The European Parliament

In the Treaty of Rome, the European Parliament was called "assembly." But already in 1958, it gave itself the current name. Initially, the European Parliament con­sisted of delegates of the national parliaments, who met for short sessions in Strasbourg. This led to useful contacts, but the European Parliament had virtu­ally no decision-making power. It could approve nonbinding resolutions and sub­mit questions to the Council of Ministers. The only real decision power was to force the European Commission to resign with a vote of no confidence. But as we have seen above, this right was never used. So the European Parliament was for a long time not more than a forum for an exchange of ideas among delegates from the national parliaments.

The real legislature was—as we have seen above—the Council of Ministers, which was increasingly seen as a democratic deficiency of the European Com­munity. To be sure, the Council of Ministers had a democratic legitimacy in the individual member countries, in the sense that its members belonged to the respective national governments, and these national governments were selected

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by the national parliaments, which in turn were elected by the national elector­ates. But this was too long a chain to give to the Council of Ministers real demo­cratic legitimacy. It was felt that the European voters should have a direct voice. Thus, on December 20, 1976, the Council of Ministers decided that the Euro­pean Parliament should be directly elected by the European voters. The first direct elections took place in 1979. The term was five years, and further elec­tions were held in 1984 and 1989. Voter turnout was 62.5 percent in 1979, 59.0 in 1984, and 57.2 percent in 1989. Compared with American standards, these were good turnouts. But for elections in Europe, the turnouts were rather low (see Chapter 2). It was particularly disturbing that the trend was downward. This raises the question of the extent to which the European Parliament has been able to establish itself as a representative institution of the European voters.

)The European Parliament has basically the same problem as the European Commission in the sense that it is unclear whether a powerful office or power­ful officeholders come first. In the first elections, some eminent leaders, such as Willy Brandt and Francois Mitterrand, were elected. But it soon turned out that, for many, their participation was mostly a symbolic gesture of goodwill. Brandt and Mitterrand, for example, gave up their seats in the European Parliament to continue their careers in Bonn and Paris. When the European Parliament was elected for the second time, relatively few prominent leaders entered the race. They con­sidered a seat in the European Parliament an insufficiently powerful position. This has not greatly changed with the 1989 election, although former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing is now a member of the European Parliament.

How powerful has the European Parliament become since it is directly elected by the voters? A historical analysis of the development of national parlia­ments all over the world suggests that the crucial step has been gaining control over the budget. (The United States Congress is so powerful because it controls the purse. In this respect, the European Parliament still has little power. The budget does not originate in the Parliament but in the Commission. It then passes between the Council of Ministers and the parliament. The real budgetary power has remained with the Council of Ministers. Parliament can reject the budget but has no authority to draw up its own budget. Nevertheless, it has gained the right to make certain amendments to the budget in some limited areas. The power of the European Parliament ultimately will be determined in the battle over these very budget questions. If the parliament can obtain significant control over both revenues and expenditures, this will be the crucial step in transforming the European Union into a truly supranational organization: Essential sovereign power will have been transferred from the member countries to the European level. But many politicians and voters—especially in Great Britain, but also elsewhere—fear such a development and will resist any effort to expand the European Parliament's budgetary power. Seen in this broader context, quarrels over the budgetary rights of the European Parliament are not at all technical in nature but go to the very heart of European integration.

In a parliamentary system of government to which Europeans are accus­tomed, it is crucial that parliament exercises power in the selection of the

3SS WESTERN, CENTRAL, AND EASTERN EUROPE

executive cabinet. In this respect, too, the European Parliament lacks power; it is not even clear who the executive is and whether the European Union has an executive at all. As we have seen in the preceding sections, the European Com­mission has executive functions for the day-to-day operations of the European Union. But for politically sensitive matters, the Council of Ministers makes execu­tive decisions, too, although it also has legislative functions. Finally, there is the all-important European Council, which makes the most sensitive executive decisions.

The European Council does not depend on a vote of confidence of the European Parliament, nor does the Council of Ministers. For the European Com­mission, the situation is ambiguous. Legally, the European Parliament has the right—as we have seen in the last section—to dismiss the commission with a vote of no confidence. But it has no right to select a new commission, so that the national governments could simply reappoint the old commission. This explains why the European Parliament has as yet never used its right of a vote of no confidence against the commission. With the Treaty of Maastricht the par­liament has received the additional right to approve the appointment of the com­mission. But this will not change much because the parliament still has no right to select the commission on its own.

There are discussions within the European Union to transform the Council of Ministers into a second parliamentary chamber called the Senate. The institu­tional construction would be similar to Germany, where the Bundestag represents the people and the Bundesrat represents the Lander (states). Following this con­struction, the current European Parliament as a first chamber would represent the European voters, and the renamed Council of Ministers as a second cham­ber would represent the individual countries. This would allow the European Commission to develop from an "embryo of a European Government" (see last section) into a real European government. As in a regular parliamentary system, it would derive its legitimacy from a vote of confidence in parliament. With such a development, the European Council would become redundant because the European Commission clearly would be the executive. Such a construction would be in the interest of both the European Parliament and the European Commis­sion but certainly not of the political institutions in the national capitals. The strongest resistance against such a plan comes from the British House of Com­mons, which would be degraded to a local parliament analogous to an American state legislature. There is also resistance from other national capitals, such as Copenhagen. Thus, it is not likely that the European Union will receive clearly structured institutions of a parliamentary system any time soon. The ambiguous relations among the current institutions will continue for some time. In the context of the present section, it is important to stress once more that the European Parliament is not a classical legislature. It shares this function in a complex way with the Council of Ministers. This ambivalence is expressed in the following description in an official publication of the European Union:

The Council of Ministers, which represents the Member States, adopts Community legislation (regulations, directives and decisions). It is the

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Community's legislature, although in certain areas specified by the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty it shares this function with the European Parliament.⁵

This is typical, convoluted, bureaucratic language from Brussels, which makes it so difficult for Europeans to understand the institutions of the European Union. The fault, however, is not primarily with the bureaucrats in Brussels but with the unclear delimitation of the various European Union institutions.

If we look at the legislative process in detail, the European Parliament plays four different roles according to the area of the issue at hand.

1. Agreement of European Parliament required.

2. European Parliament has no say.

3. Cooperation procedure between European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

4. Co-decision procedure between European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

1. Based on the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty, there are cer­tain issue areas -where the agreement of the European Parliament is required, such as the acceptance of new European Union members. This clause has great prac­tical significance because several countries such as Austria, Sweden, Norway, and Finland have applied for membership, and most of the former Communist coun­tries in Central and Eastern Europe are eager to do so soon. The agreement of the European Parliament is also required for changes in the rules for the Euro­pean parliamentary elections, for the introduction of a European citizenship, and for the organization of a European Central Bank.

2. There are still issue areas where the European Parliament has no say. This is the case for changes in the existing treaties of the European Union and the conclusion of new treaties. Thus, the Maastricht Treaty was solely ratified by the member countries, but not by the European Parliament. This is a strong limita­tion in the power of the European Parliament because the various treaties form the constitution of the European Union. The European Parliament is also excluded from most foreign policy and security issues.

3. The cooperation procedure is described in Article 189c of the Maastricht Treaty. It applies in particular to the issue areas of transport, environment, developing aid, work place, and regional and social policies. For these issue areas, two readings in the Council of Ministers and two in the European Parlia­ment are required, but ultimately the views of the council prevail.

4. The co-decision procedure was introduced with Article 189b of the Treaty of Maastricht. It applies in particular to the internal market, consumer protec­tion, mutual recognition of diploma, education, culture, and technology. In these areas, the European Parliament is able to block a proposal of the Council of Min­isters. But the parliament is still not able to impose its own will. The prescribed procedures in the case of disagreements between council and parliament are

rather complicated. If after its second reading the parliament rejects with an absolute majority a proposal of the council, a conciliation procedure begins. If this procedure fails, parliament can kill a proposal of the council if again an absolute majority of the members of parliament reject the proposal. Thus, the co-decision procedure gives to the European Parliament a veto power in certain areas.

The European Parliament still meets in Strasbourg, and France very much insists that it continue to do so (photo 17.2). Many committee meetings, how­ever, are held in Brussels, seat of the European Union. To make things even more complicated, the Secretariat-General of the parliament is located in Luxembourg. Because the members of the European Parliament therefore travel a great deal, one speaks in this context sometimes of a "circus." Membership of the European Parliament is 518; France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy each have 81 mem­bers; Spain has 60; the Netherlands has 25; Belgium, Greece, and Portugal each have 24, Denmark has 16; Ireland has 15; and Portugal has 6. Sitting in the European Parliament is not by countries, but by political parties. The largest groups are the Socialists and the European People's party, a label under which mostly Christian Democrats are organized. The elections for the European

PHOTO 17.2 European Parliament, Strasbourg, France. Courtesy Delega­tion of the European Community, Washington, D.C.

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Parliament are held within the individual countries. The election system is basi­cally proportionality, but Great Britain insists on using for the European elections, too, its usual winner-take-all system in single districts.

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