Winds of change blow through Parliament

Date: 08/06/2000

Last June's Euro-elections ushered in a new type of politics in the European Parliament, which is now far more adversarial and unpredictable than in the past. But there are also signs that the assembly is taking a more mature approach to key issues. Gareth Harding reports

IF A week is a long time in politics, as former UK Premier Harold Wilson said, then a parliamentary year can sometimes seem like an eternity.

The problem with reporting on the European Parliament of old was that it often felt like an eternity as well. With its cosy coalitions, dull debates and predictable results, writing about the Strasbourg-based assembly's activities was often the political equivalent of watching paint dry.

How things have changed. The Christian Democrats' victory in last June's European elections toppled the Socialists from their political perch for the first time since direct elections were held more than two decades ago.

It also sounded the death knell of the grand coalition between the Parliament's two biggest parties, which had stitched up the votes and bagged the top political posts for the past 20 years.

The elections ushered in a new type of politics which is more divisive, unsettled and unpredictable. Shifting alliances and deeper ideological divisions mean votes often go the wire and resolutions sometimes fail to muster the crucial 314 members needed for adoption at second reading. This makes the assembly more exciting politically, but also weaker in its power struggle with EU governments and the European Commission. "The Parliament has incredible new powers since the Amsterdam Treaty, but because of the guerrilla tactics employed by some groups, half the time we cannot get a majority," says one official.

It is true that on some crucial votes, notably on the end-of-life vehicles and genetically-modified organisms legislation, the assembly has failed to agree a common line because of splits between the parties. But more often than not, the two largest groups still work hand in hand to push important votes through. This happened on the working time directive, on chocolate, on water and on the Parliament's resolution on the Intergovernmental Conference.

Many are nevertheless uncomfortable with the new adversarial style of politics in the chamber. "When you have the left on one side and the right on the other, it makes it a nightmare to enter conciliation talks," says former Parliament President José Maria Gil-Robles, adding: "We can have differences on smaller issues, but we must be able to get agreement on those which matter."

When the Parliament is divided at second reading, it enters into head-to-head negotiations with Union governments with its hands tied behind its back. In the recent conciliation talks on scrap vehicles, for example, MEPs failed to change the Council of Ministers' position one iota because of the confused amendments they adopted in plenary. But when the assembly has adopted a strong, united stance - as on the maximum hours junior doctors should work - it has emerged from conciliation talks with its head held high.

The Christian Democrats' victory last year, and the group's informal alliance with the Liberals, has shifted the Parliament's political balance to the right for the first time in more than two decades. The assembly is noticeably more pro-business and less environmentally friendly than the previous legislature, as witnessed by the rejection of Greek Socialist Giorgios Katiforis' report on EU economic policy and the watering down of the Council's position on end-of-life vehicles.

Some observers believe that the move away from producing shopping lists of uncosted amendments is a sign that MEPs are maturing as legislators. Certainly, the Parliament is less likely to take a hard-line stance on such issues, as the clever compromise it brokered on the chocolate directive proved. But British Liberal MEP Nick Clegg says the assembly is still "light years away from understanding the need for the Commission to shed weight rather than gain it".

The Parliament's resolution on Commission President Romano Prodi's five-year plan in February is seen by many as evidence of this. MEPs voted through reams of proposals which ran counter to Prodi's desire for Brussels to do less, not more and underlined Clegg's belief that the institution is still "oblivious to subsidiarity".

Although the current batch of MEPs are marginally more conservative on social, economic and environmental issues than their predecessors, they have also proved more willing to put their own house in order. After a slow start, parliamentary reform has gathered pace and is now beginning to bear fruit.

New rules to improve the lot of MEPs' poorly treated assistants have been approved, as have procedures to prevent political appointees from 'parachuting' into top posts. Political groups have also promised to improve the way they handle more than €35 million of taxpayers' money following stinging criticism from the Court of Auditors. These reforms are a step in the right direction, but critics say that if MEPs do not agree changes to the way they are paid, taxed and reimbursed quickly, they will have difficulty persuading voters that they have cleaned up their act at the next election.

In the first months of the new Parliament, progress on agreeing a members' statute virtually ground to a halt because of the intransigence of a handful of MEPs. But there are signs that the assembly is now prepared to compromise and diplomats expect new rules to be in force by the end of this year.

As MEPs take their own legislative work more seriously, so they are being treated with greater respect by Commission officials and EU governments. Since former President Jacques Santer team was hounded out of office last March, the Commission has been a great deal more wary of antagonising the Union's only democratically elected institution and Prodi has bent over backwards to please MEPs. The assembly's Vice-President David Martin says the new Commissioners "treat the Parliament with much greater respect than the previous lot" and almost never fail to show up when asked to do so by assembly.

The only thorn in the Commission's side has been the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), which sees the left-leaning executive as the 'opposition' it must do battle with. Socialist leader Enrique Barón Crespo says that after the elections, the Christian Democrats "declared war" on the Commission, adding: "This is not the way the Parliament should behave."

However, EPP chief Hans-Gert Pöttering says that both he and Prodi "have the same ambition in terms of the unification of Europe" and insists that his group has "no interest in a weak Commission".

EU governments also take the Parliament more seriously now that it has co-legislative powers in most policy areas. David Earnshaw, of pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham, says that "national governments have identified where the power is and lobby accord-ingly". Some MEPs are flattered by the attention they now receive from ministers and top diplomats, but Earnshaw warns that the growing influence of Union governments on MEPs is potentially dangerous.

As the balance of power has altered between the institutions, so has it shifted between the different political forces within the assembly. The Socialists have found it difficult to come to terms with the scale of their defeat last June and, for the first few months, made all the wrong choices, although Baron says that his group has "lost members but gained coherence". The same cannot be said of the EPP, which is so deeply divided between old-style Christian Democrats and more Eurosceptic conservatives that it is more a coalition of warring factions than a cohesive political party.

The only winners in the increasingly bitter fight between left and right have been the centre parties. Research by Simon Hix of the London School of Economics shows that the 51-strong Liberals are on the winning side in plenary votes more often than the Socialists, and their leader Pat Cox is set to take over the reigns as Parliament president in 18 months time thanks to the group's informal alliance with the EPP. The Greens have also grown in size and stature since the last election due to the skilful leadership of Heidi Hautala and their fusion with the regionalists.

Peter Ludlow of the Centre for European Policy Studies says the unpredictability of the new political forces, coupled with the fact that more than half the MEPs are new, creates an "explosive cocktail" which could spell trouble for the Commission again.

But Clegg believes that when the dust settles from last year's big-bang, MEPs will realise that "times of great drama and crisis do not abound and there is humdrum work to be done".

The June 1999 Euro-elections ushered in a new type of politics in the European Parliament, which is now far more adversarial and unpredictable than in the past. But there are also sings that the assembly is taking a more mature approach to key issues.