Enlargement of the Union

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in ft.com on Fri 22nd Dec 2006

The European Parliament is half way through its current mandate. In January, Josep Borrell, the Spanish social democrat, will be replaced as President by Hans-Gert Pöttering, the long-serving German christian democrat. There will also be a limited but hotly contested reshuffle of powerful committee chairs. In an adjustment to party alliances on the right, the Union for Europe of the Nations group, with 44 members, overtakes the Greens in fourth place. The addition of 35 Romanian MEPs and 18 from Bulgaria will raise the size of the Parliament to a record-breaking 785, before it reduces to 736 after the next elections in June 2009. On the Place du Luxembourg in Brussels, the latest extension to the Parliament's HQ nears completion.

The impact of the big enlargement in 2004 did not hinder the Parliament. MEPs have had a decisive influence in shaping EU legislation. The regulation on the registration of chemicals (REACH) and the services directive contribute two key elements of the single market in which goods, services and people may move and trade reasonably freely across the internal frontiers of the Union. In both cases, Parliament managed to engineer cross-party agreements which complemented the multi-national deals brokered in the Council of Ministers. The growing maturity of the Parliament's law making has been rewarded: the Parliament is now on an equal footing with the Council when it comes to scrutinising the Commission's delegated powers. The Parliament's role in the appointment of the Barroso Commission was itself decisive. And MEPs have at last sorted out the shambles of their own salaries and expenses.

The Parliament is doing its bit to improve the quality of EU-level regulation. The Commission's work programme for 2007 is focussed heavily on recasting and reviewing the existing corpus of EU law with a view to its codification and simplification. The two arms of the legislature, Council and Parliament, will both be heavily implicated in this new agenda. The outgoing Finnish presidency of the Council has succeeded beyond expectation in opening the window on to ministers' law making. 90 per cent of the Council's legislative activity is now streamed on the internet. Ministerial performances differ in coherence and intelligibility, but there is now no reason for MEPs or national MPs to grumble about lack of transparency.

Tempering ambition with realism, the European Parliament was also decisive in reaching a settlement of the EU's medium-term spending plans. An extra € 4 bn was squeezed out of tight-fisted national treasuries and directed away from agriculture towards research, innovation and cultural policy. MEPs are now trying to establish a coherent set of proposals for the reform of the EU's financial system, which is due to form part of the big constitutional settlement in a couple of year's time.

The Parliament has had a less sure touch in foreign and security matters. Opinion has hardened against Turkey while MEPs do next to nothing to help end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. A large debate on the 'absorption capacity' of the Union has just concluded in an uneasy compromise between a minority who want to enlarge the Union in order to dilute integration, another minority who would prefer to stop enlargement in its tracks, and the majority who continue to keep faith with both widening and deepening. Next year, expect more fireworks from the Parliament when the problem of EU relations with NATO climbs the agenda.

Which brings us back to the Constitution, where MEPs remain at least as divided as the Council. The incoming German presidency of the Council is trying to broker an agreement on calling a conference to renegotiate the 2004 constitutional treaty with an eye to its improvement -- and eventual ratification. If the Parliament is to deserve a seat at the conference table it needs to be at least as agile and coherent as it proved itself to be during the initial drafting of the document. For the moment, the Parliament's search for a clear sense of strategic direction is not helped by the extraordinary weakness of the European party political system. The European Commission, in the meantime, remains timid on the constitution.

2007 is the centenary of the birth of the European federalist hero (resistance fighter, Commissioner and MEP), Altiero Spinelli. As the Parliament prepares to commemorate Spinelli, and to share in the Council-led celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, MEPs will have a chance to intensify their efforts to rescue the Union from its profound constitutional crisis.

Meanwhile, the pace of its routine work will continue to quicken: intellectual property rights, financial services, energy policy, justice and home affairs will dominate the legislative agenda. The pharmacy off the Place Lux sells the most Prozac in Brussels. Our pharmacist, at least, looks set for another good year.