Union of peoples and States: innovations in the “common home”

This year’s elections for the European Parliament brought about a significant innovation in the development of EU political system, namely, the proposal of candidates to EU presidency on the part of transnational European parties. On the basis of a regulation enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty enforced at the end of 2009, imposing the European Council to take into account election results in its proposal for the appointment of the president of the European Commission, Parliament called upon heads of Government and State to propose a candidate among those with the highest electoral turnout. In fact, Parliament – which will elect the president of the Commission – would accept no other option.  Thus increased democratic action prevailed in the decisions regarding the main political figure at EU level. The European Parliament has thereby stripped the monopoly on the EU’s most important position from heads of government and State. European integration proceeds despite dialectic tensions between the diplomatic and the democratic principles. On the one side, the ongoing negotiations between governments – institutionalized in the Council – for development, organization and management of the Community/Union; on the other the Parliament’s contribution, an expression of citizens’ participation, exerted through decision-making control and cooperation. This process began earlier, although in the first years of the unification process the democratic aspect did not play a significant role. In fact, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was mainly an intergovernmental structure. However, the agreement that sanctioned its foundation also envisaged the establishment of an Assembly of national parliament delegates – albeit with limited powers, confined to issues pertaining to tasks and activity of ECSC High Authority and Council of Ministers-. It was therefore surprising that soon after its creation the Assembly was invited to “draw up a draft treaty for the establishment of a European Political Community (EPC)”, set to identify the goal that ECSC was thereby bound to abide to. The Political Community was also expected to serve as a framework tool for the planned European Defense Community (EDC). However, owing to a set of political developments, the EDC project fell through (1954) while also the project linked to the political Community, on which the Assembly has already presented a project, became obsolete. When the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) were founded in 1958, each one with their own institutions, the Assembly managed to extend its competences to the two new Communities. As a consultative body for questions related to the three treaties existing at the time (ECSC, EEC and Euratom), the Assembly managed to obtain extended competence, which would have increased also it influence, provided that it was appropriately considered and recognized by other existing bodies. In its capacities as the supervisory body of the Community’s three executive authorities (High ECSC authority, EEC Commission, Euratom Commission), its powers increased, although initially only in “moral” terms, as the Assembly was lacking the tools to impose them. In this situation, in 1960 MEPs decided to replace the term “Assembly” with “European Parliament”, thereby conveying their claim to a political and democratic role. But it was not only July 1987, with the adoption of the Single European Act, that their claim was enshrined in the Treaty. Before then, in 1979, democratization had received a major thrust with the decision regarding direct elections of the European Parliament. The Single Act introduced a set of Treaty revisions (Maastricht 1993, Amsterdam 1999, Nice 2003, Lisbon 2009), which gradually prompted the modernization of the EU’s political system and increased its democratization process. In particular, during these developments the European Parliament was granted the authority of co-decisional powers  in the legislative process, alongside with the EU Council of ministers. The history of Europe’s unification should thus be understood also as a democratization process of the Community/Union. In reality, in the course of the decades a union of peoples joined in with the original Union of States, initially conceived as a diplomatic event. The intergovernmental factor still prevails within major political decisions, despite the limitations it was subjected to in the name of democratic participation. In short, Member States continue being the “owners” of the treaties: procedures for the election of the Commission president after May’s European elections are evidence of the fact that democratization is progressing.