Monday, April 16, 2012

European Commission


The European Commission has a peculiarly privileged position in that it has the right to propose new legal initiatives – and once adopted, European law trumps national sovereignty.   This has enabled a strange kind of bureaucratic vanguardism to emerge, with the Commission self-consciously extending the reach of European integration free from the standard political oversight at the national level.
In their glass boxes the commissions, committees and sub – committees play an absurd billion-euro bridge game.   All are entirely without democratic legitimisation: those who had power had not been elected, and those who had been elected had no power.
The European Commission should be the civil service of Europe not a quasi government.   By it having the  right to propose new legal initiatives it sets the agenda for the direction it wishes Europe to move.   New initiatives should emerge from the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament.   The Commission should be there to serve the peoples of Europe, not to govern them.
The European Commission should no longer have the power to propose legal initiatives.   Either the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament should propose them.

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