whodoicall.eu

The Swedish MEP Åsa Westlund writes about whodoicall.eu on her blog.

Here is an English translation of her Swedish entry:

While there in Sweden is a debate about different negative aspects (real or imaginary) of the Lisbon Treaty my good friend Jon Worth has started a campaign called “Whodoicall.eu”.

They write: Henry Kissinger famously asked “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” We think it’s time for an answer.

Their answer is that the European Council President (with the Heads of State and Government) and the Commission President should be the same person.

The idea with the Lisbon Treaty is that the chair of the European Council (which is sometimes refered to as the EU President) should be elected by the Heads of State and Government while the Commission President should be suggested by the Heads of State and Government but have democratic legitimacy by being approved by the directly elected European Parliament. If it would be the same person he/she would need both support from the Heads of State and Government and the European Parliament and in that have more democratic legitimacy in the whole EU. Someone that Kissinger could well have called.

The thought is utopian, but the question about who should lead the EU is not that simple. With the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament gets equal power with the Council in many areas.

I think it is good if more decisions are moved from the diplomats in closed rooms to the Parliament’s open plenary where the debate can be open to media and the public. Politics behind closed doors rarely gives good results.

There is a balance between efficient decision-making and the fact that democracy and debate have to take its time. The Lisbon Treaty is one step forward, but the debate about the democratic legitimacy should continue.

Photo: European Parliament

Some friends speaking to me after launching this website were positively surprised about “this great and fresh idea”. I say: thanks for the credit but our only achievment really is re-activating an argument from the Convention.

It was apparently a French (+ others) idea to install a permanent president of the European Council. These intergovernmentalist forces – joined by few other less ambitious member states and MEPs – had the intention to bring about a completely new institutional order with the abolishment or radical weakening of the Commission President. This would have been achieved by installing a strong and permanent European Council (EC) president. The Convention Presidium took up this idea of a permanent president in its drafts of late spring 2003.

However, Giscard and friends were experienced enough to propose an arrangement that somehow cares for a potentially  more useful division of tasks between the EC and Commission president. In their draft of late May 2003 they actually foresaw the opportunity for Commission and EC president to be identical (the so-called “big double-hat” – as opposed to the “small double-hat” being Vice-President of Commission and Mr/s CFSP of the Council). The French accepted this compromise arrangement then (securing an EC president) while in return the grouping of small member states accepted to have a rotating system for Commission members in which there was guaranteed pre-allocation for big member states.

A funny note on the side comes from then German foreign minister Joschka Fischer. When asked about the double heading (EC and Commission president) he replied that he has only good experience with “Doppelspitzen” in his own party

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s blog is interesting reading (in French) about important questions about the future of the EU. You know what you will get with him – a statesman-like, pro-EU approach, conscious of history, and tending towards intergovernmentalism. VGE’s comments about what the Convention on the Future of Europe did not discuss about the President of the European Council are interesting – here’s a rough translation into English:

Obviously it would have been interesting to conduct a discussion on the criteria for appointment of the future president, but the work of the European Convention was sufficiently loaded so that we could not enter into this debate. However, it was specifically stated, after lengthy discussions, that the future president could not hold a national mandate at the same time. It is desirable now to undertake further study.

So for VGE the means to select the President of the European Council are very much still open.

Thanks also to Thomas Lefebvre for posing the question to VGE, and linking to whodoicall.eu from his blog as well, so starting the debate in the French blogosphere.

In an interesting blog post (in French), former President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, raises an important question about the democratic accountability of the new post of President of the European Council:

Enfin, quelle est la relation à établir entre l’expression politique des citoyens à l’occasion des élections européennes et la désignation du Président du Conseil de l’Union ?

VGE urges the Slovenian EU Presidency to convene a high level study group to look at the issue – and underlines that democratic accountability is vital for the new position.

Not a bad idea all round, but One President is better. You don’t need any high level study groups for that. The European Political Parties can put up their candidates for Commission President before the European elections, and whichever party emerges strongest gets its person to be Commission President and European Council President.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt addressed the European Parliament on Tuesday 19th February and he expressed concerns that with a new President of the European Council (more from EUObserver) there will be no explicit EU tasks for the Prime Ministers of incoming Presidency countries. He has hence floated the idea of some sort of co-chairing arrangements. If someone like Reinfeldt is expressing such concerns, would that rule out a strong candidate for the European Council chair role? Plus if there was only One President of the EU, I’m sure he or she would be more accommodating of Member States’ requests in this regard than a European Council President wanting to develop a powerful position.