Translucent

It is certainly possible that I have been unfair to the EU in implying that it is entirely opaque. Once again I have been doing my research, and believe me, there's a lot to do. I was looking at the European Parliament website, which is an amazing thing in itself; one can go there for information on one's (or indeed anyone's) MEPs and quickly find oneself deviating into all sorts of minutiae of parliamentary business - who submitted what questions, the minutes of each parliamentary session, the results of each vote, etc. etc. - all carefully transcribed into the Union's 26 official languages, no doubt by some dedicated team of highly skilled linguists. This kind of thing is a marvel, and when you start to think about all the effort and the co-ordination of masses of vast talent that go into the running the organisation and faithfully reporting its activities, it is easy to be amazed that it works at all.

It is impressive that such an organisation can run as smoothly as it does, but being impressed by an organisation's efficiency is still a far cry from being impressed by its output. The website EU Observer notes that the European Parliament has come a long way since its early days as a 'talking shop', but it spends a lot of time discussing issues over which it has no control such as foreign policy, rather than sticking to areas in which it has real power. The reason why the Parliament does not want to stick to the areas over which it has control are probably similar to the reasons why so many people fail to take an interest in European politics: mainly the fact that those areas over which the Parliament does have control are largely extremely unglamorous. The Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, transport initiatives and emissions trading schemes - whilst being extremely important to the running of our infrastructure, our food supply and the welfare of our communities - are not the sorts of things people usually get excited about unless they happen to be farmers, fishermen or any of the other minority groups that are directly affected by such issues. Politicians want glamor, they want headlines, they want acknowledgment for their supreme talents, and the only way they are going to get this is with 'sexy' politics. Unfortunately the ranks of political egos that make up the governments of the constituent nation states would never be foolish enough to let anything 'sexy' fall out of their sphere of influence, which leaves the ranks of political egos in Brussels desperately scrabbling around for anything they can get hold of, or simply talking 'sexy' even if they can't legislate 'sexy'.This means that people generally fail to take any interest in the actual business of the EU and only take an interest when the Parliament or the Commission make statements inflammatory enough to upset the national tabloids. The upshot of this is the miserable turnout at the European Parliamentary elections and the weakening of the democratic accountability of the Parliament and the therefore the EU as a whole.

It is incredible, I am trying to come to this with an open mind, but each time I think about it I end up becoming more cynical. I suppose I want a parliament like those of the member states, that has genuine legislative clout, but I'm not sure that the EU as it exists is capable of such things, and I'm not sure that it would be what people want, or at least think they want. Anyway, regardless of what people want, the national politicians certainly don't want a powerful EU, at least not at the expense of their own power. It may also simply be that the EU is a victim of its place in history. Since the treaty of Rome fifty years ago, and certainly over the last twenty years the trend of politics in Europe as a whole has been towards a centre ground, with any differences in policies between most parties these days being minuscule in comparison to the vast gulf that existed between the extremes of the political viewpoints of the early to mid twentieth century. Politicians have to a large extent become glorified administrators, so it is no surprise that a political institution that has grown up during this period of homogenisation should not resemble the great institutions of the past, but a large and efficient office, or one that at least appears efficient, or tries to look busy when the boss is around...

Perhaps it is then, that the European Parliament will not become more like the national parliaments, but the other way around. Once everything has been privatised, and almost all of what was the public sector is run by a selection insurance companies, 'government' will simply be bodies of administrators squabbling over the bones of whatever system is left. With nothing 'glamorous' or controversial left for the politicians to do, voter apathy would skyrocket, finally allowing us to opt ourselves out of democracy. So, the EU – not a dysfunctional democracy at all, but a vision of the future?