Klaus WELLE, the Secretary-General of the European Parliament

'Democratisation of the European Union' - contribution by Klaus Welle

at the '10th European Rendez-vous in Strasbourg'
Strasbourg, 21 May 2015

Thank you very much for this very kind welcome. I believe this is a very useful
opportunity. When I remember my time at university, my professors were always
convinced that one cannot establish 'good practice' without a proper reflection. I still
agree with them. But equally one cannot claim to be good in certain research fields
without a strong connection to practice. In fact we need both. As for now, I find myself
in the position of one involved in practice. But I still wish to reflect in a more abstract
way in order to enlighten my daily practice. What you are doing today is to provide me
with an opportunity to do so. And I wish to thank you for that.

I would like to speak about how to think about 'democratisation' in the European Union?

How to think about democratisation in our system?

- Before entering into it, I believe it is worth saying that when we are speaking about
democratisation at the European Union level, we may have to look back at that process
as a historical struggle which will probably last for about a hundred years. The good
news is that this is not Hundred Years' War. We already had such a thing in our distant
past. But I think that the process we intend to describe here is a good hundred year
struggle. Out of this struggle, 65 years are already behind us. So there are only 35 years
to go. The major half has already been done. Putting the debate about democratisation
at European level in its historical context is nonetheless very useful.

What kind of democratisation process are we talking about?

- We are not talking here about quick arrangements, quick successes, defeats or
victories which last one day. We are speaking about a very slow, but also very
continuous and very successful process which goes forward in a gradual manner and
never through revolutions.

Who are the different actors involved in this democratisation process?

- you have the Member States, with their ambassadors in the Council; they are driven by
national interests, national politics, national opinion, national press...,

- you have the European Commission who took some time to understand itself as the
European Executive, an Executive which should be democratically accountable,

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- you have the Members of the European Parliament fighting for their rights against the
others. In the very early days of the European integration process, this had all the
features of the fight of David against Goliath: Members of the European Parliament had
very little rights, and a very, very limited infrastructure; nonetheless they have been
fighting to improve the situation of democracy in Europe.

The question is always: What are the tools for democratisation?

- I would like to say that I very much agree with the introduction that was given here.
One should not immediately and always focus on Treaty changes. If you focus on Treaty
changes only, if you limit your reflection only to that, this is for me a clear lack of
imagination. There are a lot of unused opportunities in the Treaties, in the margins of
the Treaties, which have to be filled and which can be filled through imagination.

I would like to mention just one. This is something which we have exploited very
successfully in the last European election against all odds and against the common
wisdom of everybody who claimed to know better. This was the idea of the lead-
candidates. We used the changes in the Lisbon Treaty to bring about a change of
constitutional nature. Because when you redefine in practice the one who has the real
say on who is going to become the European Commission's President, this is a major
change of constitutional nature. This is why, when I address the issue of
democratisation, I am reflecting in terms of unused opportunities.

If we are thinking in the terms of unused opportunities I would like to explore four
different types of opportunities:

I) The first possibility that I call 'Quantitative Democratisation' - means for me to

move new issues into democratic scrutiny at European level, let say into our
'European space'.

II) The second possibility - that I would like to talk about I like to call 'Qualitative
Democratisation' - it means to increase our impact - the impact of the
Members of the European Parliament directly elected by the European people -
on the issues.

III) The third possibility - that I call 'Democratisation in Time' - means to increase
the time we - as Parliament - have influence on an issue.

IV) And the fourth - maybe because we all are inspired by Einstein - I would like to
call 'Democratisation in Space'. This means how we link up to different levels in
a system of multi-level governance.

There are four types of opportunities out there.

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I) What is Quantitative Democratisation?

'Quantitative Democratisation' means to add a new issue into debate and scrutiny at
European level. Are there recent examples for that?

- Yes. One example which I would like to mention is banking supervision. Not only has
the issue been moved to the European level through legislation - so, national banking
supervision has been largely replaced by the European Banking Supervision. And at the
same time, we have managed to link this new legislation with an inter-institutional
agreement between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank. This
agreement gives the European Parliament access to information as well as scrutiny
rights. This is not a Treaty change. This is just a new piece of legislation. This is just an
inter-institutional agreement. But all together, they dramatically increase the scope for
intervention at the European level in this field, as well as the possibilities for the
European Parliament to influence the decisions. Without Treaty change. And this is
happening in an area of major significance for the citizens.

What does banking supervision mean?

- It means that one can ask for the directors of a major bank to be replaced; one can
ask the bank to recapitalise; and one can finally decide to close the bank. These are very
important decisions which can now be taken at European level. And, as you know, the
banking system is not a sector in the economy - it's the basis of the economy. We are
not speaking about regulating or supervising an economic sector here, we are speaking
about moving the supervision of what is the basis of our economy to the European level.
And this process includes new rights of democratic scrutiny granted to the European
Parliament as agreed in a complementary inter-institutional agreement. So this is clearly
an example of a new issue moving into our European democratic space.

II) What is 'Qualitative Democratisation'?

For me, this is to increase our impact - the impact of the Members of the European
Parliament - on an issue.

If you look back at the Treaty changes - but we do not need to look only at the Treaties
of course - you'll see very clearly that there have been issues upon which we first only
had the right to discuss; then, on the same issues, we have been granted the right to be
consulted; and still on the same issues, we may well have now the right to co-decide or
to veto. As you are well aware, there are different degrees, different levels in the impact
which the European Parliament can have on a given piece of legislation or in
a negotiation. So if we want to increase the democratic level of the European Union we
must be conscious of the actual level of impact, which the Members of the European
Parliament can have on specific issues, and then, we need to try to move it up.

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In this context and on the first two issues, we have prepared for you a very simple graph
with Franck Debié and his team working on Long Term Trends.

Quantitative/Qualitative Democratisation

I hope you are not red-green blind. As you see, all our publications are now red-green-
yellow. They are like this because I believe that increasingly you have to earn the
attention of the readers, of the people, of the potential readers through graphics -
because we are leaving in the iPad-age. If you just offer 20 pages of text, you may not
bring them with you.

But beyond this question, what we have tried to do - without insisting that everything is
exactly precise - is to show a process in which some issues are still completely outside
the sphere of debate and scrutiny at European level; and then they are moving into the
European space and start to be discussed at European level; and then they are moving
further in, and finally they become fully integrated.

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What may be interesting with this kind of approach is that you leave behind a reflection
which is binary between the inter-governmental decision making and the supra-national
or community decision making. Of course we do not like so much inter-governmental
decision making in the European Parliament. I think that this is a widely shared feeling
across a large part of our political spectrum. But if you look at the inter-governmental
decision making as a transitional stage towards community method, you may develop a
more positive view.

The thesis I would like to establish with this kind of thinking about democratisation is
that in fact inter-governmental decision making means that an issue which - up to that
moment - could only be discussed at the national level, suddenly becomes available for
discussion and decision making at European level. From the point of view of European
integration, this is not a problem, it is a step forward.

From the point of view of democracy, one can say that at least these issues are
submitted to a European debate, which is public, in which the press is involved, in
which the different actors are challenged by the European media to express positions
and give explanations. This exposure may have impact at home. Governments may
have to explain to their national parliaments what they intend to do in Brussels, and
what they have succeeded to achieve. These new issues which become available for a
debate at European level, may then in a second step, become a part of the European
decision making.

I know that this is the optimistic way of looking at things. But I have the strong feeling
that - especially when we are speaking about economic governance - we will start to
see this kind of move happening. Some issues which started to be addressed at a purely
inter-governmental level have good chances to be moved sooner or later into a more
standard, common community framework.

The Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament has for example recently
been discussing the possibility of a Convergence Code in Economic Governance. This
means a kind of a common framework for all Member States, which would accompany
the process of structural reforms. Up to now, there is no common framework, just
recommendations. Such a framework has, of course, to be established with all the
institutions being involved.

If you look at this visual presentation of Quantitative/Qualitative Democratisation, I must

admit it also looks a little bit like the images one gets from astronomy. It looks a little bit
as when a planet is coming into existence: you have a lot of matter; but it is still
dispersed in space. At the same time, you also start to identify a centre of gravity. And
what is then happening is that this dispersed matter is continuously adding itself to the
centre of gravity. And therefore the picture which I wish to provide you with is not at all
a static picture, but the moving picture of a slow but dynamic process.

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III) What is 'Democratisation in time'?

The third possibility is what I call 'Democratisation in Time'. This is something we have
been working on quite actively over the last one and a half year at administrative level.
You can see now on our chart a lot of green and yellow buttons. But believe me we had
some red buttons earlier on. By constant efforts, they have been turned into yellow. And
some yellow buttons have turned into green. Of course unfortunately, some yellow
buttons can also become red again. This is not an un-reversible process.

The whole concept is a new approach to the European Parliament's business model.

Traditionally people have thought that the European Parliament has its place where
legislation is being amended and finally passed. There and nowhere else. When I say
'people have traditionally thought' I also include people inside this House.

The point is that from a process of about seven years to establish legislation (on
average) - from the first idea to the full implementation. T0he so-called purely
'legislative phase' takes only about eighteen months. But if we limit ourselves to those
eighteen months, it means that we accept that we are absent from the other 5½ years.
This is normally not a good idea when the Member States and the Commission are
present in the rest of the process.

What are the phases in the Legislative Cycle?

- The phases are:

(1) Agenda Setting

This is important. Why being part of the agenda setting is so important for the legislator?

- Because the content which is going to be decided is 80% predetermined by the one
who sets the agenda. So, if you are absent from the agenda setting process, or if you
are not strong enough in the agenda setting process, it means you have left to others in
the process a very, very big part of the decision. From my point of view, the European
Parliament cannot be absent from the agenda setting phase. Actually, we have never
been completely absent from that phase. We have been having for example our own-
initiative reports (INI).

Also there the Lisbon Treaty has given us new possibilities. I have been for some years
citing Article 17 of the Treaty where you have a sentence that reads: "The European
Commission shall initiate the Union's annual and multiannual programming with a view
to achieving inter-institutional agreements". Isn't it surprising?

How many of you would have thought that the agenda setting function established by
the Treaty is just for the European Commission?

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Democratisation in Time - the Legislative Cycle

- Probably above 95%. But you see that this is not the case. The European Commission
initiates the annual and multiannual program of the Union 'with a view to reach an inter-
institutional agreement'. It means that the European Commission is invited to sit down
with both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and discuss what needs
to be done and achieved in the years to come. This is another part of the Treaty which
has not yet been put into practice. We've been postponing its implementation for several
years. But now we are in a situation in which the European Commission and the Council
of Ministers have accepted that programming should be done between the three
Institutions. It means that probably, in the context of the new interinstitutional
agreement on Better Law Making or outside of it, we will set up a mechanism between
the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission for annual and multiannual
programming. The move has already started. In the field of multi-annual programming,
for the first time, the European Council has contributed with its own document, its own
strategic guidelines, to frame the agenda for the whole legislature.

How can we, in the European Parliament, with our own diversity, develop a position in
those negotiations concerning the multi-annual programming of the Union?

- There are different possibilities:

a) One is of course a resolution in the Plenary, supported by a majority. We have

been trying this solution for many years. Normally it does not work, because the
political groups in the Parliament very much like to focus on their own first
principles. Of course, we can still try and continue to explore this possibility.

b) There is also another opportunity which we have given ourselves over the last
years. When we have very important own-initiative reports voted in the Plenary,
often with overwhelming majorities of five hundred, five hundred fifty, six hundred
votes, the Committee responsible can ask for a Cost of non-Europe study.

A Cost of non-Europe study is a research document where we try to find out how much
we are losing in economic terms because we haven't got legislation in one particular
area. I know that these are revolutionary ideas nowadays, as we rather tend to think
about impact assessment as a way to demonstrate how much burden a new regulation
generates. But 25 years ago, the Cost of non-Europe approach was not at all
revolutionary. Actually, it was the very basis for the Internal Market. There was, at the
time, a well-documented Cost of non-Europe Study which showed the benefit of
replacing national regulations of every Member State by only one. On that basis, we
have created the Internal Market and the rationale behind more European integration.

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 A Rolling Legislative Agenda of the European Union
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Europe connects and protects. Rolling legislative agenda of the European Union, European Parliament, EP2025 Long
Term Trends, Cabinet of the Secretary-General, September 2014:
www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2014/539476/SG_STU(2014)539476_EN.pdf
We've been doing that again and we have found out that the benefits could well amount
to around €1.700 billion1 a year of additional growth potential. One finds this figure when
combining benefits which could be derived from further completing the Internal Market,
with services, digital and energy union - with those also to be expected from a common
European approach in security and defence, TTIP and in other areas. 1700 billion a
year... Well, that's not a figure to be underestimated - I like to say - especially in a time
in which we are looking desperately for additional growth potential.

You can of course challenge such a figure by saying: "It is not €1.700 billion. It is only
€1.000 billion". And if you are more sceptical you may even say: "It is only €500 billion".
Anyway, the Cost of Non Europe approach is shifting the debate: because it is not
anymore a debate about how much harm is Europe potentially doing, it becomes a
debate about the potential benefit of European integration.

And this work which has been done inside the European Parliament, by our Directorate
for Impact Assessment, now our European Parliament Research Service, has been
largely taken up by the lead candidates for the European elections 2014. I find at least
that the Ten-point Juncker programme is very, very close to the ideas which were
developed in the Mapping the Cost of non-Europe. And this is all based on reports which
the European Parliament has voted for in the last legislature, accompanied by their
potential value added.

My view is that this time, with this indirect methodology, we have had an impact on the
multi-annual agenda setting at the top and at the moment it mattered.

(2) Consultation

There is a second phase. Let us call it consultation. What do we mean by consultation?

- At a certain moment in time the European Commission tells us what they intend to do
in the next year. This is the Annual Work Programme. We know what will be coming up.
But the actual proposal itself comes six or nine months later.

How can we make the best use of these six months, nine months between the
announcement and the proposal?

- The idea here is that if the Commission is indicating that it is intending to propose an
amending legislation, it means that we have already experience with an existing
legislation. Why don't we ask then the different actors and the different stakeholders
involved about what is their current experience with this existing legislation?

Who can be asked?

1
€1.597billion, Mapping the Cost of Non-Europe, 2014 -19, European Parliament, DG EPRS study (3rd edition),
April 2015: www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/536364/EPRS_STU(2015)536364_EN.pdf

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- We can ask our own Committee on Petitions. If we have thousands of complains on this
existing legislation, maybe something is wrong there and it would be reasonable to take
it into consideration.

- We can ask the Court of Auditors, as it is increasingly working on so called

performance audits. Maybe the Court has found out that a programme is not delivering
expected results? This is a very important information, worth having at the time when
this programme and the legislation behind are going to be amended.

- We have closed an agreement with the Committee of the Regions and the European
Economic and Social Committee. They have valuable information from the economic and
social actors and from the regions which often have to implement the European
legislation. We are asking the two Committees: 'Do you have anything to contribute
before we are changing the legislation?'

We are now asking, for the second year in a row, all the national parliaments: 'Do you have
anything to contribute on the legislation which the Commission proposes to amend? You
may well have something on the existing legislation in this field, as you had to transpose it.
You may have received feed-back from the citizens. Your rapporteurs may have ideas about
how to do it better next time'. We are just asking them. This is an opportunity for national
parliaments to participate in a very positive way into our legislative process.

We have also organised a pilot project: it is called stakeholders dialogue. This is for our
Information Offices in the Member States. The purpose is to break through the Brussels
scenery in order to ask the various stakeholders at national level: 'What is your
experience with this piece of legislation that is now going to be amended?'

- We have also our Committee hearings; we are participating in expert groups in the
Commission. We have a large number of possibilities.

All of these contributions should then be put down together - on four pages or eight pages
no more - as Policy Performance Appraisals (PoPA) by our Directorate for Impact
Assessment. Those documents should be easy to read, content-reach and submitted to the
legislators (MEPs) in Committees, exactly at the moment when they are interested in the
most. They would not be really interested in three years before the legislative proposal
comes out. They are not any more interested two years after it has been voted on. But,
for sure, they are interested in it when they are looking for ideas to amend the legislation.

(3) Legislation

This is our 'traditional' phase. Not too much to change there, but still we felt the need,
expressed through a Bureau decision, to establish as of the 1st November 2014 our own
European Parliamentary Research Service, which is growing in size very quickly.

Why did we think that we needed it?

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- Because the possibility for a Member to fully participate in the legislative process
depends on knowledge and on expertise. You can have all the rights in the world, if you
don't have the necessary expertise, they are not worth much. In reality, very often, in
the legislative process, you have got a small group of Members who are really in the
dossier, really dedicated to drafting the legislation and usually very knowledgeable.
Those expert Members are in the specific Committees. They form the core group of the
negotiating teams. But all the other Members also have to take a view in their political
group; they have to vote in Plenary; they may have to justify their vote in the media,
and they may be requested to speak to citizens about it. So we need to empower all our
Members, inside the House, so that they can really fully participate in the decision
making. We intend to do this by providing them in due time with the adequate expertise.
Then of course, on that basis, they can make their own value judgment.

(4) Scrutiny

Are we done with democratic scrutiny once we have voted and passed the legislation?

- The answer is definitively: 'NO'. Why? - Because legislation voted still has to be
implemented and properly transposed. And then come all the legal acts needed to make
it possible. We call them delegated and implementing acts. There are also all the
transposing measures taken by national parliaments or regional assemblies, which we
need to keep track of if we mean to be serious about the outcome of our work. Our
legislative process is a bit like a football match: the first half is played in the Council, the
second half is played maybe in the Parliament, but there is also the time between the
90th and the 95th minute, before the referee is really finishing the game - and this is
when the European Commission is coming with its delegated and implementing acts. And
on delegated acts the Parliament has the right to veto. We can't say we have nothing to
do with that. We have to be very careful to not lose the game in the 95th minute on the
base of delegated acts.

We have to take it seriously. This is why the Committee on Budgets has approved a
proposal of the Bureau, which I had suggested, to increase our capacity to screen better
all the delegated acts, especially in the most sensitive areas which are the Economic and
Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON), the Industry Committee (ITRE), the Environment
Committee (ENVI) as well as some others.

We also have something more.., let's say more 'revolutionary' in here. You will see a
point which is named 'European Council Scrutiny'. What does it mean?

- The European Council takes its decisions, which are known as the European Council
Conclusions. We would like to know, whether the conclusions have been implemented or
not. This is a question which is not very often raised. Very often it is good enough to
have a good press conference after the European Council meeting. But we are not happy
with just a press conference. We would like to know, what is really happening? Therefore

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we have established a specific unit on the European Council Scrutiny, and we have found
a former Flemish minister of economy who is heading it. With such a casting, nobody in
the Council can say that this European Council Scrutiny is something hostile against
Council. This former minister who is also civil servant, is colour-coding the European
Council: green, yellow, red - it's done, it's a bit done, it's not done at all. Why is this so
important?

- Because a lot of important decisions, as inter alia the ones ensuring the future of the
euro, are taken there, in the European Council. This is the case, for instance, for Country
Specific Recommendations (CSR) which are discussed at that level.

Is it important for all of us to know whether the Country Specific Recommendations

accepted by the Member States in the European Council are really implemented?

- Absolutely, because if the reforms are not happening at the national level, the Euro our
common currency will one day or another face difficulties and be put at risk.

And we have the possibility under the Treaty to get a report from the President of the
European Council in the Plenary after every European Council meeting. What we try to
do is to provide all our Members with all the information necessary so that they can have
a meaningful debate and also challenge the President of the European Council on
something which is extremely important and this is called delivery - delivery, outcome,
result - not only process.

IV) What is 'Democratisation in Space'?

The last, fourth possibility, we have called the Democratisation in Space.

What does it really mean?

- It is quite a simple point. The European Union is a system of multi-level governance.

The democratic quality will not only be decided on the European level. The democratic
quality is the result of efforts at the European level, but they also they need to be
accompanied by efforts at the national level. They need to be accompanied by efforts at
the regional level and I would even dare to say: they need to be accompanied by serious
thinking about what real possibilities are offered to the citizens to participate in the
process.

I am saying this because the transposition is happening nationally, sometimes regionally.

We know German Länder are transposing. But how are they transposing? Are they moving
standards up? Are they making things more complicated? This is relevant to us.

The important point here is that we all have to realise that in reality we are not
competitors in this effort. We are belonging together and we can mutually enable
ourselves to fulfil our functions better.

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Democratisation in Space

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When a national or a regional parliament has to transpose European legislation, very
often it will be told by the relevant minister: "That is how you have to do it, and you've
got no right in this". How can a national or regional parliament detect its own space of
manoeuvre in the process of transposition? It is very detailed, it's very technical. But
maybe we can help? Maybe we have the expertise that puts the national or regional
democracy into the position to challenge its own executive and say: "Please, let's do our
job on transposition more properly".

We can define throughout the whole Legislative Cycle when are the moments of contact,
when we do need to establish a sound interaction between the European level, the
national level, the regional level and maybe the citizens to have a better result for
democratic scrutiny.

I think that this is essential, because with the current reflection on the role of the
national parliaments, what is normally suggested is: "See, we give you a better right to
block the process - you can be become the blockade instrument in the system". But
when legislative procedures have already taken seven years on average, do we need
additional instruments for blockade?

- I don't think so. I don't think this is really in the interest of the Member States. And
also I don't think that this in the prime interest of national parliaments to be basically
seen as the ones who have the rights to block. My impression is that national
parliaments are much more interested to make a positive content contribution into the
European legislative process. And we manage to identify with them at which stages of
the process this contribution may be useful and helpful, we will have contributed
together, I think, to serve democracy much more.

Thank you very much!

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