MEPs climb ladder out of parliament

By Martin Banks

Date: 30/06/05

The European Parliament is barely one year through its five-year term, but there are several among its 732 members who hope not to see another year out. They harbour ambitions to return to national politics and to government.

The Portuguese Socialist MEP António Costa has shown the way. A vice-president of the Parliament, he quit in March to become interior minister in Lisbon.

While MEPs might in future be paid more than government ministers, let alone national parliamentarians, in their home countries under a common salary deal, they still believe that political success lies at home. With general elections looming in some other states, various MEPs are looking to follow Costa's example.

The Parliament is either to be considered a step en route to national power (Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, former French premier Jean Pierre Raffarin and the UK's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott were all once MEPs). Or it is a rest cure during or after a national political career, as for former prime ministers Jean-Luc Dehaene of Belgium, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen of Denmark, Alojz Peterle of Slovenia and, in earlier parliaments, Jacques Santer of Luxembourg and former French president Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing.

In Germany, an election is expected perhaps as soon as 16 September and the centre-right CDU and CSU are hoping to unseat the centre-left coalition government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

A serious contender for a job in a possible future administration led by Angela Merkel is Reimer Böge, vice-chairman of the Parliament's budget committee, who is highly regarded in CDU circles. So is Hartmut Nassauer, who was vice-president of the Hesse regional assembly for three years from 1991. Elmar Brok, chairman of the influential foreign affairs committee and a member of the European Convention which drafted the EU constitution, would no doubt like to be rewarded, though he would not be drawn.

Brok says: "I have always made a point of never asking for a job but I am absolutely happy doing the job I do now and I would rather not speculate on what may, or may not, happen in the future."

On the question of why so few German MEPs move into government posts, he said: "I would certainly like to see more MEPs doing it and more ministers moving the other way to become MEPs.

"Greater exchange between the European and national institutions would be a healthy thing."

In the past German MEPs have traditionally taken up jobs in regional government. Armin Laschet, who left Parliament this week, was recently nominated minister for family and new generations in the new Rhineland-Westphalia government.

On 25 September, the Poles will vote in their first general election since their country joined the EU. The centre-right is widely predicted to do well with the main opposition party, the Civic Platform, together with the Law and Justice party, expected to oust the government of the Democratic Left Alliance.

Leading Civic Platform MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, elected as an MEP last June, is tipped for a rapid return to frontline politics in Poland where he made a name for himself as a European affairs minister.

If he is offered the post, he would take it, but otherwise, he could nurture hopes of assuming the presidency of the European People's Party and perhaps even of the Parliament itself.

Former Polish MP, Maciej Giertych, leader of the Polish delegation in the Eurosceptic Independence/Democracy group, is standing in the 9 October Polish presidential elections but not with any great chance of success.

Most German and Polish Socialist MEPs are not even bothering to speculate as to their chances in their respective elections this autumn.

A PES insider said: "There are no names going round because the Polish Social Democrats have as much chance of getting into government as the Germans: that is, none."

Looking further ahead, the French elections in 2007 may offer the Socialists more hope. Kader Arif, who has held several senior posts in the party, and 38-year-old Benoît Hamon, a former government adviser, are both seen as rising stars.

In Italy, former European Commission president Romano Prodi is expected to lead the centre-left opposition parties challenging Silvio Berlusconi's centre-left coalition in the country's general election, expected to be held in April 2006.

Electoral success for the centre-left could pave the way for ALDE MEP Enrico Letta, a former minister for foreign trade, to win a recall to Rome.

He has held other ministerial posts and is a member of the Margherita party, part of Prodi's Olive Tree alliance. Socialist Pier Luigi Bersani is another MEP whose ministerial experience is thought likely to put him in the running for a job in a Prodi government.

In the event of a Berlusconi victory, three EPP-ED members tipped for government jobs are ex-journalist Antonio Tajani, head of the group's 15-strong Forza Italia delegation and a former Berlusconi spokesman, Renato Brunetta, who has advised the media magnate on economic issues, and Lorenzo Cesa, national party co-ordinator of the UDC (Unione Democratici di Centro), which is part of Italy's ruling four-party coalition.

In June 2006, the Czech Republic holds its general election and, as in Germany and Poland, it is centre-right MEPs who appear to be the most realistic contenders for government posts.

Most likely is 42-year-old Jan Zahradil, currently leader of the Czech delegation in the EPP-ED group and shadow foreign minister of the ODS.

Zahradil, a national parliamentarian for six years, was the first vice-chairman of the party and is a former member of the Convention.

"The party has a great chance to win the elections as they have more than 30% in the polls at the moment," said an EPP-ED source.

Jan Brezina, from the Christian Democratic Union (KDU-CSL), could be one of the candidates for a ministerial post if a centre-right coalition is formed.

If the vast majority of MEPs are resigned to seeing out their five-year mandate in Brussels, spare a thought for the Greens, whose small band of MEPs are not exactly holding their breath, awaiting the call for that big government posting.

A Greens source said: "We don't have any candidates because we don't expect to enter government anywhere, not even in Germany."

Article reports on MEPs leaving the EU assembly to return to national politics.