Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Opinion

Ask not what we can do for the parliament...

For the third time in a month I find myself writing in an inclemency; today we are covered in a white blanket. Ah well, at least it is quiet. Britain these days is quite paralysed by snow; the mere threat of it prompts a rush to the supermarket and stern injunctions from the authorities not to venture out unless absolutely necessary.

Does all this staying at home with a muffler round one's neck benefit the planet; the Audis and BMWs left imprisoned in their garages behind two inches of slush? Is it Mr Dimas or Mr Verheugen, Commissioners respectively for the environment and for industry, who should be smiling?

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • "The European Parliament is not exactly suffused with the spirit of Danton. Yet it must be from the Parliament, somehow, that leadership will ultimately have to come." (Photo: EUobserver)

For the cameras at least, both were as they announced legally binding targets for new vehicle emissions this week. Mr Dimas has got his legislation - or rather since it has to pass both the Council and the European Parliament - his proposed legislation. But Mr Verheugen has successfully defended the German luxury car industry, softening Mr Dimas' call for a 120 gram limit, to the fury of those for whom even 120 grams is pusillanimous.

Such are the wide and diverging interests - exemplified in this environment-versus-industry case by the manufacturing strategies of northern and southern European carmakers - that make the European Union a hard place to govern these days. We shall return to this theme in a minute.

First, though, there is Richard Corbett's challenging proposal, outlined in these pages earlier this week, of shunting off the quarterly summits of European leaders to Strasbourg. He is a member of the European Parliament and one of the leaders of the campaign to restore the Parliament's dignity with a single fixed abode.

That the Parliament, which normally meets in Brussels, should hold its plenaries in Strasbourg is enshrined in Treaty. France holds a veto against its removal. French pride and the fortunes of Strasbourg itself, hinge on the monthly injection of cash by high rolling Parliamentarians on expenses. If the Parliament were to go what then?

Strasbourg is not 'there'

So the game of what-to-do-at-Strasbourg-if-the-Parliament-quits is a regular on the European dinner party circuit. Richard Corbett's idea has merit, though my feeling is that few European leaders would be prepared to sacrifice their own prestige and convenience for the sake of France. As CP Snow tells us, the first rule of politics is to 'be there' and Strasbourg is definitely not 'there.'

My tentative contribution suggests a putatively redundant Parliament building might house all those million signature petitions now finding their way into the European domain. There was another only this week about the labelling of foods derived from animals raised on genetically modified fodder.

Interestingly, the million-signature petition is the sole fruit of the moribund constitutional treaty to have found favour with citizens. Perhaps we should learn from this.

More especially, someone needs to decide what is to be done with these documents, how they are to be treated and so forth, and what status they have. The electronic petitions also require checking to separate the colonial and mischievous George W. Bush and Mickey Mouse from the sober citizens of Utrecht, Uppsala and Ullapool.

My prediction is that these petitions will grow in frequency and importance. To treat them as a species of democratic detritus could have unfortunate consequences. And they will have to be processed somewhere.

As to its seat, Parliament has the remedy in its own hands. Treaty or no treaty, all parliaments are sovereign. They can meet wherever they want. If 785 members, or even a large body of them, refuse to make the journey to Strasbourg, then that is it. Finis! Parliaments have set up shop in tennis courts before now, and to mighty outrage. But the truth is Parliaments always win.

Another party amusement is rehearsing the political past to the embarrassment of the present. I heard a clip of Margaret Thatcher recently, speaking after the British European referendum of 1975. Such energy and positivism expressed in the European cause I have scarcely heard.

Fifteen years ago European leaders, though not by then Margaret Thatcher, signed the Treaty of Maastricht, which gave the EU the basis of its present constitutional - and monetary - structure. Before Maastricht, the Union had been a Community and had no involvement in home or foreign affairs.

Leadership

The Dutch were then in the van of this constitutional progress. Maybe they should be reminded of it. Although today they may have retreated from the Carthaginian proposals of their outgoing Prime Minister, Bernard Bot, to scrap both the EU flag and the EU anthem, they are still cool towards further constitutional progress.

France approved this treaty by referendum - but by the narrowest of margins, represented in fact by 'La France Outre Mer.' Without her overseas territories, heavy recipients of EU largesse, France would have said 'no' to Maastricht. And what might have happened then, I wonder?

No wonder that Mr Barroso, the Commission President, is reported as having turned against further referendums, though I disagree with his assertion that a plebiscite on creating the European Community or introducing the euro could not be won. I would have thought the evidence pointed the other way. Such talk is anyway singularly defeatist and self-fulfilling.

Still the accent today is on securing some species of mini-constitutional treaty that will not require one. Trouble is - to return to where we were diverted by talk of Strasbourg as Europe's diplomatic capital - though various countries agree on the idea of a mini-treaty, there is far less of a consensus about what it might contain or indeed how 'mini' it should be.

This is symptomatic of divergence in many fields. Partly due to the sheer number of countries now members of the European Union; it is more worthwhile to defend the national rather than the community interest.

Ultimately only firm democratic leadership will resolve such impasses. One does not have to be a revolutionary to feel that the European Parliament is not exactly suffused with the spirit of Danton (De l'audace, et toujours de l'audace et encore de l'audace). Yet it must be from the Parliament, somehow, that this leadership will ultimately have to come.

The author is editor of EuropaWorld

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Column

EU's Gaza policy: boon for dictators, bad for democrats

While they woo dictators and autocrats, EU policymakers are becoming ever more estranged from the world's democrats. The real tragedy is the erosion of one of Europe's key assets: its huge reserves of soft power, writes Shada Islam.

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Column

EU's Gaza policy: boon for dictators, bad for democrats

While they woo dictators and autocrats, EU policymakers are becoming ever more estranged from the world's democrats. The real tragedy is the erosion of one of Europe's key assets: its huge reserves of soft power, writes Shada Islam.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us