Alliance Géostratégique

Senator Giacomo Santini (Italy) was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 2004. Together with Michael Hancock (United Kingdom), he submitted a report on “EU and WEU Council information on European security and defence policy” (Document 2059) to the December 2009 plenary session of the European Security and Defence Assembly which adopted it on 3 December.

The following article sums up the main conclusions of this report, mostly on the role of national parliaments in the Lisbon Treaty and the future of European Security and Defence Assembly.

Provisions concerning the role of national parliaments in the Lisbon Treaty

The ratification and entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty marks a decisive step in the ongoing institutional overhaul of the European Union. This overhaul started with the Laeken Declaration (December 2001) whose aim was to achieve a more democratic, transparent and effective Union. The future role of national parliaments in the European architecture was established as one of the key issues of this reform process and a response to our citizens’ alienation from the EU. The involvement of national parliaments is particularly important with regard to the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) which is part of the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSFP) because this field of EU policy will remain intergovernmental, with financial resources and capabilities continuing to be provided by individual member states. Scrutiny by national parliaments should not be confined only to the national level. They need a structure for European interparliamentary oversight.

The taking effect of the treaty ushers in a transitional period during which different options will need to be studied on how best to involve national parliamentarians at the European level. These options include consideration of the contribution the European Security and Defence Assembly (ESDA/WEU Assembly) could make to bridging the gap between the present situation where CSDP is an intergovernmental policy over which the national parliaments are fully competent to exercise scrutiny and a more distant future when CSDP may have evolved into what the Lisbon Treaty calls in Article 42.2 a “common Union defence policy”. A common Union defence policy would imply that competence for its scrutiny will have been transferred to the European Parliament. But we are not there yet. If the Lisbon Treaty confirmed anything, it was the intergovernmental nature of CSDP, no nation being willing to transfer its own sovereignty to Brussels when the lives of its soldiers and the security of its citizens are at stake.

The Lisbon Treaty is the first EU treaty to include a specific role for national parliaments, the provisions of which are set out in a special protocol: Protocol No. 1 on the role of national parliaments. While the protocol goes into some detail on national parliaments and subsidiarity, the provisions dealing with intergovernmental policy-making, in particular CFSP (the Common Foreign and Security Policy) and CSDP (the Common Security and Defence Policy), are less clear. The reform process therefore needs further reflection. It is likely that the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty will give rise to developments that make it impossible to foresee the final outcome at this stage and one should therefore be wary of drawing premature conclusions.

Firstly, the provisions on the role of national parliaments are open to interpretation. Moreover, national parliaments and the European Parliament (EP) are likely to hold divergent views on their respective positions in the interparliamentary set-up. In view of the EP’s limited competence in these matters, it is only logical to strengthen the national parliaments’ role in the Union wherever possible.

The interpretation of what can be done under the Lisbon Treaty can be timid or bold. A cautious interpretation would entail limited involvement of national parliaments with, for instance, only one annual conference on CFSP in Brussels, no written report from governments and no follow-up mechanism. A bolder interpretation would lead to a fully-fledged system of parliamentary scrutiny involving the adoption of reports drafted and voted in committees. This would increase transparency. The further development of CSDP would be ensured because it would be based on the full participation of national parliaments. It is national parliaments which decide on the financial resources and national capabilities allocated to CSDP and it is national parliaments which have the final say when it comes to the deployment of soldiers for CSDP operations. It is first and foremost national parliamentarians who are called to account when lives are lost.

The Lisbon Treaty puts forward a conference model involving primarily members of the European affairs committees of national parliaments − despite the acknowledged limits conferences have for proper parliamentary scrutiny. Title II of Protocol No.1 on the role of national parliaments in the European Union (annexed to the Lisbon Treaty) stipulates the following:

Article 9

“The European Parliament and national Parliaments shall together determine the organisation and promotion of effective and regular interparliamentary cooperation within the Union”.

Article 10

“A conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs may submit any contribution it deems appropriate for the attention of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. That conference shall in addition promote the exchange of information and best practice between national Parliaments and the European Parliament, including their special committees. It may also organise interparliamentary conferences on specific topics, in particular to debate matters of common foreign and security policy, including common security and defence policy. Contributions from the conference shall not bind national Parliaments and shall not prejudge their positions”.

The above article suggests that interparliamentary cooperation with regard to CFSP/CSDP could take place through COSAC (the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union) established in 1992. But merely attending conferences in Brussels would not give national parliaments any greater say in the EU. Many national parliaments are wary of a Brussels-centred system, with conferences taking place on EP premises and organised by EP staff. No support at all would be available to national parliamentarians within such a set-up. Occasional conferences will not make for effective interparliamentary scrutiny. A permanent system of collective oversight would provide a better tool for national parliaments based on continuous committee work, the drafting of reports and the voting of recommendations.

Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty does not mention any obligation on the part of the governments to provide participants to this conference with a written report on CFSP/CSDP. The upcoming negotiations about the implementation of the protocol will present an opportunity for national parliaments to make their interests clear and to include such a requirement.

In this way, their scrutiny would contribute to greater EU transparency. National parliaments would develop a deeper understanding of the issues at stake, allowing them better to perform their constitutionally mandated task of scrutiny of actions their national governments take in the EU framework.

As far as COSAC itself is concerned, it is difficult to imagine how in its current form it could exercise proper interparliamentary scrutiny over CFSP and CSDP. It would need to be considerably adapted. COSAC has no committees, does not vote recommendations and, until now, has not produced any detailed reports on political issues. It has been concerned mostly with practice and procedures.

COSAC suffers from the same weakness inherent in most conference models, i.e. while it may be a vehicle for exchanges of views between parliamentarians, it does not necessarily make provision for a structured dialogue with the EU executive. So far, COSAC has made no moves to implement the protocol and it is clear that some time will be needed before it can fulfil its new role in relation to national parliaments.

The Lisbon Treaty promotes interparliamentary exchange but provides no details as to how it is to be organised. On the other hand, the Lisbon Treaty clearly offers the necessary scope for national parliaments to set up a structure for the exercise of their sovereign rights as recognised under that treaty.

The ESDA: a cost-effective and readily available tool for national parliaments

The European Security and Defence Assembly (ESDA) and its members have engaged in a communication drive to ensure a continued role for the tried and tested assembly-style model of interparliamentary scrutiny, a model which includes the obligation by the governments to provide parliamentarians with a written report on their activities, and affords parliamentarians the possibility to work in committees, elaborate substantive texts and vote on reports and recommendations. It is my view that the assembly model best serves the interests of national parliaments in this field of intergovernmental policy.

The ESDA/WEU Assembly now offers equal rights, including full voting rights, in terms of interparliamentary information and participation for parliamentarians from the 27 EU member states. It also offers appropriate participation for candidate countries and European NATO members and for the European Parliament. But ESDA still awaits de jure recognition by the EU and its activities continue to be rooted in the legal framework of WEU (provided by the modified Brussels Treaty).

Providing this Assembly with the necessary legal and financial basis so that it can fully serve in the EU context would require an EU Council decision recognising the interparliamentary role of our Assembly and giving it a status and financial basis alongside the European Parliament. It would not be a second European parliamentary chamber, just as COSAC was never one for Community Affairs.

Governments have made it clear that they do not wish to give the European Parliament any more powers with respect to ESDP/CSDP (Declaration 14 appended to the Lisbon Treaty). It is therefore only logical to make the most of the existing provisions in favour of national parliaments while at the same time improving cooperation between them and the European Parliament. But cooperation does not mean subordination and national parliamentarians need to ensure that their role in the EU is commensurate with their prerogatives, in particular with respect to providing political guidance and funding for CFSP/CSDP operations.

The European Security and Defence Assembly brings with it many years of expertise. It can make a constructive contribution to the implementation of the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty on interparliamentary cooperation on CSFP/CSDP and is a cost-effective and readily available tool for national parliaments.

Giacomo Santini

The full report can be read on the ESDA website.