At a European Stability Mechanism conference in Luxembourg on Monday, former ECB boss Jean-Claude Trichet described an idea he had first put forward a few years ago — dubbed a “federation by exception”.
Under the proposal, the European Parliament would, in an “extraordinary” situation, have the final word on disputes between EU member states and EU institutions. But unlike when he first put the idea forward, it has the added spice of coming about six months after Greece was at the brink of exiting the euro amid a standoff with its international creditors.
Trichet said that giving the parliament such a power would be “fully democratic, as [it is] representative of the people of Europe, after due contact with national legislatures”.
But it is very hard to view the European Parliament as representing the democratic will of the people — and it certainly has little sparkle when viewed through the prism of the democratic will of Europe’s sovereign nations.
There are 751 seats in the Parliament. But the five biggest countries — Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Spain — account for 370 of these. Winning a majority when the institutions are at odds with any of the other 23 countries in the EU would take very little effort.
Of course, one could argue that this is democratic — these countries have more seats because they have more people, so the ideals of Ancient Athens are respected.
Well, in this case Athens is a great example of what would go wrong.
First, look at voter turnouts at the last European Parliamentary election in 2014. In Greece the figure was 59.97% — well above the EU average of 42.61%.
Of the big five parliament members, only one country came close to Greece’s turnout — Italy, at 57.22%. Not one of the others had a turnout over 50%, while the UK came in at a pitiful 35.6%.
While 35.6% of the UK still comes to a much bigger number than 59.97% of Greece’s population, it is hard to see how this should give the UK’s MEPs — many of whom are from fringe parties that only win seats through lack of interest and protest votes — should be allowed to have such a large say on matters as important as Greece’s bail-out conditions.
And at the sovereign level there are also problems — as Trichet outlined on Monday. He said that one of the reasons for the eurozone sovereign debt crisis was the relaxation of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact in 2005.
Which countries pushed for that change? France and Germany.
So here we have a suggestion that the final say in such matters will effectively be decided by the big players which, by Trichet’s own admission, contributed to the mess Greece finds itself in today by demanding their own way a decade ago.
But Greece would be faced by a parliamentary brick wall if it then made some demands of its own.
It is hard to think of a quicker way than that to ensure the Greek people demand an exit from the eurozone.
Were the European Parliament to have a chamber like the US Senate, where each state has two representatives, a proposal like Trichet’s would have some merit. That way, sovereign will would be maintained.
But creating such a body would be another step to a Federal States of Europe. If that is what Trichet desires, then fine. But in the interim, awarding such powers to a European Parliament that may not even have the UK as a member in a few months would be a foolish move.
Although, if the UK does exit, at least the little guys get a bit more power.