-Caveat Lector-
>From www.ahram.org
> Twinkle twinkle little star
>
> By Dominic Coldwell
>
> Like a prophet of old, the outgoing president of the European
> Parliament (EP) turned to the skies for an explanation. "When you
> look at the stars," said José María Gil-Robles, "what you're
> really seeing is what they looked like millions of years ago."
> The Spaniard was not simply dabbling in astronomy, but predicting
> that Europe's voters were light-years away from discerning and
> appreciating recent moves towards more democratic transparency in
> the European Union.
>
> Last March, the EP had successfully forced the resignation of the
> European Commission amid widespread charges of corruption and
> nepotism. In May, the Amsterdam Treaty doubled the number of
> policy areas requiring parliamentary approval, giving the
> Assembly a right of veto over 80 per cent of EU legislation,
> including such vital areas as consumer protection and employment.
> But last week's elections to the EP confirmed Gil-Robles' dire
> forecast. "Eurothusiasm" was at such a low ebb that participation
> dipped below a sobering 50 per cent. The low turn-out generally
> favoured Europe's opposition parties, who mobilised more voters,
> returning a first-ever conservative majority to the Assembly.
>
> If the real loser of the polls is the EU itself, the problem is
> largely home-grown. Though the EP unveiled some ugly
> string-pulling in the Commission, most voters believe that MEPs
> are also bent on feathering their nests. Absenteeism on
> parliamentary motions has, for instance, become so frequent that
> MEPs receive a $250 "attendance allowance" to show up for
> critical ballots. The $130 million spent every year on the
> monthly migration of deputies between Brussels and Strasbourg
> also explains why many Europeans harbour deep reservations about
> EU spending. What is more, the EP remains in many ways a paper
> tiger, unable to initiate any legislation of its own, or to do
> anything to lower Europe's stellar unemployment figures.
>
> Far more troubling, however, is the poor performance of Europe's
> new single currency, which has raised fears of monetary
> instability. The euro's continuing slide against the US dollar
> results largely from a divergence between the German and French
> economies. Growing discrepancies are likely to complicate
> economic planning by the European Central Bank, which is already
> hamstrung by the need to balance interest rates within the single
> currency area between the fast-growing economies on Europe's
> periphery -- notably Portugal, Ireland and Greece -- and those at
> the more stagnant core. When Italy's new finance minister,
> Guiliano Amato, received permission in May to let his budget
> deficit inch up slightly, the move only nurtured fears that
> political fudging could strain the so-called "Stability and
> Growth Pact", a measure of finance control adopted to safeguard
> the euro's stability. Though Amato stayed below the pact's
> stipulated three per cent ceiling on public spending, his move
> hinted at future pressures should Europe's unemployment continue
> to balloon. The euro's failure, in turn, could call the
> desirability of political integration into question.
>
> But political union is precisely what men like British opposition
> leader William Hague are out to prevent. Riding high on a crest
> of Euroscepticism, the Tory leader capitalised on fears that
> British Prime Minister Tony Blair might steer the country into
> monetary wedlock with the Continent. With British voter
> participation down to a meagre 23 per cent, the election turned
> into a referendum on Europe itself, with opinion polls revealing
> that Blair would still bag a comfortable 50 per cent majority in
> the event of British parliamentary elections.
>
> While the British vote signals a clear rejection of a
> supra-national European agenda, Germany, like most other
> countries, dealt the idea of integration no less heavy a blow by
> turning the poll into a barometer of national politics, which
> displayed the gross irrelevance of European issues in a domestic
> context. Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats thus had to stomach
> massive gains by the centre-right Christian Democratic Union
> (CDU), owing to a failure to make any impact on the country's
> high unemployment rate.
>
> Schröder's mediocre performance at the helm of the European
> presidency further reduced his standing. Not only did the
> chancellor renege on a promise to press for a financial rebate in
> order to stem the excesses of Germany's cheque-book diplomacy,
> but he was forced to look on helplessly as his colleagues diluted
> his proposals for the creation of a European Employment Pact.
> More flagrantly, Schröder bowed to French pressure to maintain
> the EU's agricultural subsidies, even though the planned
> induction of Poland into the EU is expected to blast the Union's
> budget if current rates are maintained. Finally, Schröder ended
> his presidency by snubbing traditional ally France, when he
> joined Blair in calling for a "Third Way" in the left-wing
> movement -- a euphemism for a rapprochement with centrist
> liberalism.
>
> France's Lionel Jospin, on the other hand, who has stood firm
> against this milk-and-water brand of Socialism, benefited from
> his loyalty to traditional union voters. The French PM defied the
> general trend in 13 of the EU's 15 member states by actually
> strengthening his ruling Socialists' hand. The disarray of French
> President Jacques Chirac's RPR, which splintered into various
> pro- and anti-European groups, further boosted Jospin. The
> ecological Green Party also made an unexpectedly strong showing
> in France, catapulting the European Green movement to the
> position of fourth-strongest faction in the new EP. Flushed with
> success, its leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit asserted that his movement
> was the real "Third Way" of the left.
>
> Voters rejected the idea of a European supra-national body
> politic in the elections -- either directly, as in Britain and
> Denmark, or by focusing on national issues, as in Germany. The
> governing Socialists and Social-Democrats, who lost almost across
> the board, are now riven with ideological debates. But the first
> Conservative majority in the new EP is also far from forming a
> homogeneous club. The European Peoples' Party (EPP), which now
> occupies 225 seats, includes not only Germany's pro-European CDU,
> but also Britain's Eurosceptic Tories. Even if the EPP closes
> ranks and joins forces with the Parliament's 43 Liberals, both
> groups still fall short of the 314-member majority required to
> amend decisions by the Council of Foreign Ministers.
> Realistically, they will have to reach out to the Socialists and
> the Greens to make use of their newly-won powers and amend
> proposals from the Council and the Commission.
>
> Europe's governments, on the other hand, will find it more
> difficult to press for consumer protection or labour legislation.
> On the other hand, the need for consensus in the EP is also bound
> to make deputies less combative, which spells good news for
> Romano Prodi, the newly appointed president of the Commission,
> who plans to streamline the EU's executive body into something
> more closely resembling a real cabinet. While Prodi might still
> face a stand-off with the EP over his bid for the exclusive right
> to sack commissioners, he also asked member states to supply a
> politically balanced team. Prodi will need commissioners of all
> stripes and colours, if he is to co-operate with a conservative
> Assembly.
>
> With the EP having metamorphosed into something closer to a real
> parliament, the Commission now looks poised to become more like a
> real government. Recent signs that the euro's slide toward the
> dollar might at long last be over might also turn monetary union
> into a more credible venture. In the long run, the Union's future
> is perhaps brighter than the oracles of these polls suggest.
A<>E<>R
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