At a recent event on the role of the EU in the World, hosted by Chatham House, former Downing Street Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell asked President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy if he could foresee this position to be directly elected in the future. His answer was not an encouraging one.
The question gave the opportunity to the former Belgian prime minister to explain in great detail the main features and responsibilities of his role and to highlight that whoever runs the position doesn’t have a political agenda and most of the time has to act as a diplomat rather than a leader, trying to find a solution on which all the 27 heads of government may agree.
He also added a comment, saying that possibly the President of the European Commission would be elected in the future, as this role is more similar to that of a prime minister at national level and, through a popular election for this position, people of Europe would be able to choose the political direction of the Union.
He further added, however, that this scenario is not very likely in the near future as he would require a change in the institutional framework designed by the Lisbon Treaty, with all the risks and consequences that a treaty change would imply.
At the end of the session, he answered a final question about his alleged lack of leadership. In his opinion, when you are the Chair of a body composed by 27 heads of national government, you show your leadership in finding the right compromise on which all of them are ready to agree.
“I work behind the scene – he concluded – exerting more leadership than you can imagine”. And he revealed the work that he is doing at the moment in order to deepen the monetary union, to create a banking union and a fiscal union, to consolidate democratic accountability and governance.
He possibly did not realise the impact that the combination of the two different statements can have on an European electorate that is already detached from the Union’s institutions.
On the one hand, the head of the European Council is working on the definition of some fundamental structural reforms of the Union (and as the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported, other European figures are working with him: the President of the Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, and the President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi.)
On the other hand, his comment about the risks of a treaty change reveals that possibly these reforms are going to be implemented without a formal change of the European institutional framework, i.e. without a formal consultation of European electorates.
This is exactly what Europe doesn’t need at the moment.
In a period of deep economic crisis, when the disaffection towards the European institutions is increasingly growing, European leaders must avoid working “behind the scenes” and should instead try to engage in a democratic and transparent operation of involving voters in deciding the direction in which Europe should go.
No banking union or fiscal union can work if they are imposed onto the electorate. They might be the right technical solution, but if implemented in that way they are going to make wider and deeper the democratic deficit within the Union.
We need more political involvement of the European citizens, more democratic and transparent discussion, and we don’t have to fear the rise of anti-European sentiments, as they can be defeated by reinforcing publicly the reasons for a stronger Union.
This is seriously mis-interpreting what President Van Rompuy said. He pointed out that all the members of the European Council are elected and are accountable democratically, so the person who they charge with helping them find agreements that they can all defend should not himself be someone with a separate elected mandate of his own. He in no way implied that banking union or anything else should be “imposed” by him — indeed it cannot be. The election of the European Commission president is a different matter, he said, because the Commission DOES have the role of making proposals (and executing what has been agreed).
Richard, the article doesn’t question the legitimacy of the 27 heads of government, or of the European Council, or of its President (it aknowledges Van Rompuy gave a very good answer to that question and recognises that President of the Commission is the role with a political agenda).
It raises some doubts, however, on the lack of transparency and involvement of the current decision-making process.
Especially when the Union is discussing somer important reforms (banking union, fiscal union) we should follow a diffrent way and avoid that mayor changes in the structure of the Union are taken by the Council, out of the formal process of treaty reform.
Richard, there are huge question marks over the role of the President of the Council, and Van Rompuy has in the past shown all the wrong signals what a leader/president should be.
The election of the president is essentially an exercise in skulduggery and infighting by the technocratic elite to put one of their own in charge. The fact he openly spoke for working in the shadows just fuels accusations of the democratic deficit that have been made before.
A better idea would be to rename the president to ‘chair of the council’ which is what he really is rather than just creating confusion amongst the electorate. After all, in most other circumstances, a president is someone who is democratically elected not appointed from within…. And with two presidents, a leader of the europarl as well as national leaders, it’s confusing to both the voters and to other governments who’s actually in charge of the EU and can make things happen.
Richard, Lazzaro P. does have a point saying that “behind the scenes”negociations on such critical matters as the present sake of the Euro and the re- organisation of the EMU are quite frustrating . This is not the fault of Mr VR nor that of the European Council whose inbred culture is sercrecy . This is the responsibility of the Commision and of the EP which have abandoned their prerogatives to the ECouncil – thus rendering impossible tranparent and democratic decision making . JGGIRAUD
I have read the article several times and do not get a clear sense of how President Van Rompuy thinks his leadership should evolve. Van Rompuy’s responses appear to understand leadership in terms of what he currently does. This is decidedly limited. Maybe the event he attended constrained him from talking more expansively. The possible election of the President, which might be desirable, feels several big steps away from where we currently are and entangled with reform of institutional machinery and treaty changes with risks of myriad elephant traps to fall into. Jonathan Powell knows that but presumably the question was asked to draw Van Rompuy out of his shell. What is missing is more strategic perspective of how his political leadership might evolve at a time of huge economic and social challenges in Europe.