Lisbon means more power to EU Parliament, citizens, but some confusion too

The Lisbon treaty has been accused of all sorts of things by its opponents, but there is little doubt that it does include new provisions aimed at making European Union workings more transparent. In my view one the most crucial ones is that the Council of Ministers will be forced to become more transparent and make its deliberations public.

Yesterday we also heard some news about changes in the way the European Parliament will relate to the Council of Ministers and the European Commission that could have profound consequences on the way EU affairs are conducted, as a consequence of the Lisbon Treaty coming into force.

Some key changes are:
- the principle of “equal treatment by the Commission for Parliament and the Council of Ministers”. This means MEPs will have more access to meetings and to documentation on the Commission’s meetings with national experts (which can be extremely untransparent at times).

- improved “accountability of the Commission as the EU executive body”, towards the European Parliament. This will include a more “transparent procedure for nominating special representatives and ambassadors”.

- The EU Parliament will start holding a new “Question Hour” with Commissioners during plenary sessions, including the Vice-President for External Relations/High-Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. In addition, if Parliament asks the Commission President to withdraw his confidence in an individual Member of the College, he must seriously consider whether to require the resignation of the Commissioner or explain his refusal to do so before Parliament in the following plenary session.

- Under the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament will also gain the power to ask the Commission to enact new legislation. Before Lisbon, this was not possible as the sole right of legislative initiative (the right to propose new laws) was with the EU Commission. Under the rules agreed today, the Parliament will have the right to ask the Commission to legislate on an issue – and there will be clear deadlines for this procedure. In particular, there will be a three-month deadline for the Commission to respond with a concrete follow-up to a legislative initiative report. It will have a year to submit a proposal to Parliament. If no proposal is submitted, the Commission will give detailed explanations to Parliament.

There is very little online information on what these increased legislative powers really mean, but I found this legal explanation on Ralf Grahn’s blog quite useful.

A story on news service Euractiv indicates that these changes in relations between the Parliament and other institutions will be “seismic…it is rumoured that senior people within the Commission are saying that things will never be the same again and that this deal represents a real power gain for the Parliament.”

Of course one of the major changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty is also – and crucially – that 40 new areas of policy will come under the co-decision process, meaning that the Parliament will have a say where it didn’t have one before, for example in crucial areas of the EU budget and with regards to international treaties.

And yes, more power to the European Parliament also means that more lobbyists are descending to Brussels to try to influence what is becoming a “paradise for lobbyists“. But more powers for the European Parliament also mean more democratic accountability for the EU because MEPs are accessible not just to industry lobbyists but also to a variety of organisations representing civil society. And, increasingly, also to private citizens, thanks also to the growth of social networking such as facebook and twitter.

Of course as always there will be a variety of other factors involved in determining how democratically accountable EU institutions really are, which are outside the scope of these specific changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty. Poor media coverage in many countries will continue to keep the EU out of sight for most citizens. The nasty habit of national politicians blaming problems on the EU when things are bad, and taking credit when things are good will continue to feed misunderstandings and mistrust amongst EU citizens and make them feel disempowered.

Yet the Lisbon Treaty introduces something else which could potentially empower them – the European Citizens’ Initiative. This means that if at least one million citizens request the EU Commission to legislate on an issue, the EU Commission has to consider doing this. It’s still not clear precisely how well it will work, but there is some work going to define it more precisely, to be discussed at a stakeholder forum on the 22nd of February in Brussels. The blog of the Young European Federalists has useful information on the debate going on behind the scenes.

Of course the picture created by Lisbon isn’t completely positive: there is no doubt that the new Lisbon Treaty changes are also creating some confusion, particularly because of the the proliferation of senior roles. As this article by Ian Traynor published yesterday on the Guardian rightly says:

Obama announced last week he was too busy for a slated summit with the Europeans in Madrid in May. The US state department made plain that one reason for Obama’s absence is that, under Lisbon, it was not clear with whom the Americans should be dealing.

Matthias Matthijs, a Washington-based academic who is visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bologna Centre, said the post-Lisbon fiasco over who is in charge may take a year to sort out. That person is supposed to be Van Rompuy or Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign policy chief also created by the Lisbon treaty. But no one appears to have told the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who took on the rotating six-month presidency of the EU last month determined not to forfeit any of its perks and privileges to Van Rompuy who, under the Lisbon terms, chairs all summits of EU leaders.

There is no doubt there is quite a bit of confusion on this issue. I personally also have some concerns about changes that the Lisbon Treaty has made to the “comitology” process, which may make it even less transparent than it is. I am not an expert on this and would really welcome some feedback from people more in the know.

But focusing solely on the problems created by Lisbon rather than potentially positive changes that are happening definitely does not do this issue justice, nor does it help to make the EU more democratic and transparent.