EU: Name that institution
Probably the most annoying aspect of the so-called debate about the EU referendum is how easy it has been for the Beleavers to trot out lies willy-nilly, without being troubled by the people – and much less the press – to verify their ridiculous claims. Many of these whoppers have been truly gob-smacking, including Boris’s 350 million quid, Farage’s “… we’re all agreed that most of our laws come from Brussels” and Banks’ “I’m on the side of the people.”
Indeed, most of what has been splashed around like little boys peeing up a wall has been taking the piss with our intelligence… well, not mine… but most of the uninformed of the Untied Kingdom.
Much of the blame should be aimed at the press:
“I don’t even know who my MEP is!” – to which the correct answer to this Guardian journalist is, “Then go and find out you sad excuse for a journo – how come you don’t know the name of the person you voted for? Oh, you didn’t vote? Then how bloody inconsiderate of the entire EU to be getting on with running Europe without letting you know all about it first!”, and most of the rest at the people:
“We have to stop the gravy train.” – to which the correct answer is, “You mean the one full of Ukip MEPs on salaries in excess of £10,000/month nett taking the money out that you put in… so that they can use it to campaign against the very organisation that is paying them… paying Nigel Farage specifically to sit on a fisheries committee that he has only attended once… plus your mate the fisherman is mad as a box of frogs because the EU is paying foreign fishermen to come and take our fish so they can sell it back to us… that gravy train?”.
But then, as I said to the missus soon after arriving here, the EU’s biggest problem is how it communicates with the population. It is true that the workings of all of the institutions are almost completely open to scrutiny by anyone… that is, anyone who has the time and patience to trawl through the astonishing amount of data on their websites. But it’s much more fundamental than that.
Whenever I would dip back into the Untied Kingdom, I’d invariably wind up in a conversation about the EU – or as it is usually called, Brussels. Or Mordor. Just to see what I was dealing with, I would ask a very simple pair of questions:
Name the three (or possibly four) core institutions of the European Union; describe briefly what they do and what their relationship is with each other.
Of all of the people I asked – professional, educated, experienced adults – not one ever even came close. Not one. But every single one of them had an opinion about ‘Brussels’. Or Mordor.
Furthermore, soon after Robert Peston got the ITV gig, he was Tweeting live from a meeting of the Council of the EU from the EU Council building. What’s wrong with that, you will probably ask (they’re two separate buildings). But in mitigation, I would suggest that the European Union gets its shit together (or reform, as it’s quaintly known) and deal with its simplest problem first: making the names of the institutions reflect what their actual function is.
Like this:
THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
Renamed: THE EU COUNCIL OF HEADS OF GOVERNMENT*
- Role: Defines the general political direction and priorities of the European Union
- Members: Heads of state or government of EU countries, European Commission President, High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy
- President: Donald Tusk
- Established in: 1974 (informal forum), 1992 (formal status), 2009 (official EU institution)
- Location: Brussels (Belgium)
- Website: European Council
Note that this has only been an official EU institution since 2009, before when heads of government got on with managing their proper jobs (being heads of government). Since then however, this institution has increasingly been abused by government heads as being a forum within which they can use the rest of the EU as a scapegoat for their domestic problems.
* Or possibly THE EU COUNCIL OF COUNTRY LEADERS, as heads of state (e.g. France) are often included.
Not to be confused with…
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Renamed: THE EU COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
- Role: Voice of EU member governments, adopting EU laws and coordinating EU policies
- Members: Government ministers from each EU country, according to the policy area to be discussed
- President: Each EU country holds the presidency on a 6-month rotating basis
- Established in: 1958 (as Council of the European Economic Community)
- Location: Brussels (Belgium)
- Website: Council of the EU
Easy to get this one mixed up with the previous one – hence the change of name (I wish). Manned by government ministers (hopefully) expert in specific policy areas. Following extensive meetings, this is where laws and policies are discussed, changed and made – the ministers are responsible for committing their governments to these laws and policies.
Consider that, of all of the EU laws, the UK voted for the vast majority and sponsored and/or campaigned for most of them. Indeed, since 1999 the UK was outvoted 56 times (gasp, shock, horror).
But it was on the winning side… 2,466 times (er… let’s just ignore that as an irrelevance, shall we?).
The presidency of the Council changes on a strict rota basis every six months, with each member state taking its turn.
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Renamed: THE EU COMMISSION
- Role: Promotes the general interest of the EU by proposing and enforcing legislation as well as by implementing policies and the EU budget
- Members: A team or ‘College’ of Commissioners, 1 from each EU country
- President: Jean-Claude Juncker
- Year established: 1958
- Location: Brussels (Belgium)
- Website: European Commission
“Bah! Unelected Eurocrats!” Yes they are: just as your local civil service is unelected.
Again, the nomenclature is the problem. The Commissioners are nominated by their respective countries to be in charge of individual Directorates, and are therefore political appointments (as are their heads of staff). The staff at the Commission are scapegoats tied to bunch bags – or what have become known as ‘Eurocrats’.
These are the super-qualified people who actually do the donkey work of implementing the laws, directives and regulations that have been agreed by your elected representatives in the Parliament of the EU and the Council of the EU (or the EU Council of Ministers as I would prefer it to be called). It is also true that commissioners can propose laws and policies, but these must then go through the process of being discussed and ratified by the Council and Parliament.
The Commission in no way imposes so much as a fart on the EU member states, unless it has gone through that process.
BIG IMPORTANT BIT!
Many of you will be repeating, “Bah! Unelected Eurocrats!” even having read the above, because of the austerity imposed on all of us, plus the frankly nasty way the Commission was perceived to have dealt with the Greek thingy. Understandable, given the role the European Council (as in the heads of state – keep up) had in all of this.
The Commission can indeed impose extraordinary sanctions on member states, but ONLY (this is the Big Important Bit) with the express guidance, permission and go-ahead from the Council. In other words, it’s your elected heads of state, government leaders and ministers what done it, in Sun parlance.
Think of it this way:
Some kids are playing football. The bigger ones are in charge, but there are lots of smaller ones – less powerful, but much better at playing football. The bigger kids tell the smaller kids that they should kick the ball against a wall.
“But – there are windows in it and they’ll get broken!”
“That’s not your concern. Your position is that you play as we say you should. Now get on with it.”
The windows get broken.
The occupants come running out, complaining that they’re going to be cold – plus they’ll have less to live on because they will have to pay for the windows.
The bigger kids point at the smaller kids and say, “They did it, we were powerless to stop them”.
That’s what happened.
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Renamed: THE EU PARLIAMENT
- Role: Directly-elected EU body with legislative, supervisory, and budgetary responsibilities
- Members: 751 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament)
- President: Martin Schulz
- Established in: 1952 as Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, 1962 as European Parliament, first direct elections in 1979
- Location: Strasbourg (France), Brussels (Belgium), Luxembourg
- Website: European Parliament
This is the body that ultimately makes the EU’s laws… the body that is made up of MEPs who are directly elected by the citizens of the EU.
I should gently suggest that it would be in your interest to vote for MEPs who would best represent your views within a properly functioning EU, rather than find someone who wants to kick his/her toys out of the pram because immigrants/laws/diminishing sovereignty/straight bananas.
COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (CJEU)
- Role: Ensuring EU law is interpreted and applied the same in every EU country; ensuring countries and EU institutions abide by EU law
- Members:
- Court of Justice: 1 judge from each EU country, plus 11 Advocates General
- General Court: 1 judge from each EU country
- Civil Service Tribunal: 7 judges
- Established in: 1952
- Location: Luxembourg
- Website: Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)
Not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights, which comprises 47 countries and was set up in 1959 under the aegis of the Council of Europe. It is based in Strasbourg, France.
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
Renamed: Central Bank of the European Union (CBEU)
- Role: To manage the euro, keep prices stable and conduct EU economic & monetary policy
- President: Mario Draghi
- Members: ECB President and Vice-President and governors of national central banks from all EU countries
- Established in: 1998
- Location: Frankfurt (Germany)
- Website: European Central Bank
The Central Bank manages the euro and maintains economic and monetary policy for the European Union.
EUROPEAN EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE (EEAS)
Renamed: DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF THE EU (DSEU)
- Role: Manages the EU’s diplomatic relations with other countries outside the bloc and conducts EU foreign & security policy
- High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy: Federica Mogherini
- Established in: 2011
- Location: Brussels (Belgium)
- Website: European External Action Service
COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR)
- Role: Advisory body representing Europe’s regional and local authorities
- President: Markku Markkula (EPP/FI), City Councillor of Espoo, Finland
- Members: 350 from all EU countries
- Established in: 1994
- Location: Brussels (Belgium)
- Website: Committee of the Regions
You could describe the Committee of the Regions as a kind of feedback loop. It comprises locally and regionally elected representatives from all of the 28 member states. These good people monitor and report back on how EU laws impact locally.
When drawing up legislation, the Commission, Council and Parliament must consult with the CoR.
This is not supposed to be a comprehensive breakdown of all of the EU institutions, so a few have been left out.
Another institution that has been left out is… the Council of Europe. One more time, and with feeling: this has NOTHING to do with the European Union.
There. Now I truly hope that has given you a clearer insight into the most important aspect of the EU: what it says on the tin.
And don’t forget: I will be asking questions later.
(If you’d like to check on some (that is, all) of the garbage spouted by the Beleavers, use the links to the relevant websites, why don’tcha.)
Nice suggestions, but it is mostly heads of government, not heads of state, that meet at the European Council.
Thanks John, you’re absolutely right: I’ve made changes accordingly.
Actually, the Commission plays far more decisive role.
Parliament can only vote the (neoliberal) directives the Commission proposes. E.g. the EU’s wave of privatisations (energy, utilities, transport, banking, postal services etc.) kicked off following such a directive (“liberalisation”, “deregulation”).
I.e. the Parliament cannot vote what the Commission does not propose.
Also, Commissioners are no “super qualified people” but rather politicians. Commissioners are nominated, not elected.
The so-called gravy train is not so much about 751 MEPs, but rather 55.000 Eurocrats having a free ride (ultra-low income tax, tax-free allowances, hardly local taxes, subsidised healthcare, pensions and schools).
Fortunately, you distinguish Europe from the EU –“EU Commission” instead of “European Commission”– as EU is no synonym for Europe.
It’s true that I didn’t take the opportunity to make the distinction between the Commissioners (political appointments) and the people who staff the commission (i.e. the super-qualified… mostly, anyway).
As for what you call ‘Eurocrats’… part of the reforms that need to be looked at is the remuneration and compensation paid to the people who staff the EU. I would submit that the ‘gravy train’ you are alluding to actually runs on a track other than what you’re thinking of. Subsidised health care and education? Just exactly how do you think we should take care of these people and their children?
Compared to the civil service where I come from (400,000 working for Whitehall), the 55,000 ‘Eurocrats’ are a snip – especially given that the admin of the EU comprises just 6% of its budget.
And no, the Commission does not play a ‘far more decisive role’.
But thanks for the comments – engagement is all that’s required: I wish there were more of it.
Next post: EU reforms. Yay!
The British Euroscepticism has nothing to do with the European institutions and their actual shortcomings. At least I didn’t see UK MEPs work hard to reform them, with the exception of Andrew Duff who is an eurofederalist, an ideology I don’t share. Rather UK MEPs and Irish ones were the most stakeholder(=lobby)-friendly, hardly willing to defend the public interest.
British euroscepticism means anticontinental sentiment, diluted war time propaganda. Once Thatcher played the card. She was still a realist of power while others later turned euroscepticism into a dogmatic NO sermon that undermined British influence. Do the “Northern Pakistani Islands” still belong to Europe? London does not feel that British anymore for continental visitors. The actual identity crisis and loss of (class/ethnic/..) cohesion within British society gets projected on the continent as the mythological arch enemy.
While we do need healthy Euroscepticism and reform, anticontinental sentiment undermines British power and cannot restore actual cohesion within British society.
Could you turn this into a PDF for printing (or put it under a CC by or CC by-sa license,¹ so we can do it ourselves)? That would be a really cool educational resource.
¹: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
When I get a minute…
Forgot European Economic and Social Committee.
Also not precise for CoR: “When drawing up legislation, the Commission, Council and Parliament must consult with the CoR.”
In some cases only it is obligatory.
Didn’t forget the EESC: “This is not supposed to be a comprehensive breakdown of all of the EU institutions, so a few have been left out.”
“a meeting of the Council of the EU from the EU Council building. What’s wrong with that, you will probably ask (they’re two separate buildings).” Er, neither of them are buildings, but as far as I know they both meet in the Justus Lipsius building, which is, according to its own website, the main seat of the Council (not sure which one they mean!) and the General Secretariat of the Council.
I know I know: shabby writting. While Robert was in J-Lo tweeting on happenings of the Council of the EU, he said he was in the building of the European Council… which hadn’t quite been built yet (and will eventually house the heads of state/government). And don’t even get me started on that particular piece of architecture.
I assume that you cannot possibly be ignorant about how voting for the European Parliament works, so the only explanation is that you are being shamelessly hypocritical.
There are no constituencies as such, so that the idea that I have a particular MEP representing the constituency where I live is just not real. My region returns seven MEPs to the Parliament – perhaps I should regard all of them as my MEP but, in reality, it feels much more as if none of them is.
And then you lambast an unnamed journalist for “not knowing the name of the person you voted for”, Except that, as you well know, neither that journalist, nor you, nor I voted for a person at all. With the minor exception of one-off independent candidates, we all vote for parties and a certain number of their appointees from lists into which the vast majority of us have no input whatsoever end up in the Parliament, as determined by the D’Hondt calculation on the overall number of votes the party finished up with.
Not much “education” here – just another example of the misrepresentation of the truth to support a particular point of view.
First, I have no idea of what you mean by ‘hypocritical’. I can indeed name any and all MEPs that represent the UK, just by looking them up. As you, or anyone else can.
Second, I suggest you bother to click on the link to my earlier post, wherein I named and shamed said journalist. I just didn’t think the current piece warranted naming her again. After all, she may have done some more journalisting since then.
Shameless I am not – not in the way certain Beleavers are, anyway.
Plus: yes, I can be (and am often) ignorant.
The biggest problem is surely the Commission, which is the most important but least understood EU institution. Most people think of “Brussels” as being only the Commission, and see the other institutions, if they think of them at all, as just consultative.
Even for those who do more or less understand the Commission’s dual role of proposing and implementing legislation, its structure leaves it permanently open to the contradictory charge of being either dictatorial or bureaucratic, depending on the slur the speaker wants to make.
So, rather than trying to explain and excuse the institutional complexity, perhaps it would be better to take the bull by the horns, accept as true the half-correct thesis that the Commission is a kind of government of Europe, and insist that it is not “unelected”, since its President is chosen by the popular vote as Spitzenkandidat and its other members are vetted by the Parliament, etc.
And then why not go the whole hog and replace the name “Commission” by “Union Government”?
Not sure Sweden, Denmark and the UK (as Euro-outers) would appreciate the ECB becoming the Central Bank of the EU!
Just an attempt to rationalise the nomenclature of the institutions, a major one being the conflation of ‘European’ with ‘European Union’.
Totally agree that a ‘reform’ of these institutions and their roles is needed. The first biggie was when they gave directorates-general real names rather than numbers in the early 1990s (after a bit of brouhaha over transparency/fraud allegations). That helped but they still missed the point by not getting rid of all these French public service-addled names like ‘directorate-general’. I feel you could have gone further too in your reform suggestions. The CoR is probably the only one that more or less does what it says on the box (though you left out the Economic and Social Committee, which is another dubiously-named institution). The ‘EU Council of Heads of Government’ should just be called the ‘EU Parliament’ as they’re already elected (by sizeable majorities of people in the member states, not the piddly percentages that show up to European elections); and then naturally you just do away with the current ‘European Parliament’ as a self-inflated construct altogether. Billions saved while you’re at it. The European Commission is often paraphrased as the ‘executive’ so why not something closer to that? I’ll leave it to you or others to come up something more self-explanatory. I think the EBU is fine as it is. Just having ‘European’ in the title surely isn’t the problem, is it? Anyway, thanks for this initiative and the chance to debate a little. Well done.
if only, from your lips to God’s ears
As Neil Thomson already said, I don’t think it’s right to call (or to assume that it’s correct statement) the EU Commissioners as “non-elected eurocrats”. They are as much “non-elected” as any minister of a national government – or less, since each nominated comissioner needs to be approved by the European Parliament. They are not also mere “eurocrats”, since they decide matters of public policy and make political decisions (they are nominated in that basis by the national governments). If you think that the vast majority of ministers in EU Goverments are “non-elected” & “burocrats”, then I supose that the european comissioners also fall in that category. (Very good post in all the rest, btw)
Well said. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to create and share this. Hoping that all-seeing eye in Mordor sees your eminently sensible suggestions
Thanks for reading – even if I do feel like a Hobbit now.