Signs of innovation

The recent confrontation that saw the opposition of the European Parliament and the EU Council (representing the 27 member governments) regarding the appointment of a member of the Executive Board of the ECB, is not the first and will not be the last. However, the risk of a "summit clash" conceals interesting signs of innovation.Tug of war on the ECB board. The Strasbourg Assembly, gathered in plenary session, last week rejected the candidate nominated by the States, the Governor of the Bank of Luxembourg Yves Mersch, asking that a female candidate be considered for the post of a new member of the European Central Bank board. No objection, therefore, to the curriculum of the Luxembourg banker, rejected, as has been said, "for being a man". The protests of French MEP Sylvie Goulard, the first to launch a "female" appeal, brought together the members of different political forces, leading to the stop signal for the official candidate. Is also true that the opinion of the European Parliament in this case is not binding and therefore the EU Council may however proceed to the appointment of Mersch, but it is equally clear that no government has plans to promote a dispute seen as hazardous, given the ongoing delicate circumstances for Europe, for its currency and for the same ECB. Budget, the figures don’t balance. During the last plenary session of the European Parliament the Assembly and Commission, and the Council, conveyed seriously diverging stances. 2012 and 2013 budget figures don’t seem to balance owing to EU budget cuts imposed by Member States at the time. But when it comes to "pay the bills" relating to expenditure commitments undertaken for the current financial year, Brussels’s coffers are empty. Thus, for example, unless amendments are made to the budget, there may not be enough money to pay the Erasmus grants to students studying abroad. Not only: States insist on significant reductions to the 2013 budget, whose negotiations between the two budgetary authorities, EU Parliament and Council, are under way. Janusz Lewandowski, Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, on behalf of the Executive (which has the task of advancing the budget proposal and, after its approval, is called to manage the current accounts), has clearly stated: "the cuts proposed by the EU Council of Ministers to the 2013 budget are simply unsustainable".Divided on governance. Another issue on which the European Parliament and Council hold opposing views is – to continue with the examples – the set of provisions to create the so-called "banking union" (namely, the single supervisory mechanism for the supervision of European banks) along with the steps for the completion of "economic and banking union". In this case the EU Council, the Central Bank, the Eurogroup and Commission are working hard at the definition of the future "economic governance", leaving out the Strasbourg Assembly, which, it should be remembered, is the only European Union institution elected with universal suffrage, representing the "common home", the voice of 500 million European citizens. Is it possible to proceed towards governance, object MEPs, relegating the Parliament to the sidelines? Unprecedented political paths. Thus EU institutions are on opposite sides of the fence over a long list of issues. The fact remains that the European Parliament tends to act with a certain compactness (even overcoming traditional divisions between the political forces that compose it) under the new, broad powers granted by the Treaty of Lisbon. The action of MEPs in general, tends to appear more responsive to community interests – i.e., "to the European common good" – while taking into account national ones. European Parliament positions become more effective when they express the same positions of the Barroso Commission. It isn’t a question of breaking Community front. Moreover, there is the perception that the attempt of a new balance of powers inside the EU is under way. Nor can it be said that federalist canons are being followed, as they are distant from EU agenda. Moreover, in this exacting attempts to provide an answer to the urgent problems – starting with economic questions – the EU appears to be approaching new political, diplomatic and institutional ways, which show that the challenge of the ongoing crisis has triggered new, promising and effective forms of European integration.