MEPs must unpick their stitch-up

Date: 16/01/1997

O NCE again the European Parliament is under fire for the way it runs its internal affairs. Once again, allegations of hypocrisy are being levelled against it.

MEPs make much capital out of the fact that they belong to the only directly elected EU institution, claiming that this makes them the Union's only truly democratic body.

They have used this to argue that the Parliament should be given the power to elect future European Commission presidents from a short list submitted by member state governments. Yet the procedure used to elect a new president of the Parliament this week was a classic example of how not to proceed in a democracy.

The deal which ensures that the post rotates between the two largest political groups in the Parliament the Socialists and the European People's Party made the outcome of the vote a certainty long before it actually took place.

Not surprisingly, this has prompted a cacophony of complaints from smaller groups in the Parliament, with Liberal Group leader Gijs de Vries summing up their feelings by insisting that the president should be “elected” rather than “selected”.

Socialist Group leader Pauline Green sought to defend the deal by insisting that the system used was no different from that which worked in other parliaments, as it was always the majority which set the agenda.

This argument does not stand up to scrutiny. Setting the agenda is one thing, stitching up the entire election in advance is quite another.

As with the recent furore over the Parliament's decision to delay reforms of its system of daily and travel allowances for MEPs, the contrast between the high standards it demands from other EU institutions and those it is prepared to impose on itself is striking.

If Euro MPs really want to be taken seriously, they must realise that they cannot afford to continue following the principle of 'do as I say, not as I do'.

One of the first steps which new Parliament President José María Gil-Robles must take is to convince his EPP colleagues and their Socialist counterparts of the need to abandon the back-room deal which they struck in 1989 to deny members of smaller political groups any chance of winning the presidency.

Through no fault of his own, Gil-Robles' authority has been undermined from the start by the furore sparked by the way he was elected. He would do much to restore it by taking a tough stand on this issue now.