European Parliament committees: more secret ballots and backroom deals?

EU democracy at work?

The European Parliament has announced the composition of its Committees, with MEP groups hard at work negotiating the final deals to see who will be Chair and Vice-Chair of the different bodies.

These Committees vary in importance, from the powerful ECON and IMCO committees which deal with Economic and Monetary affairs and the single market respectively - to more niche Committees such as the 'Petitions' Committee.

Looking through the lists of MEPs appointed, the first thing that strikes us is that all the Committees are gigantic - the Committee on Foreign Affairs has a ludicrous 71 members (almost 10% of the entire parliament)! It's not immediately clear why this is, but we can't help but wonder if the possibility for significant travel abroad is not a factor. But even the more serious Committees are of an unwieldy size - Trade (also with some travel perks) has 41 members, which is perhaps more justifiable as the EP now has a veto over free trade deals. It is worth remembering that under Parkinson's "coefficient of inefficiency" a committee of more than 20 members is less likely to make good decisions.

Secondly there are some interesting appointments:

• German neo-Nazi MEP Udo Voigt will sit on the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
• AfD leader Bernd Lucke is to be nominated as vice chair of the ECON committee - in charge of monetary union. Combine this with the fact that the Chair is likely to be an Italian Socialist MEP and some eurozone members might be concerned about this committee.

Under the EU's favoured D'Hondt formula, the different groups are allotted committee chairs according to their relative weights. The ECR group for instance, has secured an additional chair due to its increased size; it has gained Security and Defence on top of its existing Internal Market chair.

However nothing is settled in the EP until you have had the mandatory secret ballot. One potential secret upset could be an attempt to deprive the UKIP/M5S EFDD group of it sole Committee chair - the Petitions committee. Under a secret ballot it is entirely possible for the larger groups to block the EFDD group from chairing a committee.Whether or not you agree with their politics, there is no doubt that they are entitled to such a role, and even the Greens have come out saying as much. Another stitch up here would once again expose a lack of democracy and transparency at the heart of the European Parliament - and surely only play into the hands of those who want to leave the EU.

MEPs' great hope for more EU democracy and transparency to be decided by... a secret ballot

Own-goal alert.

When selected as the Socialists' candidate for the European Commission President, Martin Schulz claimed that:

“I want to be the first President of the Commission who is not the result of a backroom deal in a Brussels office."

This is the main argument advanced by supporters of the spitzenkandidaten process (including by the current front-runner, Jean-Claude Juncker) i.e. that having the Commission President nominated by the largest political group within the European Parliament is more transparent and democratic than the previous process whereby EU leaders agreed the Commission President amongst themselves. For the first time, voters would be able to directly determine who would get this crucial post., and be able to hold politicians to account for their choice.

However, when the Parliament itself comes to vote on the appointment, as per its rules of procedure, the vote is held by, wait for it, a secret ballot: 

Rule 105 : Election of the President of the Commission

1. When the European Council proposes a candidate for President of the Commission, the President shall request the candidate to make a statement and present his or her political guidelines to Parliament. The statement shall be followed by a debate.

The European Council shall be invited to take part in the debate.

2. Parliament shall elect the President of the Commission by a majority of its component Members.

The vote shall be taken by secret ballot.

Although this is not a new development - Barroso was confirmed by secret ballot - this time it was supposed to be different. It is hard to stress just how absurd it is for MEPs to decry a "stitch-up" by national leaders and then refuse to allow themselves to be subjected to scrutiny. If the idea is to make the appointment process more transparent and to 'put voters in charge', how can voters hold their MEPs to account when they do not know how they voted? How will - for example - Labour voters know if their MEPs will follow the party line and vote against Juncker should he emerge as the European Council's preferred candidate?

For all the laudable talk about democracy, transparency and accountability, critics will be forgiven for thinking that this is about the European Parliament trying to carve out more power and influence for itself within the EU structure. Yet another reason to drop the spitzenkandidat charade and allow national leaders - who have a much stronger democratic mandate - to make this decision.