European Elections for a European President!

Speculation about who might be the first permanent President of the European Council manifests a desire for a European figurehead. If there is to be a European figurehead, we must insist that he or she be elected and publicly accountable.

Editorial, Europa February March 2008

Even before the post formally exists, speculation is already rife about who might fill it. The role of a permanent President of the European Council, or ‘European President’, as the role is already being called, will be created by the EU Reform Treaty if it is ratified by all 27 member states, and Tony Blair by a long way the most frequently mentioned potential candidate. One might think that another European President - to add to the President of the Commission and the President of the Parliament - is one more too many. But the speculation about the ‘European President’ shows a strong desire for a European figurehead, and this desire should be satisfied. And if there is to be a European figurehead, we should insist on one thing: that he or she be elected and accountable.

In the current arrangement of the EU institutions, there is a rotating presidency of the European Council (the heads of state and government of the member states + the President of the Commission), a President of the European Commission who is nominated by the European Council and a President of the Parliament who is elected by the Parliament, but has little power. The EU Reform treaty signed in Lisbon, if it is ratified by all member states, will introduce a permanent presidency of the European Council, for a period of 2 and a half years, renewable once. It will also give to the Parliament the power to approve or disapprove a President of the Commission proposed by the European Council, which is supposed to make its proposal taking into account the results of the European Parliamentary elections. This last is a very welcome change, because it opens the door for European Political parties to go into the elections saying whom they would support as Commission president.

It is problematic that the moment they do this, the post of the President of the Commission looks to be eclipsed by that of the President of the Council, a last minute change in the rules that risks looking like cheating to an already distrustful European citizen. The President of the Council will be nominated by the members of the European Council with qualified majority voting. There is no procedure for how candidates are to be proposed, the only criterion laid down by the Treaty that they should not hold national office.

The role of the President of the Council is, to put it mildly, under-defined by the Treaty. The President of the Council is to: direct the work of the European Council and promote its cohesion, work with the President of the Commission, report to the Parliament, and ‘at his or her level, and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its foreign and security policy’ without prejudicing the powers of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, a post also created by the Treaty. The risk with such flimsy terms - the result of endless compromise - is that a compromise candidate is chosen by the council, who does not have the power to articulate what differentiates him or her from the President of the Commission, or the President of the Parliament. A confused situation will become even more confusing, and the energy already created by the idea of a ‘President of Europe’ will be wasted.

Part of the purpose of Tony Blair’s barely concealed campaigning for the role so early is to demand a meaty job description for the Presidency of the Council. Tony only wants the job, we are told, if it carries with it significant powers. The danger with the idea of giving too much power to the President of the Council, especially if it is given to a politician with the public presence and personal charisma of Tony Blair, is that it would skew the European Union into a Presidential mode of governance where the president from the start had considerably more power than the parliament. It is no great wonder that Tony Blair’s candidature is championed so enthusiastically by super-president Nicholas Sarkozy. A disproportionately powerful President of the Council would potentially also cement an inter-governmental Europe by taking authority away from the transnational administration. The greatest danger would be if the new role of a permanent President of the Council leads to even more being decided in the secretive, behind-closed-doors manner the European Council currently tends to adopt, and indeed this might happen whether the President is personally a strong or a weak leader.

These risks are only risks if the President of the European Council remains an unelected, unaccountable position. If the President of the European Council were to be elected by pan-European elections, he would have a mandate different from the national leaders in the council, and therefore would have a responsibility to act in a way taking into account the transnational interests of the citizens of Europe. With a sufficiently robust division of responsibility between the institutions and procedures of accountability to the Parliament there is no reason why the European Union should automatically become a solely Presidential regime. Indeed, if a vote for the Presidency came at a similar time as the vote for the European Parliament, the profile and importance of both would be immeasurably increased.

Tony Blair made an impression in the European Parliament before the British Presidency of the Council in 2005 with his ‘walls of jericho’ speech, in which he argued that the people are ‘blowing the trumpets around the city walls’, that the European institutions must show leadership; show that they are part of the solution not part of the problem. It would be falling to temptation twice to take at face value a real commitment to democracy in these words, and naive religious allusions are best left out of politics. But during his campaign for the Presidency, we should be holding Tony to his words, knowing as we all do what dangers there are in allowing them to be too quickly forgotten.

Leadership of the European Union would mean a clear division of powers, with each institution having sufficient power to both be meaningful in their own right and to hold the others to account. It would mean having candidates for the higher offices in the European Union who campaign, are elected and are forced to speak to the people they represent. ‘The people’ the higher European officials represent should be all the peoples of Europe, and in virtue of this fact they will become the European figureheads for which many are expressing the desire, and most recognise the importance for a credible European Union. There are many excuses for not yet doing or thinking about these things, ranging from a lack of a European public sphere in which candidates could campaign to the lack of maturity of the European institutions. But these excuses are quashed by the urgent need for the European Union to start to become the means of expression of its diverse peoples. A credible and accountable mouthpiece is a prerequisite for that.

Website Design By ChrisWalmsley.co.uk
© 2008

Hosting by e-noise.com