Notre Europe's viewpoint
| 27/01/2012
As is the case with the tensions between the EU and
Hungary, the drafting of the “Treaty” regarding the Economic and Monetary Union is once more raising the “European
democracy” debate: this time the issue is not primarily the EU’s functioning
and “democratic
deficit”, but the way in which the EU may influence the autonomy of
national democracies, in conditions that are now more than ever in need of
clarification.
1
– The European Union has a limited and targeted influence on national
democratic choices.
The EU’s interventions since the beginning of the debt
crisis and the confusion surrounding the real effect of the new Treaty -often
sustained for internal political reasons- will doubtless continue to entertain
the myth
of an omnipotent Europe. However, the impact of the EU’s present and future
interventions on national economic policies varies greatly:
˗ in the “countries
under programmes” (Greece, Ireland, Portugal), the EU sets its conditions. It
acts temporarily working alongside the IMF and according to the latter’s mode
of functioning, and helps those Member States that have de facto alienated
their sovereignty towards their creditors, in exchange for fiscal
consolidation and structural reforms that are subjected to hefty monitoring,
during the implementation of the aid programme;
˗ with regard to the
supervision of national budget policies, the EU may impose sanctions. The 3rd
part of the new Treaty aims to reinforce the follow-up foreseen in the Growth
and Stability Pact, in direct pursuance of the provisions adopted in the
context of the “Six
pack”. These sanctions, as until now, will only bear upon those
countries that have let their accounts drift. They would not necessarily prejudge
those choices elected in order to restore those accounts: it will be for
example for Greek and French voters to decide in the near future which
proposals they are most in favour of in this perspective.
˗ with regard to the
coordination of national economic policies, the EU formulates recommendations.
The 4th part of the new Treaty more or less reiterates the
provisions of the “EU 2020 Strategy” and of the “Euro+ Pact”, the latter
providing slightly more precise monitoring indicators, and counting on a slight
increase of “peer group pressure”. In terms of efficiency, one may lament the
fact that the EU, acts as a “super OECD” and does not have more efficient means
of action. But this may be understood in terms of legitimacy –the most
important being not to let believe that these simple European recommendations
may question the autonomy of national democracies…
European reactions to the reforms undertaken by the
Hungarian authorities confirm the diversity of the impact of EU interventions,
from welcome moral and political protest on the one hand, to procedures for infringement
and sanctions possible in those single areas where European law seems to have
been contravened on the other. This distinction is even more imperative to
establish considering the EU calls for adherence to the rule of law, except if
the EUU would like to be seen as weighing boundlessly on national democratic
choices.
In such a context, it is necessary to tirelessly
reiterate that the EU does not govern its Member states, and that, in
conformity with the “subsidiarity principle”, its competencies and the impact
of its normative
interventions are limited. Furthermore,
that if membership of the EU confers rights and imposes obligations, it allows de facto and de jure for the extensive autonomy of its Member states, as the
coexistence of very diverse economic, social, environmental and diplomatic
national choices illustrates it
2 – European policies
rest upon decisions which necessarily involve national authorities, in
conditions that the debt crisis has revealed are in need of clarification.
The 5th
part of the new Treaty bears the mark of the necessary involvement of national
authorities, driven by the debt crisis to make tough political decisions, not
only in order to grant hitherto unseen aid packages to other Member States but
also -driven by their creditors- to engage in profound structural reforms.
At
the European level, these choices require a political legitimacy that logically
rest with Heads of States and Governments. That one Head of State or the other
should exercise a particular “leadership” is a classical way of proceeding. However, the current crisis
has reminded -through the criticisms of the ‘Merkozy’ duo- that issues
relating to formal procedure are just as important from a political
point of view.In order to be wholly legitimate and accepted at a national
level, European representative authorities need to explain and assume
responsibility for European decisions: the presidents of the European Council,
the Commission and the ‘Eurogroup’ are best placed in this regard, as will be
the ‘President of the eurozone summits’ foreseen by the new Treaty, if it were
someone different from the three former mentioned.
The
debt crisis has also placed national Parliaments at the frontline, among other
reasons because the latter are solely habilitated to unblock funds granted in
order to come in aid to other Member states. Their involvement will remain
legitimate for as long as rescue mechanisms based on Community funding have not
been put in place. They could also be very useful in exercising an ex ante control on national budgets, in
the case where a European authority requested that a Parliament reviews a draft
national budget: it is indeed crucial that this authority counts amongst its
members representatives with a corresponding democratic legitimacy, which
implies the presence of representatives of national and European Parliaments.
However,
this does not entail the creation of another parliamentary institution in the
context of the new Treaty, which would create a harmful confusion with regard
to the EU and the European Parliament. Nor does it imply that we should ignore
the primary need for a stronger control of national Parliaments on their governments
when these negotiate and decide in Brussels – this deficit of national
parliamentary control being one of the main sources of the ‘European democratic
deficit’.
3
– The EU’s decisions stem from the balance of power between States and parties,
largely defined by the dynamics of national democracies.
An
omnipresent consideration for decision makers, sometimes taken into account by
analysts, the balance of power between States and between parties is most often
negatively mentioned by observers, as if they were primarily obstacles to EU
action, in spite of the fact they are the very basis of the latter’s political
legitimacy.
Such
is the way the balance of power between political
families within European institutions operates, leading to more or
less favouring economic and social policies aimed at austerity, or to
moderating criticism of the Hungarian authorities, whose leaders belong to the
political party which dominates Europe today, willed into power by European
citizens.
Moreover,
in this way operates the balance of power between Member States, whereby those
who register better economic performances and political cohesion quite
logically influence their partners – the case of the German authorities with
respect to budgetary stability exemplifies this point, once more echoing the
country’s public opinion.
Finally,
this is how the balance of power operates within each Member State, varying in
time and reversing itself in tandem with national elections. For example,
neither ‘Greece’, nor ‘France’, nor ‘Germany’ are monolithic entities, so that
the upcoming elections in these countries will also have an important impact on
the definition of their national and European policies and on the evolution of
the EU.
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The EU is not ‘monolithical’ either: this is
why there is a need to distinguish clearly between those areas that come under
its competences and institutions, and those areas that are the province of
national democracies, whose interactions make up the complexity, but also the
essence of European politics.
Articles by
Yves Bertoncini :
