The EU gains in popularity

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in ft.com on Wed 2nd Jan 2008

Cheering news from Brussels. According to the most recent Eurobarometer poll, the European Union is popular again. 58 per cent evince overall support for the EU, the highest level since 1994. (Unsurprisingly, the UK, at 34 per cent, registers lowest.)

The EU is credited with making a positive contribution in the two policy areas that are identified as being top priorities: immigration and fighting crime. When asked which policies should best be dealt with at the European rather than the national level, citizens are increasingly in favour of using the EU.

Top of the list of things to be decided at the EU level comes the fight against terrorism (81 per cent), followed by, in order, protecting the environment, R&D, energy policy, defence and foreign affairs, regional development, immigration, crime, competition, consumer protection, agriculture and fisheries.

Just under half think that transport, fighting inflation and the economy should be the responsibility of the EU, followed by unemployment, health and social welfare, education, taxation and pensions (26 per cent).

Happily, the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December, promises to meet these public expectations. It elevates the importance of the EU-wide 'area of freedom, security and justice', and provides decisive instruments and efficient procedures for the making of common policies in asylum and immigration, as well as for the harmonisation of necessary aspects of civil and criminal law.

The Treaty entrenches fundamental rights. It serves to modernise the energy and environment policies of the Union. It establishes the wherewithal for the serious development of common foreign, security and defence policies. Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty leaves virtually untouched member states' competences in social welfare, education and fiscal matters.

The new treaty is due to come into force on 1 January 2009. So now the tricky process of ratification in all member states begins. The Hungarian parliament was the first to ratify (17 December), doubtless after serious deliberation. At Westminster, as in other countries, the business begins in mid-January.

In its own assessment of the new Treaty, the European Parliament is concentrating not on how Lisbon contrasts with the defunct constitutional treaty of 2004 but, rather, on how it compares with the present set-up of the Treaty of Nice. That, indeed, is the intelligent question. MEPs' endorsement of the new constitutional deal is likely to be impressive, uniting all but the fringe elements in the House (in which, sadly, one has now to include most, but not all, of the British Tories).

Beneath the headlines, however, there are some difficult questions to be asked of the European Parliament as it prepares, during 2008, to give full effect to the new Treaty. One recalls that Parliament is set to gain large new scrutiny, budgetary and legislative powers. There is a long list of technical adaptations that will have to be made to its rules of procedure and working methods. But the House also needs to upgrade its political performance. Less absenteeism, tighter party cohesion, stronger leadership, higher calibre staff, more efficient use of physical and linguistic resources - all are desirable ingredients in an ideal parliamentary reform package.

How, for example, is Parliament to exercise its new rights to scrutinise and, if necessary, call back the Commission's use of its delegated powers? Parliament will have a decisive role in shaping the status and functions of the new 'permanent' President of the European Council. Should we build him up to compete with the President of the European Commission? Or should we constrain him? Similarly, how do we plan to interact with the new High Representative for foreign and security policy, who is also to be Vice-President of the Commission and chair of the Council of Foreign Ministers? And how is Parliament going to exploit its power of the purse over the new External Action Service?

MEPs will have to assemble their views on these matters not once the Treaty is in force but beforehand, during 2008, so that the new arrangements can work well from the start. And how will Parliament play the interim period, especially with respect to legislation in the field of justice and home affairs: do we proceed now on the basis of the vastly inferior Treaty of Nice or should we delay our law making until the better regime kicks in?

There is, too, in the background, the nagging worry about what happens if the EU again fails to ratify its treaty revision. Nobody of (much) importance had a Plan B ready when the French and Dutch voted against the constitution in 2005. Would it not be sensible to have a contingency plan today?

For the past six months, Parliament has worked well with the Portuguese presidency of the Council. Most of the legislative goals set by Portugal for its term of office have been achieved, including an important agreement to reinforce European political parties. Where the Council has dared to decide things by qualified majority vote (QMV), the system of legislative co-decision with the Parliament has worked well. Where ministers have clung to unanimity, such as the Working Time Directive, no progress has been made.

QMV has also been spectacularly successful in unblocking a budgetary impasse. Here, Parliament's proposal to switch unused agricultural funds towards financing Galileo, Europe's sat-nav project, was eventually accepted by the Council. MEPs have thus engineered the reform of the famous 'financial perspectives' agreement of May 2006 to the tune of € 1.6 bn. For the first time ever, in 2008 the EU budget allocates more to boosting economic competitiveness than to spending in the countryside. Not only Galileo but also the European Institute of Technology can go forward. Support for foreign and security policy, not least in Kosovo, increases sharply.

As QMV in the Council and codecision with the Parliament is greatly extended by the Treaty of Lisbon, Parliament has done well to demonstrate, in advance, the practical benefits of reforming the EU's system of government. But the wise will remain glued to the opinion polls as the New Year unfolds.

Andrew Duff MEP (Liberal, UK) is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His 'True Guide to the Treaty of Lisbon' is available on Eurointelligence.com and www.andrewduff.eu.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007