Last Monday evening in Brussels, after the daily grind of activity in the European Commission's Berlaymont building had drawn to a close, one light remained on. Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore had gathered with European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and European Parliament president Martin Schulz in a bid to resolve a deepening political impasse on the EU budget, a key file for the Irish presidency of the EU council.
Ten days earlier the European Parliament had cancelled a meeting with Eamon Gilmore which had been expected to kickstart the negotiation process on the EU’s sprawling seven-year budgetary framework. The episode is indicative of a changing power dynamic in Brussels.
Frequently dismissed as peripheral to the workings of the European Union, the European Parliament is emerging as a serious political force. The Lisbon Treaty granted the parliament increased legislative power in areas such as budgetary, financial, and energy and agricultural affairs, boosting its authority within the broadly tripartite structure of the European Union, which also includes the commission and council.
Origins
The origins of the European Parliament stretch back to the late 1950s, with an assembly of 142 members meeting for the first time in Strasbourg in 1958. In 1979 the first parliamentary elections took place, marking the institution's transition from appointed assembly to elected parliament.
The constant expansion of the European Union, as well as political changes such as the reunification of Germany, led to an increase in the number of seats, with the assembly swelling to more than 700 MEPs in the last decade. The Lisbon Treaty provides for a maximum number of 751 members, with the result that Ireland, along with other member states, is set to lose an MEP following Croatia’s accession this year.
But it is the treaty’s provision of greater powers to the parliament that may prove to be more significant than any change to the composition or distribution of seats.
Any expectations that the enhanced powers would be purely symbolic appear to have been misplaced. The European Parliament has flexed its muscles on a number of political issues. Last year’s rejection of a landmark anti-privacy agreement, ACTA, was perhaps the first inkling of its nascent power.
Over the last few months it has intervened on a number of issues, from the EU budget – as the Irish presidency learned this week – to its rejection of a commission proposal to intervene in the European Union’s troubled carbon market. But it was MEPs’ introduction of a clause to limit bankers’ bonuses as part of new banking legislation that has proved most controversial.
By effectively demanding a limit on bankers' pay in
exchange for parliamentary approval for the complex capital requirements directive IV legislation, the European Parliament secured a hugely significant amendment, catching Britain, in particular, unawares.
Even in areas where they have no co-decision powers, MEPs are exerting pressure in order to guarantee agreement on files they do control – effectively demanding extra sweeteners in exchange for consent.
Such bartering is the bread and butter of political negotiation in Brussels, but it undoubtedly raises ethical questions.
Most MEPs in Brussels are upfront about the need for the parliament to assert its new-found authority, raising the question of whether their interventions are motivated by real political concerns , or by a desire to showcase authority. British officials, in particular , were baffled that MEPs were able to effectively dictate the pay of private sector employees in Britain, seeing it as another worrying sign of intrusion byh Brussels into the realm of national affairs and private business.
Accountability
This feeds into a broader debate about democratic accountability in the EU. Unsurprisingly, MEPs have argued that the enhanced standing of the parliament is good for democracy. As the only directly elected forum in the European Union, furnishing MEPs with more power ensures that citizens are given a larger role in shaping European legislation, the argument goes.
But the financial crisis has meant that individual member states are increasingly driving EU policy, particularly in the realm of economic affairs, as leaders and finance ministers formulate the union’s response to the financial crisis through endless summits and council meetings.
The question of where the EU’s power does and should reside is likely to emerge as a key debate ahead of next year’s European elections.
Ironically, MEPs may find themselves in the firing line as frustrated voters gain their only opportunity through the polls to comment on the European project, while the European Commission remains shielded from voter ire. A rise in anti-European or fringe groups is widely expected. Showing that they can and do shape European policy may be the only tool at the parliament’s disposal as it faces increasingly disillusioned citizens next May.