Germany’s former Federal President: Discussion about double majority fails to address real problems / Warning against abuse of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
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In a guest-contribution for the daily “Welt”, Roman Herzog, Germany’s former Federal President and Lüder Gerken, Director of the Centre for European Policy (CEP) demand for fundamental changes to the EU’s Draft Constitution, which is currently being discussed behind closed doors.
Referring to renegotiations as demanded for by Poland of the allocation of voting powers in the Council, Herzog and Gerken state that: “It is especially the composition of the European Parliament, which represents the people, and not the one of the Council, that needs to be oriented towards the size of the respective population.” According to Herzog and Gerken, a renegotiation of voting powers in the Council should take place only when “the division of votes in the European Parliament is renegotiated at the same time as well.”
In the opinion of the authors, citizens’ influence via national parliaments should be strengthened through the introduction of a “red card”. According to this proposal, national parliaments would gain a right of objection against proposals for European legislation which fail to meet the principle of subsidiarity. This could “prevent national governments from by-passing their own parliament by introducing legislative matters directly to the Commission.”
Moreover, Herzog and Gerken criticize that the Draft Constitution does not contain any barriers for protecting subsidiarity. For this reason, they require Part III of the Draft Constitution not to be adopted as a whole since it strengthens the tendency of inappropriate centralization. Part III provides for a number of new competencies for the European Union and allows for qualified majority decisions instead of unanimity decisions for several issues.
In their contribution, the authors warn that the Commission may use the proposed legally binding character of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to expand the competences of the EU to issues for which it in fact does not possess a competency. As an example, Herzog and Gerken refer to deliberations about expanding the scope of anti-discrimination policy. Herzog chaired the convention responsible for drafting the charter of fundamental rights. The authors demand the inclusion into the Draft Constitution of a clause explicitly excluding such abuse of the Charter.
Herzog and Gerken criticize that the Draft Constitution requires unanimity in the European Foreign and Security Policy which “will result in an effective Common Foreign and Security Policy being permanently driven into utopia.” The required consent by every member state for an enhanced cooperation of other member states extends “the political corruption of "package deals” and compensation deals” which already play a large role in the EU today with a new dimension.
Already for this reason, the EU Constitution may “not be adopted” without fundamental changes.
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