This time it’s not so very different
Martin Schulz is wrong to allow the European Parliament’s presidency to be caught up in horse-trading over other EU jobs.
The European Parliament is about to commit a horrible mistake. It is about to allow the presidency of the Parliament to be included in the horse-trading that accompanies the appointments of the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council and of the high representative for foreign and security policy. Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the junior partner in Germany’s coalition government, has stated that he can accept Germany’s European commissioner coming from the centre-right CDU, on condition that his party colleague Martin Schulz becomes president of the Parliament – for what would be a second term in office. Schulz, it appears, is colluding in all this: having lost out to Jean-Claude Juncker in the competition for the presidency of the Commission, he demands a consolation prize.
If this happens, voters will probably work out what was really meant by the Parliament’s campaign slogan: “This time, it’s different.” During that election campaign, Schulz was adamant that the presidency of the European Commission could not be decided by what he derided as backroom deals. The European Parliament, he pronounced, would reject a nominee for president of the Commission who was the result of a backroom deal.
Yet now, a month later, Schulz is prepared to foist upon the Parliament the results of his own backroom deal – a deal struck with outsiders, about who should preside over the Parliament’s proceedings. There is apparently no question here of the electorate (ie the MEPs) being given a free vote. New MEPs are to be delivered an early message about the nature of the new Parliament: the ‘grand coalition’ in Berlin, extended to Brussels, will run the show.
It could be different, if only Schulz had the courage to see the bigger picture. He has fought resourcefully to impose the Parliament’s preferred method of choosing the Commission president – the Spitzenkandidaten process, to the extent of becoming the centre-left’s candidate. Although he has lost out to Jean-Claude Juncker in that context, between them they seem to have forced the European Council to accept the result.
Yet now, even at the moment of triumph, Schulz is about to go back on all his brave words, for the sake, it seems, of securing a job for himself. He is about to snatch deceit from the jaws of victory.
How different the situation would be – and how much more secure the Spitzenkandidaten process for the future – if, having secured Juncker’s nomination, Schulz had then allowed the presidency of the Parliament to be decided by MEPs without external interference.
For many years now, European Voice has, at the changeover of the Parliament’s presidency, organised a debate between candidates for the presidency, in an attempt to inject a degree of transparency and, indeed, self-respect into the proceedings. In January 2012, before he was first elected president, Schulz took part in such a debate. This time round, he is reluctant to do so. His claim to be “progressive” is wearing thin.
Voters could be forgiven for concluding that this time round it is not so very different. They might even suspect that the EU’s ruling elite has concluded that, as in Lampedusa’s Sicily, “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi.”
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