There's been a largely consensual and defensive quality to much of the debate in Ireland in recent years about institutional changes in the EU. It's been about protecting our Commissioner, or defending the institutional balance, or upholding the rights of small countries, but little of the "vision thing". Yet, with the European elections looming, there is an opportunity for politicians to set out a bigger picture. And there are real differences between the parties.
Broadly speaking, Fine Gael is more explicitly committed to closer integration and a traditional federalist model of pooling of real power. Fianna Fail, the guardians in Ireland of the "Europe of the nations" model, sees the integration process as largely complete, while Labour and the Greens each contribute their social or environmental dimensions.
All pretty broad-brush stuff really, and very short on specifics. Until, that is, the Opposition leader, John Bruton, last Friday set out a most specific vision in a radical Brussels speech to Fine Gael's partners in the European People's Party.
He warned that the greatest challenge facing the EU was to enhance its democratic legitimacy and called for MEPs to be given the right to elect the President of the European Commission from their own numbers. He or she would then pick the Commission members, also from among MEPs, probably of the majority coalition in the Parliament. Checks would be put in to ensure the representation of all the member-states.
His proposals are also elaborated in an interview with John Downing in the latest issue of the journal of the Philip Morris Institute, the tobacco giant's Eurothink tank.
"I believe that if we do not do something along the lines I advocate," Bruton tells Downing, "when Europe faces a crisis the citizens will suddenly question `Europe's' right to take corrective measures. People will say `I did not select the President of the European Central Bank nor the President of the European Commission. The only people I will respect are the government of my own country.' " What is required, he argues, is a new political culture that is more than the sum of the politics of the member-states. That can be provided, Bruton believes, by making a formal link between the act of voting for MEPs and the formation of the Commission and hence its political direction - in effect turning the election campaign into one more about the politics of Europe than the domestic popularity of the government.
The idea is radical in terms of the fundamental and critically important balance between the EU's institutions. Instead of a tri-polar balance between member-states in the Council of Ministers, the Parliament, and the Commission, a new bipolarity could emerge through a form of partial institutional merger between the Commission and the Parliament.
The problem is not just that these two bodies, each with an equal say in decisions, could find themselves at political loggerheads through the natural inconsistency of the electorates of Europe, but that such a change might make the Commission a prisoner of the Parliament in a way that could undermine its role.
The Commission's key function is to represent the smaller states and to safeguard the Union as a whole. To prevent larger member-states dominating the agenda, only the Commission can make proposals, which member-states and MEPs then amend and vote on.
Bruton argues that his proposal need not affect this Commission prerogative. "I think if you gave the Parliament a separate right of initiative, it would be a recipe for conflict." Yet the Parliament, as we have seen recently, is willing to use the limited powers it has to take more. A Commission drawn from the ranks of MEPs, and dependent on their support for re-election, could find itself less willing to make unpopular but necessary proposals.
Giving MEPs the right to elect the president of the Commission from non-MEP nominees of the member-states, or allowing the president to be directly elected by the voters at the same time as MEPs, might not have the same effect.
Bruton acknowledges that there are problems with his scenario but argues that they are outweighed by the benefits in terms both of greater legitimacy and in the changes they would bring about in the way the institutions work.
A conflict between a socialist majority in the member-states and a conservative majority in Parliament could result in a constructive accommodation that guaranteed continuity of policy, he says. To those who argue that MEPs can not be trusted to run Europe, he responds that giving them real powers would force them to act responsibly. To those worried that the proposals would undermine the standing of member-states, he responds that their rights are protected in the provisions for co-decision under which legislation must be agreed by both the Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
At last a debate!
