THE RESIGNATION of the European Union's 20-member executive last month, after a damning report criticised several Commissioners, including Jacques Santer, the President of the Commission - over allegations of fraud, nepotism, mismanagement and corruption - represented one of the most severe constitutional crises to face the institution since its inception.
The report was compiled by a commission of five "independent experts" appointed by the European Parliament in a rare challenge to the Commission's powers. The various Parliamentary groups led by the Socialists (by far the largest) had called for the Commissioners to quit and threatened to table a motion of censure if they did not step down. Since then the Commission has been reappointed on a temporary basis, and ex-Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi nominated as the new President of the Commission trol. at a recent crisis meeting in Berlin.
The appointment of Prodi, however, and the some strengtering of the somers di the Ersoea Fariament against those of the Commission which may result from this affair, will not resolve the problem, which is rooted in the institutions of the EU itself.
The project of the EU is to construct a European super- illusion. state with enough economic muscle and centralised political control to challenge the into the system. might of North America and the United States. worse all the time. Right from the outset this has had a lack of democracy at the core of it, a factor which has been known as the "democratic deficit". The EU has been constructed as a top-down institution, which can function without any real pressure from below. Currency.
Toothless This means not only having a toothless European Parliament - with the real power in the unelected European Commission and the Council of Ministers - but it also so low. means having an unelected European Central Bank which can equally act outside of any democratic conIt means strengthening big business and the multi national corporations who have nothing to do with serocay and wart noting to do with it. are to be tackled. Such a system is custommade for corruption. The idea that the appointment of Prodi and the culling of a few commissioners will change the situation is an The lack of democratic accountability builds under the German presidency. the possibility of corruption And the situation is getting The Single European Act of the mid1980s, the Maastricht Treaty of the early 1990s and the Amsterdam Treaty all increased to powers of the institutions of the EU over standard of living. The member crates. not least through the introduction of the Single European power. * Opposition to compulsory Not one of those Treaties, part-time work, child labour, however increased the and social dumping. democratic control over * Opposition to the enrichthose institutions by the populations of those coun impoverishment of the major- ment ot the minority ano tne tries. No wonder the tumit Yes to the redistribution of out in European elections is wealth. But it is not just to stop * Opposition to all forms of corruption that democracy is exclusion and discrimination, indispensable. It is indispensincluding those based on genable if the social conditions created and exacerbated by of asylum for the persecuted. European capital - 20 million * Defend the welfare state. unemployed, 50 million Yes to social rights in all areas below the poverty line, job (housing, education, health insecurity and low wages etc.) with the necessary fundand the scourge of racism -COLLOR