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The Making of a President: The European Parliament and the Confirmation of Jacques Santer as President of the Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Simon Hix  and
Christopher Lord
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Extract

THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT AND THE MAASTRICHT TREATY attempted to balance two principles of representation in their redesign of the institutional structures of the European Union: the one, based on the indirect representation of publics through nationally elected governments in the European Council and Council of Ministers; the other, based on the direct representation of publics through a more powerful European Parliament. There is much to be said for this balance, for neither of the two principles can, on its own, be an adequate solution at this stage in the development of the EU. The Council suffers from a non-transparent style of decision-making and is, in the view of many, closer to oligarchic than to democratic politics. On the other hand, the claims of the European Parliament to represent public sentiments on European integration are limited by low voter participation, the second-order nature of European elections and the still Protean nature of what we might call a transnational European demos. The EU lacks a single public arena of political debate, communications and shared meanings; of partisan aggregation and political entrepreneurship; and of high and even acceptance, across issues and member states, that it is European and not national majority views which should count in collective rule-making.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 62 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1996

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References

1 The analysis of ‘second-order elections’ was developed in Reif, Karlheinz and Schmidt, Hermann, ‘Nine Second National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Vernon Bogdanor, ‘Long Road to True Democracy’, Financial Times, 14 June 1994.

3 Shepsle, Kenneth A., ‘Studying Institutions: Some Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1989, pp. 131–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 All calculations of propensities to vote according to European or national alignments are made according to a formula that weights abstentions at 0.5. Votes for European/national position-[Votes against+abstentions × 0.5]/Total votes cast

5 Interview with MEP, July 1994.

6 Interview with EPP official, June 1994.

7 Michel Rocard, speech to the Plenary Session of the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 21 July 1994.

8 Pauline Green, speech to the Plenary Session of the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 21 July 1994.

9 Santer said this in answer to a question put to him by Pauline Green when he appeared before the PES group on 20 July 1994.

10 Résultats et Elus, Brussels, Division Centrale de Presse, European Parliament, 1994, p. 5.

11 Westlake, Martin, A Modern Guide to the European Parliament, Pinter, London, 1994, p. 191.Google Scholar

12 The D’Hondt system is a weighted system for making choices for offices or a shortlist. So, for example, members of the European Council could be asked to rank their preferences for a short-list of say three persons for the presidency of the Commission. Each head of government would then be allocated a number of votes proportionate to national population. Any candidate with more than one third of the first preferences plus one vote, would be immediately included on the short-list, and the excess of votes transferred to second preference candidates, until a full short-list of three emerged. Alternatively, this same procedure would be followed by eliminating candidates, starting with the person with fewest first preferences.