Counter to what a lot of academics, media, politicians and conspiracy theorists would have us believe, I would argue that European Union politics is very open, accessible and transparent. True, the sheer complexity of the process makes it very difficult to follow, but at the end of the day, if you have the time, resources and energy you can monitor and influence EU policy.
Having said
this, there are parts of European lawmaking which are murkier, shadier and
less easy to follow. They are what I call the shadier parts of the EU process;
moments where there are no camera's, meeting-minutes, rapports or public access.
They are not only troublesome because there is no possibility for public
scrutiny, but also because of the limited access for Public Affairs professionals .
Roll-call votes at
committees
Parliamentary
Committees are a crucial part of the EU decision process. They compose experts
and coordinators of the various political families and their votes are used for
group whipping. It is all the more strange that votes in Parliamentary
committees are not subject to roll-call. Meaning that after the voting has taken place there
isn't a registration showing who exactly voted in which way. An effort by the British MEP
Andrew Duff to change this was rejected by the EP constitutional affairs
committee. Some MEP's argued that it would be technically difficult to
implement, which of course is baloney.
First Reading
Trialogues
Rules 70 of the
European Parliament allows Committees and Committee members to negotiate with
Council before a proposal goes to vote (either in committee or plenary). The
members negotiating with Council have to -in principle- take a decision by
a majority of its members and adopt a mandate on the poltical orientations and priorities.
However in practice negotiations take place in various forms, both formally and
informally. In Brussels, everybody talks to everybody. As a consequence
more and more proposals are being adopted in first reading. This avoids lengthy
legislative processes, however it makes it much more difficult to monitor and
scrutinize whats going on.
Delegated acts
When a law is
adopted there will still be a need for some decision making in the
implementation phase. For example when a law on prohibited substances is made
there still the necessity to draw up a list of substances or products. Because it would be
silly to open up legislation and go through the whole co-decision process
again, decision-makings-powers can be delegated to the European Commission.
This used to be called Comitology, but after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty
it is now called "Delegated Acts". Whatever the name, it boils down
to the Commission making decisions without consulting Parliament or Council. It
has been criticized for opening up the back-door for ambiguous decisions.
Lisbon has made it a bit more transparent because Council and Parliament have
to agree upfront till wha extent they will allow Commission to decide, and moreover they
can actually block decisions made under "Delegated Acts."
In Camera
meetings
The Rules of
Procedure state that hearings and testimony in the European Parliament shall
take place in public. However, proceedings can take place in camera if this is
requested by one quarter of the members of the committee of inquiry, or by the
Community or national authorities, or where the temporary committee of inquiry
is considering secret information. In practice In Camera meetings have been called on
different occasions while the reason for doing so wasn't always clear.
Moreover, the European Parliament never disclosed which members actually called
for the meeting to be behind closed doors.