Time for a change in the EU
Democracy itself could be at risk unless we face up to the deep flaws in the EU, warns MP Gisela Stuart
Governing is a tale of two restaurants, a Chinese politician told me.
You in the West, where there is so little difference between the political parties, are like a restaurant that never changes the menu, but every so often changes the cook. We in China don’t change the cook, but over the years we do change the menu.
If that is the case then the European Union is a restaurant that neither changes the cook nor the menu.
There is a deep flaw in the democratic structure of the Union, and we’d better start facing up to it. Just labelling anyone who finds fault as a “eurosceptic” is silly. Imagine if in the course of a General Election the governing party tried to tell the electorate that any voter who criticised them was by definition “against democracy”. We’d laugh.
But that’s how we react in relation to the Union. Anyone who points out shortcomings is immediately charged with being “against it”. It really is time we had a grown up debate.
Defining what amounts to a “democracy” is not quite as straight forward as it seems. Elections are important, but there is much more to it. The rule of law, freedom of arbitrary powers, absence of corruption, respect for human rights, all these are facets of liberal order, which may or may not be sufficient to describe a country as a democracy.
We are used to a system where the majority has its way. Others think participation is the most important element. The increase of pressure groups and single issue campaigns certainly point that way. There is no single truth and the political process is about diversity of opinions. But ultimately, democracy involves a mechanism of deposing the governing elite, even if only to replace it by another one. A new cook, as my Chinese colleague would say.
The parts which make up the European Union are a directly elected European Parliament, a Council of Ministers composed of democratically elected Ministers in the Member States and the Commission – whose members are nominated by democratic countries to act in the interests of the Union and there is also a European Court of Justice to oversee the rule of law. To top it all, the Union is said to have only those powers which member states have agreed to share; though once ceded they can not be reclaimed.
It is clearly not a federal state, if it were so it would have the powers of the centre much more precisely defined. It would also have more robust checks and balances. The EU is often said to be a progressive supranational institution sharing sovereignty in a modern and forward looking way. But I am not sure I know what that means.
This isn’t a case of “the whole being greater than the sum of its parts”, it’s the whole being something else than the sum of its parts.
It is virtually impossible to pin down accountability and responsibility in a way which would allow voters to bring about a change in political direction. Once a process has started it just grinds on regardless. The negotiations drag on for years and by the time a decision is made the politicians who started it have long left the stage, immune from the verdict of the ballot box. The Working Time Directive which is making life difficult for the NHS to train sufficient numbers of junior doctors in compliance with the much shortened hours is a case in point. It started life at the beginning of the last decade of the last century, but the political impact is felt now.
In October 2006 our Ministers announced major legislation to outlaw age discrimination. In the previous nine years there had been no less than ten attempts at Westminster to bring in such a law, from amendments to existing Bills, Ten Minute Rule Bills and Private Members Bills. They all came to nothing. When the legislation did arrive it came via the adoption of the “EU Directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation” of 2000. This was brought into British law via Statutory Instruments which can not be amended.
I am glad we are outlawing age discrimination, but I think this is something that should have been debated and voted on by Westminster. Just as there should have been ministerial statements from the despatch box giving guidance to our judges on what the lawmaker’s intentions were. It is absurd when asked, our Ministers could not give a binding answer to whether this directive would make the Minimum Wage which has different rates for young people unlawful. I think our voters expect more from us.
At the next European Election we will vote for our MEPs on closed party lists. That means the political parties themselves decide who is at the top of the list and therefore most likely to win. The voters can’t pick and chose between candidates but only vote for the entire list of one party. Candidates owe greater loyalty to the party hierarchy who decide on the ranking than to their voters. This is no criticism of any of the individuals, it’s simply a consequence of the electoral system.
There are no pan-European parties. We look at the names of domestic political parties and tick a box. Few have any idea how those elected will vote once they are in the European Parliament. We just don’t know enough or take enough notice of Brussels’ politics to do otherwise.
The dilemma voters face is probably best illustrated by the fact the Conservative MEPs are part of the European People’s Party, which as a group is deeply integrationist and federalist. David Cameron promised during his leadership election he will leave the EPP but I can’t see him giving up membership of a powerful political family which gives his people some influence, just to appease Bill Cash.
We are used to elections having a result which has tangible consequences. We know who is in charge and forms the government. And if after five years enough people don’t like what they have achieved they get kicked out and another lot comes in. It’s the outcome of a battle of ideas. No such thing at European elections. Apart from the extreme fringes the election manifestos of the main parties will deal in the kind of generalities no one could possibly disagree with. The focus will be on turn out and how the Tories’ share of the vote compares with Labour’s but little sustained reporting on how this plays out in Brussels. Democracies in their many shapes and forms all require one thing which the Union is lacking, and that is a common demos.
When things go well politicians can get by with relying on “implied consent”, but when things get tough and burdens have to be shared, a sense of belonging and shared values is essential.
Concern about the future of parliamentary democracy is not confined to the UK. Following an internal analysis of the extent of legislation originating from Brussels the former German President Roman Herzog, noting that Germany’s own constitution identifies parliament as the “central actor in the shaping of the political community”, concluded that “the question has to be raised whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy”. These are harsh words!
The forthcoming European elections should make us start to question and challenge some of the structures. Neither Westminster nor Brussels have done a decent job giving democratic legitimacy to the laws agreed on collectively by our Ministers and our MEPs. If the politicians aren’t careful we will end up like a bunch of actors still twittering on the stage without having noticed that the audience has gone home.
* Gisela Stuart is the Labour MP for Edgbaston. This is an abridged version of a lecture delivered by Ms Stuart at St Antony’s College, Oxford.
