Seeking a new balance of power

Date: 08/02/1996

NATIONAL parliaments are being forced to rethink their traditional relationship with governments as EU business expands.

But some have adapted earlier and better than others to the shift in law-making to Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

Those who have best weathered the changed climate have established mechanisms for scrutinising draft EU legislation in detail or holding their ministers to specific negotiating mandates, tying their hands in advance of behind-closed-doors talks in the Council of Ministers.

But national MPs in many countries are still belatedly coming to terms with the new environment.

EU governments made a token reference to the need to address this issue when they negotiated the Maastricht Treaty five years ago. The treaty contains a declaration stressing the demand for more cooperation between the European and national parliaments, and the provision of draft EU legislation to national MPs in good time.

This year's review of the Union's institutional and decision-making structures at the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), which begins next month, will examine ways of building on these basic foundations.

National parliaments themselves are partly to blame for being left out of the EU's inner circle. Some have traditionally viewed the Strasbourg assembly with suspicion, while others harboured the belief that it was not a 'proper' parliament.

Such hostility has tended to come from those who regard the relationship between national and Euro MPs as a zero sum game, in which any increase in the powers of the latter would automatically be to the detriment of the former.

Such suspicions, argues European Parliament President Klaus Hänsch, can be put down to “insufficient awareness of what the European Parliament can do and wants to do”.

He insists: “Increasing the powers of the European Parliament is not about reducing national parliamentary powers. It is about getting a better balance between institutions in Brussels. National parliaments would not lose anything they have not already lost in recent years to governments in the Council of Ministers.”

Earlier mistrust is, however, gradually giving way to a search for wider cooperation between national and Euro MPs which, via a pincer movement, could ensure more effective democratic control over EU member state governments.

At the same time, MEPs who once argued that EU business was a self-contained world in which national parliamentarians had no role have had to change their tune. The painful ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in member state capitals effectively quashed any such notion.

Similarly, the Dutch parliament's ability to continue blocking the increase in the Union's financial resources agreed by EU leaders in Edinburgh over three years ago demonstrates how national and European boundaries are becoming blurred.

Every national parliament now has a European affairs committee. However, some are more experienced and active than others. The Belgian senate only established its version in 1990 and Luxembourg's dates from 1989. In contrast, Denmark created its influential committee in October 1972, two months before the country became a member of the then European Economic Community.

The influence wielded by these national committees also varies from country to country. The two operating in the UK parliament examine every item of draft legislation in minute detail, but have virtually no control over the government's negotiating mandate and, say critics, enjoy little real political clout.

By contrast, the Swedish, Danish and Finnish versions play a significant part in the EU decision-making procedure, identifying sensitive issues and effectively setting the parameters for ministerial action.

“The three Nordic systems vary somewhat, but the European affairs committees all meet on a Friday and call the ministers in to discuss the issues which will be raised in the Council of Ministers the following week in Brussels or Luxembourg,” explains one EU diplomat.

Such differences help to explain why national parliaments have found it almost impossible to agree on a coordinated approach towards the Union.

Another key reason behind the lack of joint initiatives is that they tend to react differently towards moves to increase the powers of the European Parliament.

MPs in more integrationist countries, such as Germany and the Benelux, see no threat in giving MEPs a greater influence over EU legislation. As one national official explained: “They tend to say Euro MPs have their work to do and we have ours, so let's just get on with it.”

Others, like the French and British, remain somewhat hostile and are trying to break new ground by devising ways in which national parliamentarians could be more directly involved in EU decisions.

That was the thinking behind the suggestion made by the speaker of the French National Assembly, Philippe Séguin, that a High Council - a sort of European senate of national parliamentarians - should be created to give its opinion on draft EU legislation.

The idea has found few backers and, after being categorically rejected by the Reflection Group which spent much of last year preparing the ground for the IGC, has almost certainly been consigned to oblivion.

A more ingenious way of getting national parliamentary feet in the door of EU legislation has been put forward by the British House of Commons select committee on European legislation.

Like many others, it argues that at least four weeks should be allowed between a draft Euro-law being made available in the appropriate language in every national capital and a decision being taken by the Council of Ministers. This idea was supported by the Reflection Group and few members would disagree with such a move.

But, more controversially, the committee has also recommended that if a certain number of national parliaments believe a proposal should be amended or rejected, “then that proposal could be approved in Council only by unanimity”.

Few expect this idea to take off. “It would seriously damage the European Parliament and I am sure national governments would not like it,” said one EU official. “It would not give individual parliaments a role, but collectively they would become EU institutions.”

The more mainstream view is that European and national parliaments have their own separate functions and can cooperate on EU issues, but each should act within its own field of competence.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is just one EU leader who has both feet firmly planted in this camp. Asked by an MEP whether he thought national parliaments should be represented on last year's Reflection Group, Kohl replied bluntly: “What absolute rubbish!”

Similarly, another suggestion designed to increase national parliaments' involvement in Union business - by giving them the right to challenge EU legislation in the European Court of Justice - has also been dismissed as impractical by most observers.

As the search continues for more democratic control, national parliaments will be encouraged to devise appropriate procedures for monitoring and influencing their own governments in line with their individual parliamentary traditions.

At the same time, contacts between national and Euro MPs are likely to be expanded as corresponding committees meet, members exchange information and give evidence, and coordinated efforts are made to lift the veil of secrecy in which EU decision-making is still shrouded a little higher.

A central forum for such contacts is the Conference of the European Affairs Committees (COSAC), which meets every six months and brings together national parliamentary delegations and a small group of MEPs led by Vice-Presidents Nicole Fontaine and Renzo Imbeni.

Observers who have followed COSAC meetings since they began in 1989 believe they are a useful source for informal exchanges of views and provide an opportunity for parliamentarians to discuss specific EU issues with the prime minister or president of the country holding the rotating EU presidency.

Few, however, see it ever becoming more than that.

As the Reflection Group warned in its report to the Madrid summit: “It is a body for the exchange of information which should not take decisions, or be a substitute for the expression of the will of the people in each of the parliaments.”