THE EUROPEAN UNION ELECTORAL REFORM: ANDREW DUFF REPORT

Abstract

The article aims at raising the attention over the current situation of the electoral system of the European Union by presenting important aspects like the role of the European Parliament; the need of transparency in the European party system and the EU electoral reform. EU elections may be European in viewpoint and in outcome, but they are actually governed by 28 diverse national systems as well as some supplementary EU-level guidelines for election campaigning, electoral management and political party finance. "Electoral reform is timely, cost-efficient and necessary. Those who care for the future of Europe should support it." (Andrew Duff).

Headnote

Abstract: The article aims at raising the attention over the current situation of the electoral system of the European Union by presenting important aspects like the role of the European Parliament; the need of transparency in the European party system and the EU electoral reform. EU elections may be European in viewpoint and in outcome, but they are actually governed by 28 diverse national systems as well as some supplementary EU-level guidelines for election campaigning, electoral management and political party finance.

"Electoral reform is timely, cost-efficient and necessary. Those who care for the future of Europe should support it." (Andrew Duff).

Keywords: European Parliament, Electoral reform, political parties, Duff Report.

The European Parliament as the only directly elected European institution has always understood its role as the voice of the citizens, strongly defending their interests. The strong democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament constituted the democratic basis of the European Community. It was generally accepted that only a directly elected Parliament could gain itself the democratic powers, and that it would not be possible to confer new competences to the Community unless Europe's citizens regarded it as the expression of their own political will

In an assembly where only a very small minority was opposed to direct elections, there was a division between those who believed that direct elections should have been accompanied by an extension of Parliament's powers, and those who believed that Parliaments powers would gradually expand as the logical consequence of direct elections. The latter approach won the day due to pragmatic considerations and the need to press ahead regardless of difficulties. The European Parliament, step by step, acquired an increasing and significant number of legislative powers with the Council and secured a considerable expansion of the competences first of the Community, and then of the Union (Piodi, 2009, p.5).

Elected every five years by direct universal suffrage, the European Parliament has substantial budgetary powers and is responsible, with the Council, for decisions on the majority of European Union legislation Over the decades and thanks to some important revisions of the Treaties, the Parliament has gained more and more powers and competences and has positioned itself at the centre of the EU decisional process. Broadly speaking, the prerogatives of the European Parliament were increased by the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TECE), then the Reform Treaty. The EP would not only exercise, jointly with the Council, legislative and budgetary functions but also the functions of political control and consultation and elect the President of the Commissioa

With regards to its legislative powers, the EP has seen its prerogatives enlarged, and put on an equal footing with those of the Council of Ministers. The co-decision procedure becomes the ordinary legislative procedure for the adoption of legislative acts. The Constitution extends the co-decision procedure to virtually all fields of action of the Union where the Council has to decide by qualified majority voting.

Under the Reform Treaty (see Article 9a of the Reform Treaty, CIG 1/1/07 REV 1: 11), Parliament's new composition is to be decided by the European Council acting by unanimity, on the basis of Parliament's proposal and after obtaining its consent. The composition of the European Parliament, established to 751 members, will in future require adjustment so as to take account of demographic changes and/or future enlargement. This could well lead to difficult political debate between Member States, especially when new enlargements imply a loss in the number of parliamentary seats allotted to incumbent members.

Why European Union leaders have frequently increased the powers of the European Parliament represents a reason easy to understand: to treat the democratic deficit, or the so-called lack of power of European voters to influence EU decision-making.

The European Parliament is supposed to provide a popular counterweight to both the member-state controlled Council and the powerful European Commission, an appointed body that is intentionally somewhat removed from popular and national political pressures and that serves primarily as the executive branch of the EU, while also exercising important legislative functions. Popular elections to an increasingly powerful EP were supposed to provide European voters a direct and important role in the EU's separation of powers (Schleicher, 2011, p. 112).

The European general public was never attracted by the European elections. The level of voting has decreased in every election from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009 (Hix, 2006; Malkopoulou, 2009) and is mich lower than in national elections.

Citizens use the European Parliament elections to express their opinions on national parties, national politicians, and national policy issues, instead on the European-level political alternatives. This phenomenon derives from the feet that the stakes for national parties, voters, and the national media are much higher in national parliamentary (or presidential) elections than in European Parliament elections. As a result, parties, the media and voters treat European Parliament elections as 'second-order' contests in the national electoral cycles rather than as an opportunity to debate EU policy issues and their preferences over which political majority should be given the opportunity to govern at the European level (Hix and Hagemann, 2009, p. 29).

Voters have no idea who the MEPs are, do not care about what they do, and certainty do nothing to punish their bad behavior. Voter disengagement from the EP has ensured that the decision to give it more power failed to confer much democratic legitimacy on the EU as a whole. In feet, polls reveal a collapse in popular support for the EU since granting the EP real power (Schleicher, 2011, p. 113).

In general, one cannot expect greater transparency of politics inside the European Parliament to change the way voters' behave in European Parliament elections. And, in return, if voters are unlikely to pay much attention, MEPs are unlikely to change the way they behave in response to greater transparency. MEPs are tom between two principals: their national parties, and their European political groups. One fector which influences whether MEPs respond more to pressure from their European political groups or more to pressure from their national parties is the way the MEPs are elected. There is no uniform electoral system in European Parliament elections (Hix et aL, 2012, pp. 8-9).

According to Andrew Duff1 * * 4 in a special interview for Euractiv, "Europe's political party system is failing to sustain the project of European unification in a democratic and efficient way. Political parties are an essential sinew of democracy, and at the European level that sinew is missing. Genuine European political parties are needed [...]. To be sure, the European political families have already created formal party organisations which broadly mirror the political groups inside the European Parliament: Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens, Right and Left. But these parties are pale forerunners of what they need to become. A major objective of the European Parliament's current package of proposals, therefore, is to galvanise the rapid development of truly European political parties".

Another obstacle for a move towards more uniformity is the lack of visibility of the European party system. The 2013 analysis of Transparency International EU Office has revealed the considerable flaws in the landscape of political party finance regimes across Europe and at EU-level regarding the regulation of public and private support, transparency of finances, supervision and effective sanctions in case of violation of rules. Issues such as anonymous or unlimited donations, cheap loans or sponsoring have been found to be problematic as has the lack of proactive public oversight or the lack of rules for finances of individual candidates alongside rules for parties (Patz, 2013).

In the last years, efforts have been made to improve the rules for EU-level political parties, but the European Parliament and member states were powerless to implement the new directives in due time for the European elections.

Under present practices and rules, EU voters would know long after the European elections, maybe in late 2015, how EU-level political parties have been funded and how they used their funds during the 2014 campaign.

Without common European rules demanding that European political parties' candidate be transparent in how their individual campaigns are financed or effectively prevent misuse of administrative resources, it will depend on European political parties as well as their affiliates to commit to the transparency and integrity of the electoral process and the campaign. It will also depend on civil society, European and national media and citizens to collectively watch pre-electoral activities and campaign finances of European parties, and encourage all political players not to misuse loopholes in national and European laws for the EU campaign (Patz, 2013).

Electoral Reform of the European Parliament: Duff Initiative

The European Parliament did not reform its electoral system since 1999 - before the Treaties of Nice and Lisbon and before the great enlargement of the Unioa Meanwhile, the competences and the powers of the EU institutions have grown radically.

The Treaty on European Union contains a mandate for the European Parliament to put forward a proposal for a uniform procedure for European elections or an electoral procedure in accordance with principles common to all Member States. Parliament has continuously made efforts to increase 'harmonisation' of electoral rules for the EP elections, beyond those enshrined in the 1976 Act (as amended in 2002)2.

Taking into account the next elections, are we confident that the quality of the election campaign will be such an advance on previous elections that the electors will see that, in voting for MEPs, real choices can be made about the direction of the EU polity? Surety only European political parties and not national political parties will be able to offer real choices at election time about, for example, the name of the new President of the Commission, the pace of enlargement, or the size and shape of the EU budget?3

In such a context, Andrew DuflÇ British MEP and President of the Union of European Federalists, member of the Committee on Constitutional ASairs, initiated in 2010 a process of electoral reform of the European parliament with the aim of addressing at least, partially the lack of political contestation within the European Union. Together with its colleagues from the Parliament's Constitutional ASairs Committee, Andrew Duff mainly proposes to set aside 25 additional seats for candidates elected through Europewide lists presented by the European political parties. The main idea of the proposal is thus to create transnational lists where 25 candidates drawn from at least a third of states would be elected through a pan-EU constituency and would as a result be accountable both to their European political party and to their European electorate. The introduction of these transnational lists would allow European political parties to engage in real 'European' campaigns and create the vital space for political contestation (Dui£ 2011, 2012; European Parliament, 2011).

The proposal was endorsed by the Committee by 20 votes to 4 with no abstentions and was voted in plenary in June 2011. Mr Duff said, responding to the vote: 'MEPs from all the main groups have reached a strong consensus on the need to reform Parliament. Under the proposed scheme, the next European elections in 2014 will take on a genuine European dimensioa The opportunity of using a second vote for transnational MEPs should galvanise voters who have come to recognise that national political parties no longer work to sustain European integration in an efficient or democratic way"4.

The centre piece of the recommendation is to add 25 seats in Parliament to nominees of the European political parties all the way through the 27 member states. The members will be voted in a pan-EU constituency from transnational lists, gender balanced with candidates from at least a third of states. The lists will be established by the European political parties and the election will be regulated by a new EU electoral authority. In effect, every elector would have two votes - one for the national or regional list and one for the transnational list.

The 25 MEPs would be elected for a pan-European constituency. The transnational lists would be composed of candidates of at least nine nationalities drawn up by the European political parties. They would not favour any specific nationality. MEPs for the pan-European constituency would be directly accountable both to the European political parties and to the electorate (much like any other MEP)5.

The question of transnational lists has been discussed for many years within the Parliament and among the European political parties, many of which see potential benefits to their own development once they are made responsible for the selection of candidates on the transnational lists, for electoral campaigning and for holding pan-European MEPs to account.

The 25 candidates on the transnational list will likely be leading European politicians or celebrities from other walks of life, helping to give the election campaign a wider following. 'T have no objection to celebrities in politics," said Mr. Duff "There is no reason to doubt that the political parties will choose their candidates responsibly."6

The date of elections should be changed to May from June allowing the European Parliament enough time to prepare for the new Commission President's election, ideally taking place in July.

The Committee intends to increase the representation of minority candidates and women and requests the Commission to represent a new draft Directive on the right of European Union voters to vote in other state than their own. As a final point, it proposes a revision to the 1965 Protocol on Immunities and Privileges which would install a supranational regime for the European Parliament designed for modem standards.

The transnational lists will transform the existing EU parties into real campaigning organisations, allowing them to campaign for voters or seats. Their candidates will be recruiting members and seeking support even in states where they do not have national political affiliates.

Nevertheless, since the first draft report was presented in 2011, Duffs proposal has been feeing criticism, especially from smaller EU countries, fearing this proposal would especially promote candidates from the larger member states.

The report was referred by plenary for further consideration back to the Committee and a second amended report was tabled in 2012.

Duffs second report recognises that some issues concerning the pan-European proposal are particularly sensitive - namely, the choice between closed or semi-open lists the timing of the reforms, and the question of whether the 25 pan-European MEPs should come on top of the 751 existing deputies orbe drawn from among them7.

The report conposes an agenda for the inevitable negotiations with the Council which is designed to achieve a comprehensive package deal on a range of issues, including the revision of the 1976 Act, the date of the elections and the modernisation of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities. The report also prepares the ground for the necessary negotiations on seat apportionment between nationalities after the accession of Croatia. The Committee desires to examine a new transparent and durable system for the distribution of the existing 751 seats in preference to the present unseemly bartering.

Progress was only made regarding the formalities to be met by Union citizens wishing to vote or stand as candidates in the European elections in a Member State of which they are not nationals (Consolidated version of Council Directive 93/109/EC).

'For the European Elections in 2014, citizens should have two votes. One for a national list of candidates and one for a transnational European list with candidates from all over Europe", said Jo Leinen, President of the European Movement International. 'The European Movement International highly welcomes this step forward to realize European Democracy."

'European lists will trigger pan-European election campaigns and give the possibility to every European citizen to realty choose between political alternatives. This is a huge step towards a European public space", said Jo Leinen. Transnational lists will push the political class in Europe to discuss European issues during their campaigns and to stop concentrating on national issues. "We absolutely need more transnational debates and more European Democracy to tackle the big challenges ahead, like the financial and economic crisis or climate change", said Jo Leinen8.

Moreover, in view of the upcoming elections, Parliament adopted on July, 4, 2013, an initiative report on improving the practical arrangements for the holding of the European elections in 2014 (2013/2102(INL). The report's purpose was to make European elections more European, says Constitutional Afiairs Committee.

National political parties should tell citizens - before and during the electoral campaign - which European political party they belong to and also which candidate they support for Commission President, including his or her political programme. The committee urges member states and political parties to see that the names of the European political parties and, where appropriate, their emblems, appear on the ballot paper. No member state currently does this.

Political parties should ensure that the names of candidate Members of the European Parliament are made public at least six weeks before the start of polling. Parties should also field more female candidates, and encourage equal representation wherever possible. Candidates should also be expected to pledge that if elected to serve as an MEP, they will do so, unless meanwhile appointed to a post that makes them ineligible (e.g. in the European Commission or a national government).

European political parties should name their candidates for Commission President "sufficiently well in advance of the election" to enable them to mount an EU-wide campaign on European issues, based on the party platform and the programme of their candidate for Commission President, says the committee. Candidates should be transparently and democratically selected, it adds.

Candidates for Commission President should personalty present their political programmes in all EU member states, MEPs say. They also urge the European political parties to hold a series of public debates between the nominated candidates.

'Detailed arrangements for consultations between Parliament and the European Council on the election of the new Commission President should be agreed by common accord in good time before the elections", stresses the committee.

The committee also expects that "the candidate for Commission President who was put forward by the European political party that wins the most seats in the Parliament will be the first to be considered" with a view to "ascertaining his/her ability to secure the support of the necessary absolute majority in Parliament".

National political parties are encouraged to include on their lists of candidates EU citizens residing in member states other than their own and registered to vote there.

No official result should be published in any member state until after the close of polling in the member state whose electors are the last to vote on Sunday 25 May 2014, stresses the text.

The Constitutional Affairs Committee calls on member states to mount campaigns to encourage citizens to turn out and vote. The committee also "encourages all media outlets to treat the elections with maximum attention"9.

Conclusions

The Duff Report is the first use by MEPs of their new powers under Lisbon to initiate a revision of the treaties. The package will be sent by Parliament to the European Council, which will have to decide, by simple majority, whether to open an intergovernmental conference to install trans-national lists. All the proposals, including the extra 25 MEPs (Article 14(2) Treaty on European Union), the revision of the 1965 Protocol on Privileges and Immunities and other changes to primary law (the 1976 Electoral Act), as well as the decision on the apportionment of seats, will require a consensus to be reached among governments and the final agreement of the European Parliament, followed by ratification in each national parliament.

There will be resistance, especially from Eurosceptic national leaders. But it illbehoves those leaders, be they ever so powerful, to blame the EU for not working well (and holding the Parliament in particular contempt) while, at the same time, refusing to do anything to rectify the problems. Few heads of government can relish the prospect of a constitutional clash with the European Parliament10.

The current regulatory framework therefore is clearly not designed for a transnational and cross-border EU election campaign. In the absence of an adequate supervisory authority or coordination between all supervisory authorities during the European election campaign period, the overall fairness, transparency and integrity of campaign financing and campaign organisation across the EU is not guaranteed.

If the transnational campaigning continues in the future, then there will have to be a new regulatory and supervisory framework, either by introducing common EU-level rules on European election campaigns or at least by adapting EU-level and national-level rules or supervision mechanisms to the new transnational reality. Addressing this well in time before the 2019 elections will be crucial to increase transparency and integrity of the next European Parliament elections.

Footnote

1 Duff, Andrew, Catch-up democracy: The case for electoral reform of the European Parliament, 16 May 2011, http://www.euractiv.com/future-eu/catch-democracy-case-electoral-r-analysis-504864, accessed 10 October 2014

Footnote

2European Parliamentary Research Service, European electoral reform - no change to the status quo, 13 March 2014, http://epthinktank.eu/2014/03/13/european-electoral-reform-no-change-to-the-status-quo/. accessed 10 October 2014

Footnote

3 EUObserver, 'Why do MEPs fear electoral reform?', http://euobserver.eom/7/l 155%, accessed 10 October 2014

4 European Parliament, "A big step forward for a United European Democracy": Duff on electoral reform, 15 April 2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20110415ST017908/html/A-bigstep-forward-for-a-United-European-Democracv-Duff-on-electora 1-re form , accessed 11 October 2014

Footnote

5 EUObserver, 'Why do MEPs fear electoral reform?', http://euobserver.eom/7/l 15596 , accessed 10 October 2014

6 European Parliament, "A big step forward for a United European Democracy": Duff on electoral reform, 15 April 2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20110415ST017908/html/A-bigstep-forward-for-a-United-European-Democracv-Duff-on-electora 1-re form , accessed 11 October 2014

Footnote

7 EUObserver, 'Why do MEPs fear electoral reform?', http://euobserver.eom/7/115596. accessed 10 October 2014

Footnote

8 European Movement, Better European Elections in 2014 with transnational European lists, 26th January 2014, http://europeanmovement.eu/news/better-european-elections-in-2014-with-transnational-europeanlists/, accessed 10 October 2014

Footnote

9 Report on improving the practical arrangements for the holding of the European elections in 2014 (2013/2102(INI)), 12 June 2013, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?tvpe=REPQRT&reference=A7-2013-0219&language=EN. accessed 10 October 2014

Footnote

10 Duff, Andrew, Catch-up democracy: The case for electoral reform of the European Parliament, 16 May 2011, http://www.euractiv.com/future-eu/catch-democracv-case-electoral-r-analvsis-504864 , accessed 10 October 2014

References

References

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