Home / Europe 2020 / Strengthening the powers or legitimizing the competences of the European institutions

Strengthening the powers or legitimizing the competences of the European institutions

by Franck Biancheri
22/05/2001

Moving from an administrative version of the EU to a democratic vision of the future of Europe

The speeches on the future of the EU are full of reference to the strengthening of the powers of this or that institution. For one it will be the Commission; for the other it will be Parliament or the Council. In any case, the key concept that dominates the succession of monologues on the future of the Union is “institution building”.

This “strengthening” aims to give more power (in more areas or more important in some areas, depending on the variants) to the institutions concerned. It is supposed to respond to the following diagnosis: the EU is in trouble, the Euro is approaching, the people are suspicious and worried, the institutions are no longer credible. Remedy: Let’s strengthen the powers of institutions!

Let us take the time to analyse this statement: strengthening the powers of the European institutions would be the solution to restore confidence in the EU and the proper functioning of the EU itself.

So many hypotheses not mentioned in this statement.

Let us forget the question of “what powers?” and focus on the assumption that these “powers” are intended to act, to have an impact (if not to strengthen them).

First of all, we can discover who writes the speeches of heads of government or Commissioners: civil servants. No surprise in this revelation. But a worrying political observation. Indeed, the strengthening of the powers of any body can only relegate it and improve the effectiveness of its action in an undemocratic environment, where a higher authority determines the levels of authority, influence and power. By definition, this is the very way in which an administration, a bureaucracy, operates, where power alone almost determines the capacity for action.

In a democracy, in modern political life, it is not the level of power that determines the capacity for action, but the legitimacy of the body that exercises it and those who direct it (because naturally it then attracts the power necessary for the exercise of its functions). And this legitimacy, in all our democracies, increasingly tends to be embodied above all by citizens directly (even when filtered by parliamentary elections).

It can therefore be seen that most of the discourse on the future of the EU is currently based on pure bureaucratic logic, with policies acting as relays, totally ignoring the political dimension of the problem and thus advocating solutions that in fact constitute the problem.

Indeed, while the diagnosis of European leaders is undoubtedly lucid, the current approach forgets that any solution must now take place in a political and democratic framework (the Euro will accelerate this evolution). It is not so much a question of making the institutional mechanism, or of playing with the xth reform of the Gosplan (let us remember how the USSR struggled with this problem of administrative efficiency and institutional reform during the 2 decades preceding its fall) as of rebuilding the contract into the citizens/peoples of the EU and the EU itself.

It is about relegating an entire institutional apparatus that has lost its meaning and people’s trust. Strengthening this or that component will only increase the gap with the people. And it should not be forgotten that part of the Community’s administrative apparatus (in Brussels as in national ministries) is aimed at one thing only: maintaining control of the EU… without realizing that in doing so it increases the EU’s problems. Thus, for the most part, the argument of the enlargement and complexity of the EU to 20 or 25 (which feeds many reflections on power building) is nothing more than a bureaucratic-institutional trick to prevent the Community bureaucratic model from being challenged within the EU today. Attempting to create debates among 25 people to find solutions to a problem that is now 15 or even 12 is an inequity and reflects a desire not to succeed today.

Politicians must bear in mind that in a democracy they are the “elected representatives of the people”… in particular to control the administrations and guide their action.

Behind the debate on “strengthening powers” or “relegating institutions”, it is this fundamental democratic debate that is opening up for more than 300 million Europeans. And it must be dealt with now even if part of the bureaucratic apparatus considers that DEMOCRACY IS SOLUBLE IN ENLARGEMENT. For some, enlargement represents a new stage in which bureaucracy can once again become all-powerful in European affairs.

Today the peoples of the EU are waiting. They expect politicians to make a political speech, mixing pragmatism of the method with audacity in questioning, speaking their “Euro-language” (that of problems, not that of bureaucratic solutions) and giving them a role in the European game.

Tomorrow, the Euro will set in motion unpredictable socio-political forces at EU level and the question of legitimacy will become central. Politicians, forget the recommendations of your administrations… and anticipate!

About Comcart Collaborator

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close