There was a definite whiff of elections and intimations of political mortality in the Strasbourg air this week, as we said goodbye to the present crop of MEPs and to their home in the premises of the Council of Europe.
A short stroll away, the gleaming glass curves of the colossal new parliament building await tantalisingly for those who will be returned. Had he visited it? I asked John Cushnahan. His response said it all - " no", a look of horror, and a mutter about "tempting fate".
It was a time, however, for many to reflect on where the Parliament is going politically. Once described by Brian Lenihan as a "rabble without responsibility", the European Parliament has in recent times been given important new powers and used them to grab others. But although few would now share Lenihan's verdict - at least publicly - the Parliament is still only half a real parliament. It can legislate but not govern.
But how far should it be allowed to govern in future? That is a dilemma at the heart of its recent hounding out of office of the Commission. Behind the general agreement that the Commission had handled its affairs badly and deserved to be brought to book lie considerable, as yet largely unexpressed, differences about where to go next.
Many MEPs, like the leader of the Liberal group, Pat Cox, see the crisis as the opportunity to stake a claim to real control over the Commission, through either the election of the Commission or its president from their midst, or the right to call commissioners to account and ultimately sack them individually.
That federalising agenda, they argue, is the road to the democratic legitimisation of the Commission, the way to bridge the gulf between the public and remote EU institutions. But many are far from convinced. Mark Killilea, packing his bags for the last time, is deeply apprehensive about some of the powers being acquired by the Parliament, and cites as an example its say over 10 per cent of the huge agriculture budget.
He worries that instead of supporting the poorest farmers, the dynamic of the Parliament is such that the money may be frittered away on environmental projects - "hedges and birds". If that happens the member-states will claw back some of the Parliament's powers, he warns. "And I disagree with the notion of Parliament having power over the Commission." To move in that direction, Killilea argues, would be to undermine the delicate institutional balance between Parliament and the Commission and particularly threaten the independence of commissioners from the smaller member-states.
He insists, however, that the new Commission president, Romano Prodi, must be given the treaty right to sack members of his Commission
Cushnahan agrees, also expressing reservations about the success of MEPs in forcing the Commission to resign. Commissioners should be accountable to Parliament through Prodi, he argues, otherwise there would be a danger of targeting individual commissioners on a political basis. "That would be to open Pandora's box," he warns, in threatening to fracture the largely consensual decision-making of Parliament that is its strength.
"The Commission has been to the forefront of the defence of small member-states and initiatives like structural and cohesion funding," Cushnahan argues. To undermine that role would not be in Ireland's interest, he says. Bob Fitzhenry, the press officer of the European People's Party, argues simply that "Parliament wants a strong Commission and one able to work". It cannot then make the Commission its prisoner.
Yet such counsels of self-restraint will not come easy to MEPs who have scented blood and are unlikely to be willing to turn the clock back.
The parliamentary hearings on the new Commission in September are certain to see demands that the new college should accept individual scrutiny and potential sacking by the Parliament, either in the form of a future treaty change or a political undertaking that commissioners will go if they lose the support of a significant majority of MEPs.
The leader of the Socialist group, Pauline Green, made it plain this week that a refusal to give such an undertaking could make parliamentary ratification of the new Commission difficult.
Parliament's ambition is a direct challenge to the authority of the Commission president-designate.
There was widespread disappointment that Prodi did not this week set out clearly enough to Parliament what he sees as the limits of Parliament's prerogatives. Picking a fight at this stage of a lengthy ratification process may not be appealing, it is argued, but a line in the sand is needed.
