The famous inquiry by Kissinger is still a good question today. Why does Obama have to call or visit Barroso, Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel, Berlusconi, etc. when he could call or meet a single person, one directly elected by all Europeans, and representing all Europeans? Why can’t the European parliament hold Commissioners accountable?

Why can’t it, according to the Lisbon Treaty, impeach a future President or a future Foreign Affairs Minister of the Union? And why can’t these be directly elected by the Europeans, instead of chosen by their peers? Europeans, the people, want far more power directly in their hands. Either the union is a representative democratic institution, as it was originally idealized, or it isn’t. 

Eux Blog (1) wrote in the end of January: “We still live in a divided union, ruled not by democratic political visions but by nationalist sentiments, in a system that lacks the proper checks and balances that one would expect in a democracy. That is what makes Europe basically powerless on the world stage. Not the absence of something like the ‘Lisbon Treaty.’

To be fair, the individual 27 countries that together create this European union are real democracies. Each one of them can elect a parliament that can directly hold its government accountable. But that’s where democracy stops. At a European level, there is no more accountability. There is involvement, yes, but that’s a long way short of democratic accountability. European politicians can’t be sent home. (…)

At the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, individual European Commissioners have to report regularly to the European parliament but they can’t be forced to step down when they prove incapable of serving the office they hold. Only the nuclear option exists as an option to the parliament: sacking the entire college of 27 Commissioners. The lack of individual accountability leaves room for the incapable, whose only purpose is to serve a political agenda. (…)

The Council of the European Union Council, the Presidents, Prime Ministers and ministers of the EU member states that shape European policies naturally are accountable only to their national parliaments. And these parliaments have national priorities and national agenda. The national parliaments, naturally, are unlikely to make European interests their first priority (…)

Anyone taking a quick look concludes that simply having a parliament makes Europe a democracy. But those who take a better look will notice that the parliament mostly is the place where the interests of lobbyists are represented; a talking shop for political statements; with very limited powers. (…) Paul van Buitenen, the former commission official who exposed Cresson’s fraud, has been a member of the European Parliament for four years now, repeatedly disclosing new cases of corruption, embezzlement and irregularities at the Commission and the Parliament. But is anyone listening? No.

Many journalists find it difficult to sell EU fraud and corruption stories to their newsroom. European media play a role in this debate as well, but that is an issue to explore at another time. When it comes down to it, the European parliament remains a democratic facade for a European Union ruled by a political elite that is afraid of the people’s voice. Historically, Europe of course has a problem with nationalism. That fear now seems to stand in the way of turning the European union into a real democracy.

That at a time when the concept of nation-states is becoming increasingly seen as old-fashioned. Traditional nation-states have no more roles to play in a globalized world. (…) Europe’s desperate plea for a cease-fire in Gaza, at a time that the United States were essentially headless, demonstrates Europe’s incapacity. (…) Europe needs far more changes if it is to be influential in this internationalized global world of our 21st century. (…) Closing Guantanamo Bay? Some but not all European countries already signaled they are willing to take in some of the prisoners.

More troops to Afghanistan? NATO’s future? Anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic and Poland? Among the 27 member states of the European Union, there simply is no consensus on these thorny issues. The US will have to continue to deal with European divisions. There simply is no European unity. (…) It’s obvious that Europe could do with a saviour.(…)

But even if there would be such a person out there, he, or she, would never be able to become ‘President of Europe’. Because, as planned under the Lisbon Treaty, that’s a job that would be assigned in back-door meetings between the EU’s heads-of-state and heads-of-government. They would choose one of their peers. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is interested. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy would love to succeed him.”

I’m sure that if all Europeans could vote, they would have many doubts in electing one or the other for such position. So why should they be imposed to us? I see no advantage whatsoever in such procedure – on the contrary, it can enhance and fasten Europe’s division. The political elites have to give up from such dictatorial ways of selecting people to important European positions, otherwise they will lose the support of their citizens.

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¹ Cloggie in www.eux.tv blog, January 2009

Cover photo:  Source: Ford Library