Speech by EP President Martin Schulz to the Members of the European Commission
25 April 2012
President Schulz said that for the first time in its history, the collapse of the European Union has become a realistic scenario. The close cooperation which exists between the Commission and Parliament is therefore an important sign that Community method is being defended with determination.
In the past few months we have witnessed a disturbing trend towards renationalisation and 'summitisation': the Heads of State and Government are arrogating more and more decisions to themselves, debating and taking decisions behind closed doors and in disregard of the Community method. Parliamentarians are then invited merely to rubberstamp the decisions which Heads of Government have already taken in Brussels.
In the latest crisis we are seeing an acceleration in the creation of Parliament-free zones. By means of the Fiscal Compact, an attempt was made to create a Fiscal Union beyond the control of Parliamentarians, by-passing the Commission. After a tenacious struggle with the Heads of Government, Parliament managed to restore respect for its role as a co-legislator with equal rights, the Community method was defended and the Commission became the central institution of the Fiscal Compact.
That is undoubtedly thanks in part to the willingness of the President of the Commission to fight his corner. It is good that he displays that willingness, although the arrangements could have been made in a simpler and above all less dangerous way without undertaking the perilous venture of revising the Treaty.
Yet even so, not all the dangers have been dispelled:
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In its present form, the European Semester requires a draft national budget to be forwarded to Brussels before the Budgets Committee of the national Parliament concerned has even seen it.
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In Brussels, Commission officials rather than elected representatives will then study the draft budget. Not even the criteria for assessing the budget possess any democratic legitimacy.
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This undermines the quintessential prerogative of Parliaments: the right to determine the budget. That creates a democratic deficit.
Decisions which lack transparency are something which our citizens will never be able to understand. They damage the EU's legitimacy. I predict that their dissatisfaction will be directed primarily against you and the Commission. In the interests of the people and of the Community method, I would call upon you to support the European Parliament in its battle for democracy and legitimacy. Together we can oppose the trend towards summitisation and renationalisation.
© European Parliament
