The coronation of Parliament

The Lisbon Treaty, which comes into force on 1 December, is going to make at least 736 people happy: viz. the members of the European Parliament, whose powers will be bolstered under the terms of the new law. In matters of justice, internal affairs and, above all, the budget and agricultural policy, MEPs will have more say and sway than ever before – though we don’t yet know how that will affect the workings of the EU.

“I think there’ll be a moment of: ‘My God, what the hell have we done?’” prophesies political scientist Hugo Brady, as recently quoted on euobserver.com. With Lisbon everything is in place to put the states back centre-stage: an end to federalist ambitions, a Commission president (José Manuel Barroso), Council president (Herman Van Rompuy) and High Representative for Foreign Affairs (Catherine Ashton) handpicked so as not to eclipse the leaders of Europe’s biggest countries. Everything, that is, except the buttressing of parliamentary prerogatives.

Giving more clout to the only elected officials in the whole Community machine is obviously a good thing. But absent a bona fide European representation – replete with parties, programmes and electoral campaigns that go beyond local issues –, this new parliamentary power is liable to be confined in its exercise to politicking purposes.

The hearings for the European commissioners designate might well give us a first taste of what is to come. We know the nominations of Van Rompuy and Ashton are, above all, the upshot of negotiations between the European right and left-wing parties. And the MEPs are already arming to take out a Commission candidate or two. Gazeta Wyborcza reports that the Czech Štefan Füle and Hungarian László Andor are under fire for their Communist past. It would be a pity if the elected representatives, who are expected to take on concrete problems, were to let their national squabbles and the desire to assert themselves take precedence over the general weal. E.M.