Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-013"
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"en.20011002.2.2-013"2
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"Madam President, Mr Prodi, almost everyone who has spoken has asked – as you yourself have also done – why the EU's image is not what we expect, and why people have ever less faith in it. I am always surprised that this is commented on in a wounded tone as if we were misunderstood, as if all this were unfair, and even the answers on this subject have a very paternalistic ring about them. They say that it is all about explaining things better to the public and presenting our policies to them more clearly. Unlike Mr Swoboda, I do not think that we have really made any progress in this area.
The concept of good governance is very vague, and people do not really understand what you are promising them. You are promising transparency, openness and consultation, but that is not what is at stake here, Mr Prodi. The major misunderstanding – I might almost say a misunderstanding of historical proportions – is that this Commission does not have any conception of European democracy. It has no conception at all of democracy at supranational level.
All these paternalistic ideas that you have presented here miss the point that you do not have the courage – and have not had the courage for years – to highlight the democratic deficits of the European Union with sufficient clarity, and to recognise that the Commission must forego some power if such a thing as European democracy is to exist, and that you need to work alongside this Parliament on many key issues, for example on preparing a constitutional process and the main elements of that process.
No, genuinely tackling the dissatisfaction that exists would mean addressing the state of crisis which exists as regards legitimacy. We govern people with regulations because we do not have the courage to say that we have been making laws for years now. We call them regulations because the democratic legitimacy of these laws is very fragile, because the separation of powers has not been achieved, because the principle of openness of legislation has not been achieved, because the process of committing the administration to laws has not been achieved, and because instead there is disproportionate scope for discretion, which cannot be reconciled with democratic principles, because we have an irregular administration in many areas, such as the committee structure. It is not regular, there are no staff regulations, there are no clear loyalties, and the processes for appointing staff in these areas are by no means transparent and are easy to manipulate.
Mr President, you cannot reconcile the idea of a good technocracy with a debate on democracy. Just as there is no such thing as a good dictatorship, there is also no such thing as a good technocracy. You will have to address the issue of a European democracy and the position of the Commission in this process."@en1
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