This blog was originally published by the DCU Brexit Blog on 12 December 2019. Finally. Jean-Claude Juncker has bid us ‘au revoir’ via his own edition of the Politico Playbook and the new Von der Leyen Commission started earlier this month. Things didn’t go as smoothly as some had hoped, with the European Parliament blocking three of the candidate Commissioners (László Trócsányi, Hungary; Rovana Plumb, Romania; Sylvie Goulard, France). But VDL and her team have set to work – as have new European Council president Charles Michel and new European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.
A few months back I reflected on the incoming European Commission in another DCU Brexit post. The game of musical chairs has gone at the expense of the much-hoped gender balance in the VDL Commission – although, as this picture tweeted by Charles Michel shows, EU leadership has generally become quite a bit more balanced! Another difference is that the Commission is no longer ‘Protecting our European Way of Life’ but rather ‘Promoting’ it. Although we still don’t know what ‘Our European Way of Life’ is exactly, the Commission’s website does raise questions about how ‘fundamental rights’ and ‘strong borders’ will be combined. But let’s give VDL and her team a chance and, instead, look at what will be coming her way in the near future. Here are three feature films coming to European cinemas soon! 1. Spitzenkandidaten, Part Deux One issue that I wrote about in more detail in my previous DCU post, concerned the EU’s democratic nature and the need for treaty changes. So, what can we expect from the Commission here? Not too much, probably, as the member states will be in the lead. But the recent Franco-German non-paper on the EU’s future suggests that discussions will certainly affect future Commissions. The document refers to the need “to promote democracy and European values and to ensure a more efficient functioning of the Union and its Institutions.” Vintage back to the future rhetoric. But interestingly, the paper also directly refers to “transnational lists and lead candidate system”. This suggests that the Parliament’s much-loved Spitzenkandidaten system seems to have now been accepted by Macron and Merkel as the way forward. And that new voting arrangements for European elections may even be on the agenda. Can’t wait until the 2024 European elections! 2. Climate Wars: The Return of the Jedi This week the new (and returning) executive vice-President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, will present the contours of the Union’s new Green Deal to the European Parliament. Given that Parliament has declared a state of climate emergency, questions will certainly be asked. Some of the ideas that have made it to European media, have already been heavily criticised by environmental groups. Meanwhile, European businesses and EU leaders – the latter being confronted with protests against environmental legislation at home – may want plans to be less ambitious. Finding a compromise between these different interests will be a mammoth task and an important one at that. But, given that Frans Timmermans has taken on the beard of a wise Jedi Knight, the force may be strong with this one. Script and soundtrack have already been leaked! 3. Monty Python and the Holy Brexit The British elections are just around the corner. And perhaps Brexit is too. The Conservatives are in the lead in the opinion polls, though this does not necessarily mean that they will win a majority of seats. Labour would hold a new referendum on Brexit, should they win the elections, whereas the LibDems would revoke Article 50 to stop Brexit altogether. Neither of them really stands a chance of gaining a majority, though, but being part of a coalition would also put Brexit into question. If Boris’ Conservatives win a majority, the British leaving the EU will be a matter of weeks. But even if Boris takes the win and Britain leaves the EU, this will only be the start of determining what their future relationship will look like. And will the EU27 remain as unified when having to negotiate a trade deal with the UK? And if Boris doesn’t win, we may be back to where we were a few months back. And the months before that. And last year… So, if you’re in the Commission, always look on the bright side of life: you’ll still be talking about EU-UK for quite a while! Brexit, climate change, the future of the EU? It’s back to the future with the new Commission, with three challenges that are likely to stay. Turns out that Jean-Claude Juncker truly understands European politics best: rather than saying ‘goodbye’, we should say ‘au revoir’.
0 Comments
This post was originally published by the DCU Brexit Institute Blog on 3 October 2019. It already seems ages ago that we had the kick-off of the European election campaign here in Maastricht on 29 April. The Maastricht Debate, as it was called, brought together the Spitzenkandidaten of five of the European party groups. The most prominent absentee was EPP Spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber, who attended a birthday party instead. His absence did lead to speculation as to whether or not this was the real reason for his absence, one of the suggestions put forward being that this may be a sign of the EPP hoping to demote the Spitzenkandidaten system.
Nearly five months later and the Spitzenkandidaten system indeed seems to be more death than alive. French President Macron’s opposition to the system in absence of transnational lists was important, even though Europe’s leaders have never been a fan of the idea. But the new Commission President-elect, Ursula von der Leyen (VDL), at least is a member of the biggest party group, the EPP. Earlier this month VDL presented the proposed team of Commissioners and their portfolios. The European Parliament is now gearing up for its hearings of the European Commission nominees, starting on Monday 30 September. The fact that the number of women in the Commission has gone up so substantially – from 8 to 13 – certainly is great news. But the composition of the new Commission has already led to some debate and commentators are speculating on who will not survive the hearings in Parliament. Questions have also been raised about what will happen to the Commission’s tough stance on the rule of law in Hungary and Poland when Frans Timmermans is no longer in charge. And then there are the lofty and sometimes unclear titles of some of the portfolios, such as ‘An Economy that Works for People’, ‘Democracy and Demography’, ‘International Partnerships’ and, of course, the new post of Commissioner for ‘Protecting our European Way of Life’. These questions and issues are important, and we should applaud the fact that the European Parliament takes its democratic duty seriously and will be critically assessing these questions and issues during its hearings of the Commission candidates. But what seems to be less debated right now, but arguably has become more important than ever, are questions about the future of Europe. In particular, although the expected Eurosceptic surge was more modest than many had anticipated and election turn-out has gone up, questions about Europe’s democratic arrangements remain relevant. If and when the debate about the future of the EU continues, two questions regarding its institutional set-up need to be addressed. The first concerns the role and composition of the European Commission. Is the Commission meant to be a bureaucratic actor, the composition of which should not depend on election outcomes? Or should it become a nascent European government, in which case its composition should depend on those elections? Linked to this is the matter of the size of the Commission, which is not a new question at all, but one that deserves further discussion given that some of the new posts again seem to amount to a rather limited job description. The second question concerns the European elections themselves. Whether or not the Commission is seen as a bureaucratic or a political actor, isn’t it time that transnational election lists finally become reality? While citizens would still be able to elect national politicians, transnational lists might push politicians to move beyond their national focus, which would deepen the transnational European public sphere. What’s more, it might further increase the quality of MEPs, because we could vote for more experienced politicians – former prime ministers even – when our national political parties choose to nominate less experienced or frankly outlandish candidates. However important, right now it doesn’t seem that these issues will be addressed in the short run. If only because some fear that they will open a box of pandora when it comes to EU reform. But there also still is this one issue that hasn’t been resolved yet (and that I’ve managed to avoid so far): Brexit. Until Brexit happens – or is off the table completely? – the debate about the EU’s future will remain low-key. But Europe will have to move on, with or without our British friends. This post was originally published by the DCU Brexit Institute Blog on 21 May 2019. At the time of writing, we are nearing the third anniversary of the Brexit referendum of 23 June 2016. While a cause for celebration or a grave feeling of loss, depending on where you stand on the issue, it almost feels like nothing much has happened since. In fact, while Brexit originally was to happen on 29 March of this year, British politicians have been unable to reach agreement on what that Brexit should look like. As a result, Brexit has been postponed, most recently until the end of October 2019.
After many ‘meaningful’ votes (oh, the irony…) we are now in a situation in which British citizens are asked to vote during the upcoming European Parliament (EP) elections of 23-26 May 2019, something that both the British government and the European Union (EU) wanted to avoid. What might this development hold for the EP elections? The composition of the EP The most visible and at the same time most confusing result of the EP elections taking place pre-Brexit concerns the future composition of the parliament. The inaugural plenary session of the newly elected parliament is scheduled for 2 July 2019, nearly four months before the new Brexit date. But already in June group composition will be discussed. Parliament’s main business will first concern the composition of the new European Commission. As Simon Usherwood explained elsewhere on the DCU Brexit Blog, 73 of the newly elected 751 Members of European Parliament (MEPs) will be representing the British people. This has a direct effect on the composition of some groups. The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group was about to lose a large share of its membership – the MEPs from the Conservative Party – but will certainly have newly elected MEPs in their midst that will leave again when Brexit becomes reality. The same applies to the Party of European Socialists, of which Labour is currently a member of. The PES might benefit from this vis-à-vis the European People’s Party in the context of the Spitzenkandidaten contest, even though polls suggest that the EPP will remain the biggest party. When (if?) Brexit becomes reality, the newly elected British MEPs will leave again. The number of MEPs will then decrease to 705. Of the 73 British seats, 46 will be reserved for future enlargements and 27 will be redistributed to other countries. Does this mean that MEPs for these seats will already be elected, but can only take up their seat after Brexit? This is an issue that may be more complicated than anticipated. Euroscepticism and parliamentary politics post-Brexit Whether Eurosceptic parties in other countries are to benefit from this situation is difficult to predict. On the one hand, they could use the current situation as an example of how the EU prohibits nation-states from going their own way – against the outcome of a popular vote. Yet, on the other hand, we have seen that support for EU membership has gone up since Brexit and the current situation may simply highlight the chaos that awaits one when wanting to leave the EU. In any case, these are going to be interesting elections. As I already wrote elsewhere, we are seeing a political landscape evolve that better represents the topic that many citizens associate European elections with: are you for or against the EU? Whether we like it or not, with Macron pushing for a pro-European alliance and Salvini (soon to be joined by Orbán?) representing the Eurosceptic vote, we might see a campaign that also highlights this issue instead of the different policy choices to be made. And while the pro-European parties will remain the dominant force, Eurosceptic parties are projected to win more seats than ever before. While their representation in the EP may be a good thing for EU democracy, whether or not an increased number of Eurosceptic MEPs will change EU politics and the functioning of EP is another story. As Nathalie Brack shows in her recent book, informal and formal rules limit the political opportunities for Eurosceptic MEPs. In addition, the way in which these MEPs engage with EP business ranges from near-complete absence to full engagement. This is partly to be explained by the diversity between Eurosceptic parties, with some being against any form of European integration, whereas other rather campaign for a different Europe. What’s next? If only we knew. The Brexit saga has been one of many expected and unexpected plot twists. During the campaign for the 2024 European elections, we may look back at this whole affair as an interesting experiment, after Brexit was rejected in another referendum in 2020. Or we may see an election campaign that is concerned with the politics of an EU that has moved on after Britain finally left on 31 October 2019. Or perhaps just a few months later. |
Archives
December 2023
Categories
All
|