in doing so to rein it in.

We’ll also have to show people what the europhiles are up to. As long as people have the feeling that decisions are being taken over their heads by Brussels bureaucrats, they’ll continue to turn away from politics. This applies not only to the European institutions, but also to national politicians, insofar as they have allowed it to happen. This undoubtedly accounts in part for the rise of extreme right movements which stir these feelings up without offering any democratic solution. There’s a lot of talk about the danger of the European Union collapsing. I’m not so worried about that, because in the end compromises are always found. What I’m really afraid of  is that these compromises will lead to more powers being handed to Brussels, and the chasm between the public in Europe and the EU being widened, which will mean that sooner or later things will explode. The European Commission can dream all it likes about gaining still more powers in socio-economic policy areas, such as via a compulsory test of ‘competitiveness’, but we mustn’t give way to them.  Now should we grant their desire to set up a European Office of Public Prosecutions, because we know very well that the next thing would be a European FBI and even European criminal courts. In short, a whole chain of European criminal law institutions for which no-one has asked. Don’t shove national parliaments aside by removing their right to ratify trade and investment treaties such as the TTIP. And take the result of the referendum on Ukraine seriously: when the public speaks, they must be heard.

If you cherish democracy, you should keep a close eye on Brussels. Only if we manage to keep the EU institutions just where we want them will 2016 prove to be the democratic year for which I sincerely hope. All the more reason for the SP’s ‘Team Brussels’ to work hard to achieve this.