‘In theory, the European Commission represents the EU interest, the European Parliament acts as the voice of the people of the EU, and the Council represents the interests of national governments. The reality is quite different.’
Discuss.

The elementary organizing principles of the European Union have been the representation of different interests and the balance of power between the EU institutions and those particular interests. Emphasized in Monnet’s vision, one of the key tasks of the European project was ‘…to ensure that in their limited field these new institutions were both thoroughly democratic and accountable’. Yet, it is often questionable as to whether this task has been accomplished. It is more and more felt that the practical democratization and accountability of the institutions has been gradually dissenting from its theoretical objective. Where the supranational competencies of the EU have been growing, an effective system of political representation of the institutions is said to be missing. This paper aims put together a picture reflecting the essence of this division between empirical legitimacy, based on political reality, and the conceptual, normative legitimacy of each of these institutions arguing the perhaps further transparency and accountability may take the EU institutions a step closer towards achieving their theoretical role.

The original Monnet plan envisaged the Commission as a body enjoying output legitimacy by being a promoter of EU interests and a pro – integrationist actor. This plan saw the “technocratic elites” as the best people to scientifically deduce the best path towards the eventual goal of integration through ‘pro-integrationist’ policies. The ‘condition’ of independence and expertise (as illustrated in Article 17 TEU) is (theoretically) realized when member state governments set the agenda on which they (and eventually the Commission President and Members of the European Parliament) vote or outvote during the appointment process. Arndt Wonka has cast considerable doubt on this process by demonstrating the influence of the appointment procedure, and the power it places in national governments’ and ruling parties’ hands, on Commissioners’ policy preferences. Indeed, it is difficult to see in practical terms how the Commission can be expected to be different from the Council of Ministers: members of both institutions are chosen ultimately by the leaders of their national governments. Moreover, if one government reject the others nominee, it is this government’s right to nominate another candidate. (Yet, in many cases, this rejection will most likely be avoided by other member state – so as to not become the target of such rejection too).

Furthermore, a rational-actor view of the Commission would tend to be suspicious of claims that the Commissioner’s collegial atmosphere allows the institution to assume a life and agenda of its own (and by so represent the interest of the EU), at odds with national governments; this is a particularly valid critique in light of the expansion of the Union, and the move towards a more deliberative and Parliamentarian atmosphere within the Commission. The expansion also opens up the possibility of self-interested national bargaining: it would be folly for a Commissioner from a landlocked country to support proposals on fishing without using their leverage to push for their national agenda at the same time; especially when we consider Wonka’s case for “conceptualizing Commissioners as political rather than technocratic actors.” It is thus doubtful whether the Commission can claim to represent the EU interests by virtue of its “independence” from national self-interest. Empirically, it is also difficult to find evidence of the Commission’s legitimacy as a true representative of the EU interest. The decline in “popular acceptance of EU governance” can be attributed to recent events vividly traced by Mehde and most viscerally captured by the resignation of the Santer Commission. Further, Tsakatika’s prediction that “enlargement…[would] bring about a further drop in legitimacy” has been vindicated by the strength of Euroskepticism in Poland and the Czech Republic. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 also provided a clear reminder of public suspicion of the legitimacy of the integration project and its institutions. This wears particularly badly on the Commission, which is noted by Chalmers to be susceptible to perception as “a single body with the single idea of promoting European integration.” A further critique concerns the role of the European Parliament. It is predominantly held that the Parliament represents the voice of the European People. This representation is (questionably) achieved when EU citizens directly elect the Members of the European Parliament (MEP), to stand (as members of national political parties) in seven Europe-wide political groups. Between them, they ought to represent all views on European integration, from the strongly pro-federalist to the openly Eurosceptic. Yet, there appears to be some level of ambivalence on the part of both the national governments and the public about the true representation and credentials of the European Parliament. Firstly, despite the larger states being said to have a large number of MEPs, the allocations are not strictly proportional to population sizes, giving rise to the criticism that the Parliament is not an accurate representative of the over all EU voice. Furthermore, since the public voting is done only for MEPs and parties in the country where they reside -the overwhelming majority of MEPs do not represent ‘their’ constituency or their voice. After all a UK conservative is not a Spain conservative.
Secondly, it is hard to argue that there are [in practice] any genuine ‘European Elections’ as they never reflect the personalities and parties at a European level or a direction of EU policy agenda. There are no European political parties with clear pan-European manifestos. Instead ‘National elections are fought on domestic rather than European issues, and parties collude to keep the issues of Europe off the domestic agenda’. This strongly emphasises Reif and Schmitt’s famous description of the first European Parliament elections – as ‘second order national contests’ –as it appears to be as true today as it was in 1979. Additionally, Grimm argues that the lack of transnational discourse, lack of parties, lack of citizens’ movement means institutional reform will solve nothing as the lack of a demos and the low voter turnout for the elections means the in policy decisions the national ‘losers’ have no reason to accept majority decisions, because they do not see themselves as part of a common political community. In comparison, if the EU were a system with a genuine electoral contest to determine the make-up of ‘government’ at the European level (by reflecting the interest of the People of the EU), the outcome of this election would have a direct influence on what EU ‘leaders’ do. The final point addresses the Council representation of the nation state governments. ‘Officially’ the job of the Council (16 TEU) is to represent the national interests, voting on day-to-day policy by representatives of national government. However, this process is not always carried out entirely by the Council. The majority of the preparatory work and of the negotiations leading up to a final vote in the Council is thus done by the body of permanent representatives in close consultation with their home governments. In its traditional role as a preparatory body for Council meetings, it combines political awareness and overview with the ability to deal with highly technical subject matters. However, the immediate problem with this logic is that there are a number of indicators that COREPER is not merely a forum for negotiations consisting of instructed delegates but that members have considerable discretion and room to maneuver so that COREPER has in fact evolved into a de facto decision making body. This is most poignantly exemplified when agendas that have been agreed upon by the COREPER (matter A) are then sent to the ministers and passed without discussion. Additionally, a question is raised over the transparency of their work as COREPER meetings are not public and done with significant discretion. Further there are some accounts concerning the EU Council decision-making. Although this institution is designed to accommodate national interests it can be argued that members quickly learn that “acting tough and sticking to positions” yields few rewards (especially in an environment of iterative negotiations with many rounds of bargaining). According to Moravcsik, the actors in the EU Council are self-interested maximizers proceedings on ordered and fixed preferences. The outcomes of such bargaining often seem to relate to the overall ‘power’ of a state – particularly where side payments and further ‘corruptness’ allows those [larger] states to over come the resistance posed by the minor states. This is made more problematic in light of the discretionary meetings and the fact that no minutes of the COREPER meetings are published or accounted for to any parliamentary assembly. Having examined various pieces of the mosaic of the Commission, European Parliament and Council, we can now put together a picture of a relatively gloom nature. However, it can also be argued that maybe we should not judge the European Politics in the same light as our national politics. The real challenge is to create institutions that reliably ensure that policies are responsive to the preference of the EU as a whole. And perhaps if there were new incentives for national party leaders to compete in elections on European level issues rather than purely national concerns, may result in larger turn out and seen less as “second-order elections”.