Challenges for the EC

[Schills] With your background from the Commission, Professor Andriessen, and talking about the future of Europe, where do you think the future is being made? In the triangle of the institutions of the Parliaments, the Commission and the Council? Where exactly is the European Community of the future being made?

There will be no real European future, in my view, if the European Parliament, directly elected, will not have a much bigger say in that process. That is the basic problem we are facing in the Community. Effectively, at this very moment, what you see is that an entity, the Council of the heads of state in government, is becoming more and more an institution having a great impact on the process. I'm not sure that is the best way, but anyhow, it is a realistic situation. Many of the new ideas and the incentives for the process come, at this very moment, from the highest possible political level in the Community.

But I do repeat, Parliament should have a very important role in having more say, more decisive power in the process. If that would be the case, it would necessarily lead to a more federal structure of Europe, which many member states don't want. That's the basic difficulty we're facing, that some want a Community of sovereign states working together on a sovereign basis and taking decisions unanimously, and others want a supranational entity where a majority voting is possible and decisions can be taken by mostly a qualified majority. In that process of Parliament getting more powers, the balance will go to the federal structure; whereas at the moment, in public opinion and the feeling of many governments, the tendency is a bit more toward the intergovernmental power. That is one of the problems we are facing.

It is for that reason that I say Parliament should be involved. You might ask, Why don't you talk about the Commission? Well, the Commission is a very important initiator of actions, of initiatives, but I would be prepared to give in, as a former Commissioner, our competencies in the Community if that would be in favor of a more democratic structure of the European Parliament.

You're raising a very interesting problem, because so much of the political debate around the world is centered around the feeling that politicians generally have lost touch with the people, that the people are alienated, that they don't want to give more power to governments -- in the case of the United States, to the Congress. How do you go about changing that attitude as you're building entirely new structures in this process and trying to legitimate them?

I think you have a very important point here. If it is true (and it is true not only in the States but it is true in Europe as well) that there is a certain distance between the people and their representatives on a national basis, it's even more so on the basis where there is no direct possibility of identification for the voters' [representative]. There is a European identity, certainly, but it is not directly and closely linked to the European Parliament, the European Commission, and so on. So, we have the problem even more than you have it.

One of the facts we were facing over the last two years in Europe, the Danish in a referendum saying "no" to the Maastrecht Treaty, the French in a very, very narrow majority, the Constitutional Court in Germany making all kinds of difficulties as far as the process is concerned, the Dutch, even the Dutch Parliament put in conditions on decisions to be taken in the framework of foreign policy; that all shows that the crisis we have in Europe is a crisis not only of the institutions. [It's] a much deeper and further-reaching crisis than many people think. Sometimes I have the feeling that the model of democracy we have established -- which means you vote, you give your confidence to a man or woman, and then you say it's ok and after four years we'll meet again and we'll see whether you have used my confidence, yes or no, in a correct way -- people are so overloaded with information, they have their own comment on everything. The world is on your doorstep, and I think that makes necessary another type of democracy. I don't know what type. Referendums, I don't believe in. People very often have the tendency to answer questions which are not put in referendums. When the Germans went negative on the Maastrecht Treaty, it was agricultural policy which they were interested in giving their view on, not that much the Maastrecht Treaty, which is very complicated and nobody understood it at all.

In the Community, the only thing we can do, again I am back with Parliament: a Parliament which is real, that can be made accountable for its own action by the electorate. Second, transparency of our decision making and of what we are doing. Not, if they are saying something nice, that member states take all the credit, and if something is going wrong, putting all the blame on these Brussels bureaucrats, the Commission, all these people not knowing what to do.

Be clear, be simple, and don't be over-ambitious. My impression is that in the European Community, we are trying to do too much in one go. Let's now concentrate on what we have established, the Common Market, monetary unity. Political unity is important, of course it's important, but it's too far away, it's too much. People cannot absorb it, even the politicians cannot, and certainly the electorate will not be able to do that.

Let's get to this point. Just as some power has passed from the nation state to the Community, you're now saying that within the institutional structure of the Community, the commissioners have to think about passing more power to the Parliament, if I can restate what you've just said. Is there consensus? Are you the sole person who holds this position, or are there others? And is that surprising? Does this come from your idealism? One doesn't usually expect politicians to be so generous in, in essence, giving up power.

I have to make two observations here. The first is, if we could construct this democratic Europe, which would involve also the Council of Ministers which is taking the decisions, it should involve that as well, they should also be accountable to the European Parliament. That's part and parcel of it.

I would be very happy to give in as a commissioner as long as the Commission and Parliament are sharing, or reallocating, their power between themselves. Having the Council of Ministers out of touch, I'm against, because that would lead to a less powerful Commission, which is still the motor of the European Community. Parliament would never get its grips on the Council, that would be a deterioration of the situation and not an improvement. But if, from the moment onward, the Council is involved as well, I would be happy.

Well, that will not happen. Not today, not tomorrow, because ministers don't like to be accountable. They are accountable to their own national parliaments, but they don't like to be collectively accountable to another parliament, and that is exactly what is lacking in the Community. They take a decision and they go home, and they say to their parliament, "I did my best, but my colleagues were not prepared to follow me. I'm sorry." Or the other way around, "I was very happy that I could put through our national interest," which John Major is very often saying when he comes back from Brussels. Sometimes he's, by the way, able to do that. He's a very handy negotiator, much more than public opinion very often thinks.

[Schills] Or Margaret Thatcher thinks.

Or Margaret Thatcher thinks. He is a better negotiator than Margaret Thatcher. But anyway, that's another story.

That is the first point: Ministers don't like to be accountable for the European Parliament. The second point: the tendency in the Community at the moment is a bit to the intergovernmental line, which excludes Parliament from more power. But that is the expression of intergovernmentalism, that Parliament has no power. Whereas with federalism, Parliament has the power. So if the trend is intergovernmental, and that is at this very moment the case, I don't like that. You have understood that, but this is as it is, then we will not see the Parliament get seriously more involved in what's happening. That will be a crucial debate in the years to come.

I cannot imagine that after the first direct election of the European Parliament, which will take place next year, at another occasion, we will be able to continue this situation. Parliament will refuse it. And Parliament will make the life of the Council impossible if there is no improvement in their normal democratic competencies. So we will have crucial discussions in the years to come, and more so because the four countries we are negotiating with to be new members of the Community, to a very large extent, are more oriented to this intergovernmental attitude than to this federal attitude. That is the picture at the moment. We have crucial discussions ahead, certainly.

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