LESSON LEARNED FROM EP HEARINGS

If Parliament was able to choose the Commission’s President, it can also dismiss Commissioners that are not to its liking, a contradiction that weighs on the relations between institutions.

The fundamental problem with the EP parliamentary hearing process, a very useful mechanism from a democratic point of view, is that it was also very revealing of the unresolved tensions between the European Parliament, Member States and the European Commission that dominate European political life. On one hand, the European Union is becoming even more parliamentary, by voting in a candidate to the Commission Presidency. But on the other hand, we continue to have a system of separation of powers that makes the European Parliament seem like the United States Congress.

To put it simply, Parliament named the President of the Commission, but it did not politically support the Commission, which had to win confidence one vote at a time. In return, the Commission is a government without a stable parliamentary majority. As a consequence, those who voted for Juncker did not necessarily vote for his Commissioners

Politics within the European Union is one thing, fine, but it’s another for partisanship to reign when it’s a coalition of populists, liberals and socialists who govern. This opens a more complex political situation, which reflects the contradictions of the European political system: There is a search for consensus and confrontation at the same time.

Politicians expected to have the knowledge of technocrats. The EP was the driving force behind increasing the politicisation of the Commission, mostly through the Spitzenkandidaten process. With a more political Commission those inside will ultimately be more politicised, as will decision making. Nearly all the candidates were politicians with little technical experience. However, the EP subjected them to a level of scrutiny which no national incoming minister would be expected to pass on a brief they had in most cases never overseen.  

At the same however, MEPs were very intolerant of any Commissioners holding as they saw it the ‘wrong’ political views meaning nominees had to tread a tightrope and try to appease a range of competing interests, e.g. promoting trade while protecting social standards, maintaining budgetary discipline while allowing for ‘flexibility’, or cutting energy costs while pursing green policies. This led to accusations of a lack of coherence on the part of some Commissioners. This confusion over the Commission’s role was largely of the EP’s own making and did set an almost impossible task for the candidates.
 

1. Trying to force Commissioners to commit to policies ex-ante. This is simply a bad way to make policy. Sure, the candidates should outline key priorities and ideas, however, asking them whether they will or won’t pursue numerous policy proposals or will rule out certain actions over their entire five-year term was overstepping the mark. Ultimately, the proposals the Commission will take forward are the result of a combined decision with the EP and Member States and will be subject to economic and political circumstance.
2. The EP has a legislative role in trialogue negotiations, not in these hearings. Following on from the above point, the EP did not have a right to try to restrict the policy options of the Commission ex-ante. The EP has a role in the trialogue negotiations around legislation and can influence and change Commission proposals there. It should not double up this role by trying to tie the hands of new Commissioners by forcing them to take a policy stance before they have even had a chance to get an overview of their brief.
3. Hearings were caught up in political games. The hearings got embroiled in political games, mostly between the centre right EPP and centre left S&D. While political trade-offs and negotiations are expected, these should not have spilled over into the public hearings and hampered the assessment of the competence of Commissioners.
4. Judging Commissioners on different and conflicting criteria. It is also obvious that there was no clear consensus on what basis to judge Commissioners. Some were opposed on the basis of political allegiances, some on the basis of their nationality and some on their experience/knowledge (or a mix of the above). This picking and choosing of criteria once again undermined the process and made it impossible for the Commissioners to know on what level they were being assessed. This led to attempts to try to please everyone further worsening the scrutiny process.

 The Commission has always been about a balance between political and technical expertise – it both proposes laws and is responsible for upholding them. There are legitimate questions that can be asked about potential conflicts of interest and a basic grasp of the policy issues at hand nut the EP did hugely overstep the mark by seeking to pin down Commissioners to particular political agendas.

The Spitzenkandidaten process was all about establishing greater political control over the Commission’s agenda. The great mistake that EU leaders made over the appointment of Juncker (not talking about Juncker himself, but giving into the EP over the process) clearly had the effect of emboldening MEPs further. The Commission and the nominees  were the piggy in the middle in the increasingly fraught power battle between national governments and the EP. Throw in a large dose of intra-EP politicking and individual egos, and it was a recipe for chaos and one that is likely to further distance the EU institutions from electorates across Europe.