Martin Ehrenhauser

One of the central questions in a democracy is who is in the capacity of initiating law. In every EU Member State the national parliament has the right to initiate law. In Belgium, Sweden and Portugal, for instance, every member of parliament can initiate law. The EU Parliament does not possess this right. This is an imbalance that has not been changed even by the Lisbon Treaty. The negotiations over a new framework agreement between the European Commission and the Parliament initiated a new discussion about the initiative law in recent weeks. The impression of true progress is however misleading.

The Commission has the exclusive power of initiative in Community matters. According to article 225 (ex. article 192) of the Lisbon Treaty “the European Parliament may, acting by majority of its component Members, request the Commission to submit any appropriate proposal”.  The European Commission decides however on whether or not to put forward a proposal. Such a division of power is certainly not going to change even with the new framework agreement. The only novelty is that the Commission has to inform the Parliament of the reasons if it does not submit a proposal. Therefore what remains in the end is more paper and bureaucracy.

Hannes “Zick-Zack” Swoboda, who is a member of the steering committee, leading the negotiations with the Commission, convinces with his lack of consistency: “Let’s not pretend that the right of national parliaments to initiate law were that big. Most of the time these proposals are dominated by governments. Parliaments realise what governments propose.” This is in fact not wrong in terms of  realpolitik analysis. Still, it cannot be acceptable in the debate of a more democratic EU. One needs to be more consistent in what one demands. That is why we need a more articulate “yes” to a true right of the Parliament to initiate law and to an obligatory citizens’ initiative.