New process to elect head of EU Commission marginalises British voters
Anna Sonny, 9 May 2014
The EU was established on the founding principles of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
While the 28-nation bloc attempts to promote democracy around the world today, a closer look at its structures reveals a disconnect between its principles and its structures.
This year’s election of the President of the European Commission will be the first under a new system set out by the Lisbon Treaty.
Whereas the President of the Commission was previously decided by EU national leaders, the Lisbon Treaty now requires that the leading party in the EU elections nominates a candidate. The European Parliament will then have to vote on the leaders’ nominee in July. Giving MEPs an influence over the decision is a clear attempt to bridge the much-criticised democratic deficit within the EU, but it only serves to highlight the bloc’s democratic failings.
Current opinion polls place the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the lead for the EU elections that will take place from May 22nd. But the fact that David Cameron withdrew from the EPP in 2009 means that no British votes will have gone towards Jean-Claude Juncker’s nomination if he is chosen. Juncker has made it clearthat this is just too bad:
‘Cameron has to stick to the clear treaty rules…The treaty is the treaty. And whoever wins, wins.’
The fact that an entire country could be left out of the process to elect a candidate for one of the most powerful positions in the EU shows how far-removed European citizens are from the decision-making process.
Most decisions made in the EU are a tangle of bureaucracy, which overpowers any efforts to achieve democracy. British voters will go to the polls in two weeks’ time, to vote in the European elections – not for individual MEPs but for parties who have already chosen their candidates. The candidates will then slot into their different groupings in the European Parliament. If the 34.7% voter turnout in the UK for the 2009 elections is anything to go by, representation of British interests in the European Parliament will be very small.
But it isn’t just British voters who are isolated from the process. The Lisbon Treaty attempted to move towards a ‘more democratic and transparent Europe.’ But while it gave the European Parliament more powers and introduced participatory democracy measures such as the European Citizens’ Initiative, it failed to introduce democratic structures to elect the head of the Commission, the EU’s most powerful institution – the only one that can propose legislation. When the role for one of the EU’s most influential positions is not directly elected by the public, the relationship between the EU’s founding values and its procedures can only be described as a paradox. After India, the EU represents the largest democratic electorate in the world, with over 500,000,000 voters going to the polls in a couple of weeks’ time. The fact that such a large group of voters is so marginalised from decision-making at EU level is definitely one of the EU’s biggest failures.