Reform the EU

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Reject the Treaty of Lisbon
 and really Reform the EU

The EU needs real reform to restore power to the people and develop trust and support. The European Union has the potential to become a truly democratic, open, accountable state, responsive to the needs and views of its electorate and able to deal with the major issues facing Europe and the world.

The following are suggestions for just a few first-steps in reforming the European Union. They point to the need to reject the Treaty of Lisbon. These ideas (and many more suggestions for reform) are discussed at greater length in my book, The European Union and You.

                                                                                       David Roberts

Who says we need to reform the EU?

Actually EU leaders themselves started expressing a desire for reform in December 2001. A brief account of the concerns of EU leaders can be read here on this page. They issued a long statement entitled The Future of the European Union which is popularly known as The Laeken Declaration, detailing their many concerns. These concerns are hardly addressed at all by the Treaty of Lisbon. Read the full text of The Laeken Declaration here on this website (or in The European Union and You).
 

The Needed Reforms of the EU

Reform

Why? What benefit?

1. Co-operation, but No Unification
Remove from treaties the commitment to make all EU member states into a single state - the commitment to "ever - closer union". This commitment was in the founding treaty, The Treaty of Rome, in the Maastricht Treaty, and the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice, and the new treaty, The Treaty of Lisbon.

 1. The Laeken Declaration recognised that the people of Europe do not want an EU superstate.
The people of Europe don't understand how the government of a completely united Europe would work.
  • They don't trust EU leaders
  • They can't see how they could vote for the policies and politicians they want.
  • They can't see how they could vote for any change.

Whereas
They have some confidence in their own governments and know the way that change may be brought about.

How would we cope without complete integration (unification)?
EU countries could co-operate as much as is necessary to achieve common goals such as:

  • energy security
  • environmental protection
  • crime reduction
  • greater job security
  • less homelessness

We are managing at the moment, and where we have passed power to Brussels some decisions, for example on identity cards and fisheries policy, do not seem to be well managed or acceptable to some member countries. Norway and Switzerland (and the rest of the world) seem to get along very well  without membership of the EU.

The commitment to move closer and closer to building a superstate worries many citizens and is completely unnecessary to achieve European peace and co-operation.
2. Localism
Genuinely take decisions as close as possible to those affected. (This is something the EU claims to do but is at great pains to avoid.) This means genuine localism, genuine subsidiarity.

Setting up "shared competences" and "supporting competences" is a recipe for administrative delay, uncertainty, confusion and inefficiency. It is a recipe for constant fruitless debate and conflict. It is a recipe for transferring more and more power to Brussels. Abolish these arrangements (to be introduced by The Treaty of Lisbon).
State that these matters remain within the control of state governments and are not up for discussion. These policy areas include -

  • internal market
  • social policy
  • environment
  • consumer protection
  • transport
  • energy
  • freedom, security and justice
  • public health
  • health services
  • protection and improvement of human health
  • industry
  • culture
  • tourism
  • education, youth, sport and vocational training
  • civil protection
  • defence
  • foreign policy
  • economic development
  • agriculture (where the EU has already taken over the big decisions)

Of course co-operation across the EU may be helpful, even essential, in some areas, for example protection of the environment, but this is not the same as allowing Brussels to direct the behaviour of member states.

The right of the EU's bureacracy (the Commission) to complete independence and the sole right to initiate laws should be removed. The right to initiate laws and develop policy should rest with the member states. This right should be exercised either through the European Parliament or through the Council of Ministers.
The UK government's European Scrutiny Committee is unhappy about the powers of the Commission. See details

 2. Why do we need Localism?
Centralised decisions taken by remote bureaucrats and others cannot be sensitive to the reality of life experienced by professionals, businesses, and ordinary people across this vast continent.
People deciding for themselves how to run their schools, hospitals, transport system, police etc will feel empowered by local / national decision - making.
Local people and elected councillors and MP's have local knowledge and contact with their electors. They are therefore best placed to make decisions in these areas.
Decisions should only be taken by international agreement when international agreement is essential.
The Treaty of Lisbon states a deep concern for subsidiarity but then sets up complex procedures for arguing over many policy areas.

The policy areas reserved for member states should be clearly stated. There should be no areas for dispute or doubt like the ones in the opposite panel.
3. Become user friendly
With some notable exceptions the approach of the EU to relations with citizens seems to be based on the policy of offering simple, bland, reassuring accounts of its actions and making it difficult for citizens to get key information which might help them to criticise what the EU is doing. A few examples of what the EU needs to do:
a. Simplify the governing treaty. It could be called a Constitution. Why not?
Include only genuine principles. Cut unnecessary detail. For example, agree to co-operate in matters of trade. Then be pragmatic about it. Omit specific policy-making in order to leave room for changes of mind, changed circumstances, need to correct misjudgements, and allow for negotiation. Topics such as identity cards and privatisation should not be specifically set out and enforced in a treaty which should be confining itself to organising the general principles of inter-state co-operation.

b. Make easy-to-use websites (I give details of the huge problems created by the EU in hindering research into EU activities in The European Union and You).

c. Have an efficient press office which succeeds in keeping EU citizens well informed about EU developments. (Millions of euros are currently spent, but with poor results. Details in The European Union and You.)

 What is the problem?
3 a. Extreme length of both the Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon have had bad effects. The Treaty of Lisbon is not a complete text, but a set of instructions for changing hundreds of bits of two existing treaties. It cannot be downloaded as a single document for people to read (2 January 2008), but is offered as thirty separate documents and it has no Contents page. This seems like deliberate unhelpfulness.
  • It can't be read or understood by most people.
  • This creates confusion and distrust.
  • Attempts to be comprehensively prescriptive are doomed to failure as circumstances change and aspects of policies may be overlooked. The commitment to free trade is a good example. The EU states a firm commitment to free trade. It is one of its founding ideas. The EU currently practices it only partially. Sometimes it does the opposite. In agriculture, for example, trade is protected and controlled - so why the commitment to free trade?
  • A short constitution could command respect. The US Constitution is only 20 pages.

3 b. EU websites are amongst the most difficult to use. (Details in The European Union and You.)

3 c. The saddest fact about the EU is that citizens do not understand what it is, how it works, who takes decisions, how it affects their lives, or how they may participate to bring about change. With a press office that costs millions of pounds to run this is a disgraceful failure and unfortunately reflects the attitudes of EU leaders who openly take the approach that the less citizens know the better it is.  See EU leaders spill the beans.

Knowledge and openness are prerequisites for democracy and accountable government.
 
4. Financial accountability Make EU leaders and institutions accountable for their actions

Tell us where the money is spent. Keep proper public records. For 13 years EU auditors have found financial records unsatisfactory. The EU cannot even tell us who the ten biggest recipients of its funds are. Corruption must be seen to be dealt with. (Further details in The European Union and You.)

 4. Why we need Financial accountability
We need to be able to trust those who receive and spend so much of our money. Citizens are entitled to know where our money is spent.
5. Political accountability - Integrity
EU leaders who offend against the principles of the EU should be dealt with. For example, the EU states a commitment to "strict observance international law" and "respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter" yet many EU leaders have started wars of aggression with complete immunity from justice.		 5. Lack of integrity in leaders destroys credibility and trust - not only in the leaders themselves but in the institutions they lead and the EU as a whole.
6. Political accountability to the electorate (democracy) Whatever decisions the "EU" takes, or whatever the disasters they run, there is at present no way to vote any policymaker out of office. The European Commision should not have "complete independence" guaranteed by treaty. It should be a civil service under direct control of leaders elected to carry through specific EU policies, - (in the way that elected Ministers in state governments are in charge of their departments).

The role of the Ministers may be carried out by leaders within the various Councils of Ministers or by leaders elected/selected by/from the European Parliament.

Exactly how democratic accountability is achieved in the EU needs wide discussion. At the moment no-one has thought to consider it.

The President of the EU should be chosen by the European Parliament. Parliament should draw up its own short-list. National parliaments the media and citizens might propose candidates.

Citizens need to know who is responsible for decisions. At the moment decisions seem to be taken by

  1. The Commission
  2. The European Council
  3. The Councils of Ministers
  4. The European Parliament
  5. The many committees of civil servants who prepare agendas for ministers and effectively take many decisions themselves.

This division leads to confusion and distrust. The power to direct and decide needs to be focussed, and based where the electorate has an ability to comment through the ballot box.

Power of initiative in proposing laws should be taken away from the unelected Commission. More power should be given to the European Parliament.

Of course, there are other routes to increasing democracy in the EU.

 6. The people of Europe are sovereign.
We, the people, need to be able to elect people who inspire our confidence and vote out those who disappoint. In the government of the EU this is not possible.

(You could replace the word "government" in the last sentence with the word "running". The nature of "government" in the EU is discussed at length in The European Union and You.)
7. Openness
There is a significant degree of openness in the running of the EU, but far more needs to be done.
  •  Far more decision-making should be open to public view on TV/internet. Records / minutes of decision-making meetings should be promptly available on the internet.
  • Voting records of decision making meetings should be made public.
  • Discussion papers to be placed before decision-makers should be made public.
  • Records of lobbying and lobbyists should be made public - together with details of any EU funds allocated to the lobbyists or their clients.
  •  EU funds must be fully accounted for. See 4. above, Financial Accountability.
  • The deliberate policy of EU leaders of excluding or setting out to confuse EU citizens is unacceptable. See EU leaders spill the beans.

8. Other
The above are just starting points for reform. Over fifty areas for reform are considered in The European Union and You.

 

 7. The right to know
EU citizens have a right to know what plans are being developed for the running of their lives. We have a right to know what line our leaders are pursuing and how they vote.

Reforms called for by EU leaders
 

At their meeting in Laeken, Belgium, in December 2001, EU leaders said that a number of reforms were desirable in the EU.

They stated that the EU needed to be more open, more democratic, more transparent. “the European institutions must be brought closer to its citizens.” Institutions should be “less unwieldy and rigid and, above all, more efficient and open.” They said that citizens “feel that deals are all too often cut out of their site they want better democratic scrutiny.”

“Citizens also feel that the Union is behaving too bureaucratically.”

“What they expect is . . . not a European superstate or European institutions inveigling their way into every nook and cranny of life.”

“The important thing is to clarify, simplify and adjust the division of competence between the Union and the Member States.”

“How can the authority and efficiency of the European Commission be enhanced?” [Are citizens asking for this increase in authority? - More likely the Commission?]

“How can we increase the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the present institution?”

“Should citizens have access to council documents?”

These quotations are taken from the Laeken Declaration which can be read in full in The European Union and You and on this website.