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Brussels Blogger picked up the PES leader Poul Rasmussen demanding top jobs for European socialists:
“(W)e insist on having the post of High Representative, or if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, the European Council President. We have several excellent candidates for these positions.”
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After the spectacular failure of the Party of European Socialists (PES) to put forward a candidate for the Commission Presidency ahead of the European Parliament elections in June 2009, we look forward to a presentation of these excellent candidates and an open selection of those the PES is going to propose to the European Council.
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Julien Frisch offers us the following paragraph about the newly approved José Manuel Barroso:
“After he got elected today, Barroso said that he wants to work more closely with the European Parliament to make the Union a "European parliamentary democracy".”
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Did Barroso really say that, and if he did, did he mean it?
I failed to find the quote in question, but would the anti-Europeans and Europhobics have voted for a Commission President with real democratic ambitions at the European level?
Logically, Barroso would part from his bland political programme and embark on a revolutionary course, leading to a Convention aiming at a European federation, built on its citizens – liberté, fraternité, egalite and all that.
We, the people, eagerly await the next steps (or clarifications).
Ralf Grahn
If he did say it...
ReplyDeletegreat!
In my view there is no reason the EU can't operate as a parliamentary democracy
= that is without a Commission
too...
http://www.ceolas.net/#eu2x
...an unelected Commission that still retains sole rights to initiate legislation that it also oversees the execution of.
The Commission is an enduring hangover from the days of a small, limited, European Coal and Steel Community, a common market for coal and steel set up between 6 countries, when the Commission was called the High Authority.
But now we have 27 member nations in wide-ranging political and economic cooperation, and
736 elected Members of Parliament
that could do more than comment on legislation and share some approval functions.
Panta Rei,
ReplyDeleteIn a parliamentary democracy there would be a politically accountable government instead, I think, and the structural democratic deficit would disappear.
Sadly, I think that Barroso and the member states in general are not farsighted or mature enough to establish a federation with one foreign policy and other suitable powers.