David
Sumberg MEP
Date: 01/02/2007
DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT?
Unlike our House of Commons, the European Parliament and its members are elected for five years with no possibility of an earlier end to their tenure of office. Quite different from Westminster where the Prime Minister of the day has the power to dissolve Parliament and call an election at the time of his or her choosing.
So having been re-elected in June 2004, I am now more than half way through my present term of office and at this time in the life of MEPs, there is a major reorganisation of their roles in the Parliament. For example, we have just chosen a new president of the Parliament for the second half of the new parliamentary term. I use the word ‘chosen’ rather than ‘elected’ because the way this office is filled is a demonstration of all that is wrong with the way that the Parliament sometimes conducts its business. In short, it’s not an ‘election’, it’s a stitch-up. Let me explain.
When I was re-elected back in 2004, the two biggest groups in the Parliament, the centre-right grouping EPP-ED, (of which we Conservatives are members), and the centre-left socialist group (which includes the British Labour MEPs), did a deal. The President of the Parliament for the first half of the term would come from the socialist camp; the second half would be filled by an EPP-ED MEP. Very cosy.
The socialist group made a classic mistake with their choice. They could have picked an excellent former regional colleague Terry Wynn – a man of vast experience of the Parliament and someone of proven ability after many years service in Europe. But instead they picked a Spanish MEP who was elected for the first time to the European Parliament in 2004 and who was made its president within a few weeks of walking through its doors. An extraordinary decision. Just imagine if the House of Commons had picked the newest MP to be its speaker and chair its proceedings.
But there was nothing that ordinary MEPs could do about this situation because behind closed doors the decision had already been made.
Needless to say, the Spanish representative proved to be a hopeless president with no feel for the Parliament or its workings. But his term has ended. Now comes the payback. The EPP-ED man takes over. No one could say that the new president, an amiable German called Hans Gert Pottering, is not experienced or knowledgeable about the workings of the Parliament. He has been there for years. But his ‘coronation’ was followed by a speech which outlined his belief that all MEPs were in the Parliament to push for an ever-closer union of Europe.
Well, promoting a federal Europe is not why I am in the Parliament. I’m there to get the best deal for Britain and the North West.
This whole process once again highlighted the EU’s democratic deficit. Debate is stifled, decisions, many of them bad ones, are made behind closed doors, and so- called unhelpful minority opinions, which do not buy into the united Europe concept, are ignored.
When I observe how the Parliament chooses its most senior representative, I am sorely tempted to borrow – just this once – the slogan of the anti-war in Iraq protestors - ‘Not in my name’.
A WORD IN YOUR EAR
One of the habits of politicians and civil servants is their love of incomprehensible language to describe the institutions and procedures which are part of their daily working lives.
It behoves all politicians, including MEPs, to use language which people understand. That’s why I recently put my name to a motion in the European Parliament to stop using technical terminology and to make our work more easily understood by those we represent. If you doubt the need for change in this area, the motion sets out some of the terms regularly used in Brussels in the transport sector. These include co-modality, intermodal platform, internalisation of external costs, interoperability and intermodality.
And if I feel hard done by, we should just spare a thought for the Parliament’s interpreters who have to translate these terms into the 23 official languages in all European institutions.