Accountability
- The webpage of the European Anti-Fraud Office (Photo: www.xs4m.com)
Accountability
To be accountable means to be answerable, responsible and subject to gving account. Within the EU political context, a control framework is required where all actors involved are able to be checked and held responsible for any errors, political mistakes or abuse of money. Here are examples of a control framework:
* Voters may control their elected representatives.
* MEPs may control the non-elected in the Commission.
* Commissioners may control their civil servants and working groups.
* Ministers may control their civil servants.
* The national MPs may control their ministers from their national parliament.
One talks about checks and balances. The French philosopher Montesquieu invented the division of powers into legislative, executive and judicial power. The aim was to hinder or limit the concentration of and possible misuse of power. The principle of the division of powers is not respected in the EU today.
In a democracy, voters keep their representatives accountable. Members of parliaments have to inform their voters. They must explain what they are doing and show how they are voting. Otherwise they may not be re-elected.
MPs may also need to explain how they use their different secretarial allowances, as proved by the scandal in the UK in 2009. Many MPs, as published in the British press during two weeks in May 2009, used taxpayer’s money for completely private purposes.
Without a control framework comes a sense of complacency, followed by an "abuse of position" or creation of an "elite class" and finally a loss of public confidence, once the poor practices are revealed.
In the European Union, the European Parliament is the only body representing the voters directly. They are accountable in the sense that they are voted in every 5 years. But in many countries, candidates are simply put on a list by their party and the voters have no or a limited say on who is going to be elected.
In most countries it is very difficult to present a new list alongside the lists of the traditional parties being represented in the national parliaments. Voters have a formal choice but not necessarily a real possibility to have their own views being represented by an MEP.
MEPs also have to be held accountable between the elections. Every MEP can claim up to €17,000 to hire staff per month. Many MEPs hire their family members and some cheat directly with the money given to their assistants.
The European Parliament has established an internal audit report proving both cheating and criminal behaviour. The two biggest groups, the EPP and the PSE, together with the smaller UEN hindered the publication of this internal report.
The publication was blocked, despite the fact that all the names had been withdrawn before the slimmed down report was presented for members of the budget control committee in a confidential reading room.
Accountability means that you should have the right to know how your MEP spends your money.
MEPs also receive €4,000 per month in a general expenses allowance. MEPs don’t need to deliver any proof as to how the money has been spent. Accountability means that MEPs must explain how the money is used, at least outside a smaller amount for un-documented costs maybe similar to amounts given to national MPs.
You should also be able to see how your MEP is voting on amendments and proposals for new laws. This is only possible when a political group has called for so-called roll call votes.
For such votes you can consult a register on how MEPs have voted. The big groups have hindered a systematic call for roll call votes even though they are both quicker and cheaper to organise.
In May 2009 the Parliament decided to have roll call votes on all final reports. Next claim could be to have the votes on the amendments published aswell.
Commissioners need to be accountable to the European Parliament. They are obliged to answer questions from MEPs both orally and in writing. Many MEPs do not feel they receive satisfactory answers. The Commissioners are hiding too much; this can be seen in the chapter on Transparency.
You should also have the right to know how the Commissioners vote on the different topics put on their table.
During 2004-09, under the mandate of Commission President Barroso, the Commissioners have not voted at all. Discussions have taken place behind closed doors on proposals for new laws.
The President often reads a text prepared by his services. There is no real political debate. The President concludes. Most decisions are taken in the name of the Commission outside the meeting room as can be seen in the chapter on Democracy.
The Commission now publishes agendas and minutes of their decisions. Nowhere can it be seen as to how they came to these decisions. They do not deliver access to documents from their discussions or preparations. The commissioners are today both un-elected and un-accountable.
The commissioners give information about the amounts spent on representation. Yet this does not occur for individual spending as journalists can receive or request in most countries from their national ministers.
The commissioners must now inform about gifts they receive, but only for those above €150.
Commissioners may hire special advisors. These names are now published - but the information does not include the salaries paid for the special advice they may receive from political friends or others.
Commissioners are proposed by the prime ministers in each member states. Often a prime minister proposes a candidate who could no longer be elected as an MP or appointed as a minister in his/her own country.
When former Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Peter Mandelson he had already been twice rejected as a minister by the British Parliament in Westminster.
Prime ministers may also propose names of people they want to get rid of. There is no election procedure safeguarding voters so that they may have the best candidate for their country.
Under the Treaty of Nice national prime ministers proposed a commissioner to the first appointed Commission President. Under the Treaty of Lisbon the prime minister may only suggest names. It is then up to the Commission President to pick the name from each of the 27 nationalities.
The final result must be approved by a super qualified majority of prime ministers and in the end also by a majority in the European Parliament.
The elected representatives of the national parliaments have no say. The elected members of the European Parliament can protest the full college of commissioners but not insert other candidates or a new “government”.
Accountability could mean that the whole Commission would be elected by a majority in the European Parliament, that each national commissioner be elected by the national parliament or directly from the voters in a direct election together with the European elections every 5 years.
Ministers in the Council should be accountable for their speeches, negotiations and votes for the national parliament – and voters – they represent.
There is certain accountability in some of the national parliaments. In Denmark the European Affairs committee has met in public every Friday since 6 October 2006 and also given the negotiating mandates to the Danish ministers before they could give an approval in the Council of Ministers.
There are no other countries where ministers need to have a negotiating mandate. In most countries the national MPs are rather badly informed and have no real influence. Even in Denmark it is normally the civil servants in the ministries who decide and direct the Danish position in the 300 Council working groups.
They are assisted by 35 special committees composed of representatives from business organisations and NGOs in an extremely tightly woven corporative system.
The ordinary members of parliament, the media and citizens are sidelined in the important preparatory phase where most decisions are cooked up and then taken.
The so-called negotiation mandate is often only given when the negotiations are in fact over and the formal decision is waiting to be taken in a formal meeting in the Council of Ministers.
In policy areas of high importance the mandating system may work in order to give national MPs and voters a sense of participation. But it is not the kind of daily accountability which could be established simply by obliging the national parliaments to have a reading on all EU laws, in committee or plenary and a vote on the negotiating position of the country in the Council of Ministers.
Real negotiations on new laws are done in 300 secret working groups and ambassadors meetings in COREPER. Here in Brussels, civil servants try to find compromises where they combine many different topics to have a compromise, a so-called package deal.
Compromise in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it is not positive when you cannot see the different inputs and then keep your minister accountable. More often than not negotiations are not even done by ministers but by unknown civil servants who cannot be held responsible come polling day.
A simple reform in accountability could be to let all decisions be decided by majorities both in the national parliaments and the European Parliament. In the national parliaments it would only be a vote on the national input into the discussions. In the European Parliament it could include also the final approval of all EU laws by qualified majority in the Council of Ministers.
In the case that EU treaties require unanimous decisions the national parliaments can then have a real say. But most decisions are now voted upon in majority votes where the national parliament only has the possibility to instruct the vote of their own country. Then we need to invent a new way of involving the national parliaments in European decision making.
According to the former German President, Roman Herzog, 84% of all German laws now originate from Brussels. In these cases it is impossible to have any accountability from German or from many other member states constitutions.
Therefore, constitutional requirements for accountability in each of the 27 member state constitutions has now become a derogation instead of the main rule.
