It is important
to discuss the fragility of the current European institutional system. There
must be institutional changes that respect Member States’ moral objectives for
the EU, while accepting "shared sovereignty".
Even if the financial crisis leaves little room for debate about the future of
the European institutions, some observations are useful - as Étienne Davignon
recently said: “The 2014 Meeting” to be prepared by
the European institutions in 2013 will most likely be held after the next
European Commission is installed.
Every time European integration has moved forward, there was a clear target. Now,
the process is more about something general, like "support for
integration". Because of this, the political factor has a greater
advantage than in previous projects (e.g. single market, the euro).
At EU level we need more debate, more confrontation between the "great
European ideas". It is expected that European political parties will be the catalyst for the next phase of European evolution. I
agree with these statements, but I do have some reservations. I think
politicians play a big role in deciding the future of European integration,
without neglecting the contribution of the business sector, and civil society
in the process. But we have a problem: given the current context of political
forces there is a communication gap between the politicians in Brussels and the
national politicians.
Maybe it's a good opportunity to assess how the decision mechanism and the
coordination work between the national political parties and the European political
parties. But it is difficult to decide if and how to delegate more "sovereignty"
to the European party structure, even if we (paradoxically) have European
elections. It is good that there are primary elections in Europe (although they
could be more open), but there are still great strides to be made towards
cross-border coordination. If primaries were held in 27 (28 with Croatia)
European countries, and a candidate of the (let’s say) Left is proposed for the
position President of the Commission, then it is he/she who will lead the team
of European Left in the European elections. I would additionally propose that
the elected leader of one of the European parties is given the mandate to
appoint the ‘head of list’ for each national or regional list that will be put
before voters for the European Parliament Elections in May 2014.
National parties will not disappear,
but their role will
change in the future - the future is one of
transnational parties. It's the same concept that shows that nation states do not disappear into the EU, as predicted
post-modernists, even though their roles have
changed.
Dan LUCA / Brussels
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