11 May 2017

Andrew Duff: The rise of post-national democracy: Macron, Brexit and the electoral reform of the European Parliament

Our main question today is: do the circumstances exist to introduce European lists for the Parliament in time for the May 2019 elections? Brexit now removes at least one major obstacle to the political reform of the Union and the strengthening of the Parliament. President Macron will add his considerable weight in Council to the cause, which is already being strongly advanced by the tireless Italian Europe minister, Sandro Gozi, and supported by Belgium. The big game-changer, of course, is that we now have 73 ex-British seats to play with. So CamCom can be introduced to guarantee degressive proportionality without causing any member state, even Mr Orban's, to lose a seat. France and Spain could be offered a sweetener of a number of extra 'national' seats. But the bulk of the ex-British seats – say 50 of them – could easily be filled from the first transnational list for the first pan-European constituency.

In November 2015 the European Parliament finally voted to support the idea of a joint list. An annex to the resolution spells out the basic legislative changes needed in EU primary law to give effect to the introduction of a transnational list. Meanwhile, AFCO advances its own work on the formula for seat apportionment. Parliament's most recent Brexit resolution makes reference to its intention to complete the adventure. The Commission is thought to be sympathetic in the relevant forms of Mr Juncker and Frans Timmermans, First VicePresident. It is unfortunate but not disastrous that the European Council makes no mention of what to do with the 73 seats in its Brexit guidelines: but it is Parliament, after all, that enjoys the right of initiative on this dossier.

The time for such a radical reform is now. The introduction of European lists would at a stroke Europeanise the European elections and re-invent the Parliament. It would put the EP back on the right side of EU law in so far as its composition would respect the principle of degressive proportionality. It would install a genuinely uniform element in Parliament's electoral procedure and properly reflect the function of the MEP as representative of all the Union's citizens. European lists coupled with CamCom would settle the controversy over seat apportionment. The Spitzenkandidat experiment would be saved for 2019 and reinforced. The Germans could have their threshold. The European political parties would come of age, followed by the media.

Electors in 2019 would be offered two ballot papers on entering the polling station: one for their traditional national or regional constituency, the other for the European. Many would be amazed; some would be confounded; but most would enjoy their first material prize from the privilege they enjoy as European Union citizens. European democracy would be refreshed. Mr Macron would have delivered. 

Full discussion paper

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