Radomir Tylecote is the author of this article.
It is now well known that, if resurrected, the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement would keep the UK under EU rules and regulations, but without representation in the system that makes them, through a potentially immovable backstop.
What is less understood is that, even since the referendum in 2016, this EU system has moved on. As the recent European Foundation paper Behind Closed Doors shows, EU decision-making, never democratic by any standards, has in the last decade become even less accountable and transparent. A system that has always concentrated power in the hands of small “law-making groups” – the Commission and Council in particular – has become even less democratic, making the rationale behind its laws more opaque yet.
To grasp how the EU has functioned until recently though, it is worth briefly outlining what its structure was intended to be, through comparison with the UK Parliament.
In the UK, Parliament is the law-making body. In the Commons, all members are elected; the other house, though not directly elected, acts in an advisory capacity, and cannot veto laws. All proceedings are televised, every word transcribed. The Government is drawn from Parliament, with its ministers answerable to it, and they must appear before it frequently. This Government can be removed at set intervals, along with every other member of the Commons.
The EU, meanwhile, is a system of law-making groups, the most important being the Commission – a small, unelected gathering, where note-taking is banned and whose chamber none may enter without the Commissioners’ permission. Only the Commission may propose laws. These progress to the Council, which passes legislation through a qualified majority vote (QMV), following the abolition of the national veto. The Council is attended by Coreper (the Committee of Permanent Representatives, i.e. Member States’ ambassadors), which tries to reach agreement on Commission proposals before they get to the Council. How Coreper reaches agreement is also hidden, but 70-90% of decisions are now made this way, then adopted by the Council without further discussion. The European Parliament meanwhile cannot propose law, often is not consulted, and typically can be ignored.
While the Commission has always been an obstacle to transparent decision-making, after it initiates proposals the Parliament and Council are supposed to be able to amend and occasionally block them. Our research suggests that, as the Commission takes greater control of the EU system, even this little capacity is being seriously undermined.
At the heart of this is the growing use of “Trilogues”, small and little-known negotiating groups that operate on behalf of the Commission and Coreper. Designed to be subject to even less oversight, they are “a legislative body in [their] own right” and “possibly the most powerful, [governing] the overwhelming majority of legislative procedures”.
These Trilogues include a small number of Commission representatives, MEPs, and civil servants. They aim to secure legislative agreement before any transparent process occurs, giving the Commission even greater control while preventing the public knowing why laws are being made. Once Trilogues agree a text, neither the Parliament nor Council are able to change it, so with national scrutiny rendered “difficult, if not impossible”, Member States’ ministers now have little involvement.
Moreover, in both the European Parliament and the Council, the UK is now the country most often on the losing side, with Germany and an entrenched bloc of its Eurozone voting allies the most frequent winner. Even before it loses all representation in the EU institutions, the UK is already consistently outvoted on issues of profound national interest, like financial regulation, and has been unable to achieve any meaningful reform to this system.
These developments are disturbing indeed, as the continent that gave the world democracy and equality before the law is increasingly governed away from public view. Remaining under this system’s rules – either without representation, as the Withdrawal Agreement proposes, or via a second referendum – would severely undermine our democracy.
Read Gibbons Decline And Fall. The damage is done. They have created a power structure Into which every hopeful will wish to insinuate itself. Every crisis will produce another excuse and another system/leader. Wars are the inevitable outcome. Our position offshore and the simple cost benefit consideration has protected us in the past. But we have considerately providid easy access and our unquantifiable assets have changed. We are important to the EU and our subjucation has become urgent.They’ll stop acting politely soon. It’s survival time. Our only hope is an orderly break up with ( And with a lot of luck ) an orderly banking rationalisation. Hopefully USA and Trump may save us yet again.
PMB I’d take issue with the last para though. Surely it was not the continent of Europe that gave the world Democracy. Of course being an elderly Briton my education was slanted towards us alone giving so much to the world’s democratic ideals. There were other European countries who developed Democratic Institutions. There are some still. But I do not see Europe as a whole, giving Democracy to the world. Rather, the continent of Europe has been through centuries of turmoil and now, unfortunately, is becoming some sort of bureaucratic dictatorship.
‘EU decision-making, never democratic by any standards…’: May I make a much stronger comment? The EU is in fact the European Dictatorship, not a one-man or one-woman Dictatorship YET, but already a Group Dictatorship, the Group being of course, the unelected Commissioners.
Maybe May has been promised a position there if she manages to keep us in; she will be in need of a new role once she is kicked out as PM..
PMB What an interesting thought. What position in the EU do you think she could be after?
I’m not sure Pauline but maybe a new position could be created to give “advice” to those who, like ourselves, decide that they have had enough of the EU. I can just imagine her in an appropriate uniform giving a Nazi salute.
if staying in the EU after all, we should first lobby to make its leaders wear a variety of crowns and coronets, so we can’t mistake what’s going on.
Excellent . This article Opened the EU system to a new level of understanding for me..Thank you.