Why many national governments oppose reform of the EU

A vision of what the EU could be was ceremonially presented to the bloc’s leadership at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday, amid interpretative dance and an orchestral rendition of European anthem Ode to Joy.

The dossier included 49 proposals, ranging in scope from healthcare to childcare, to how elections should work. It was the result of a year of deliberations by panels of randomly-selected European citizens, plus 43,734 online contributions, in a process partly inspired by Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies.

This was the Conference on the Future of Europe, championed by French president Emmanuel Macron as way to engage and involve citizens in creating a strong and effective EU. Symbolically, the earnest ceremony was a counterpart to the belligerent Victory Day military procession being held simultaneously in Moscow.

The process had a difficult birth and a difficult conclusion, largely because a substantial group of member state governments did not want the conference to propose anything too ambitious, and did not want to be bound to implement its proposals, in case they did not like them.

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Their range was vast: making agriculture sustainable; affordable childcare; adopting renewable energy; investment in high-speed trains; public transport; cycling infrastructure; and improving conditions of healthcare workers.

The most pointed recommendations were for reform of the EU itself. The proposals suggested there should be local EU councillors as well as MEPs and regular citizens’ assemblies about policy.

‘Qualified majority’

The European Parliament should be able to trigger EU-wide referendums, it was proposed. EU elections should be harmonised – held on the same date, with the same voting system – and voters should be able to pick from a list of pan-EU candidates as well as national ones. Voters should choose the head of the European Commission, instead of the governments of member states as currently.

Unanimity should be scrapped in almost all cases, stopping individual member states from blocking decisions and allowing them to be taken by a “qualified majority” instead. The European Parliament should decide the EU budget, and have the right to propose legislation, rather than its current role of negotiating, shaping and ultimately accepting or rejecting proposals made by the European Commission.

Finally, the EU should consider changing the names of its institutions to make their role more obvious to citizens – as everyone knows, there are too many “councils” and “presidents” to keep track.

Treaty change

The proposals were welcomed by Mr Macron and European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, who said "no suggestion for change should be off-limits".

But even before the ceremony concluded a rebellion was mounted by 13 member states – Scandinavians, Baltics, and eastern member states – who circulated a joint letter ruling out any “institutional reforms” in a bid to halt any momentum before it got going.

The reason for the wariness is two dreaded words: treaty change. The most concrete proposals in the dossier require renegotiating EU treaties and getting them approved, member state by member state. It’s a process that seriously burned the member states in the past, when French and Dutch voters rejected an EU constitution in 2005, and in the arduous process of ratifying the subsequent Lisbon Treaty.

There’s another reason too. Currently, the national governments rule the roost in the EU, routinely subordinating both the commission and parliament. They detected the strong moderating hand of MEPs in the proposals, and perceived a parliament grab for power.

The governments may have little to fear. For citizens’ assemblies to be effective they require political buy-in, or some mechanism that makes it mandatory for their proposals to be enacted. The design of the conference means, barring some unforeseen political change of heart or citizen uproar, its proposals may be simply be safely ignored.