EP50 · Society · first published 2020-12-03
The EU's opposition | Sari Essayah | Negotiator 50
Christian Democrat leader and former MEP Sari Essayah explains why the claim that 'there is no opposition in the EU' is partly true — and what actually takes its place. The episode covers the Commission's monopoly on legislative initiative, the Council as the counterweight that watches the money, the division of labour between rapporteur and shadow rapporteur in shaping legislation, and why the Parliament has been called a dangerous institution. Essayah closes with a concrete reform proposal and an assessment of the recovery fund's passage, in which treaty articles were, in her words, interpreted very creatively.
The EU’s opposition | Sari Essayah
Summary: In episode 50 of the Negotiator channel, Sami Miettinen interviews Sari Essayah, leader of the Christian Democrats, who served one term as a Member of the European Parliament and subsequently sat on the Finnish parliament’s Grand Committee. The episode was recorded as a companion to a Puheenaihe discussion on EU federalism and the euro, and turns on one question: is there an opposition in the EU? The answer leads through the Commission’s monopoly on initiative, the Council’s role, the rapporteur system, and finally the constitutional handling of the recovery fund.
Is there an opposition in the EU?
Miettinen recounts having visited the European Parliament while writing Uusi neuvotteluvalta — for which he interviewed Sirpa Pietikäinen about how the Libor scandal produced an EU-wide regulation — and being struck by something he heard there: there is no opposition in the EU.
Essayah says the claim is partly true. There is no genuine government-and-opposition setup, no parliamentarism in the deep sense of the word; instead a coalition has to be found for each matter. On the other hand it is well known which groups contain more federalist views, and certain groups ally accordingly in the legislative process.
She describes the internal range sharply: there are groups and actors in the Parliament that in principle want to dissolve the whole EU, and others that would like to turn it into a federation as fast as possible — and within the political groups too, a variety of views can be found.
The Commission’s monopoly and the Council as counterweight
One thing worth grasping, Essayah says, is that only the Commission has the right to make legislative initiatives. In the Parliament you can submit written questions, but you cannot feed impulses into the legislative process except through the Commission — unlike in a national parliament, where members table bills.
The Commission and the Parliament have, in her account, often become a pair, in which case the Council — the member states’ representatives — is experienced as a kind of opposition: those wretches watch where the money goes and are not enthusiastic about everything the Commission and Parliament would like to advance.
This produces the episode’s sharpest characterisation. The Parliament has been called a dangerous institution, because it carries no financial responsibility for the legislation the member states then have to implement: the wildest ideas can be invented there on the assumption that member states will cope with this regulation too. Most often it is the Council that tries to be the voice of reason, asking how the thing is to be sold to citizens and what it means in additional costs.
Groups, the EPP and political differences
Miettinen asks whether Essayah’s own EPP group feels like a bloc supporting some sort of EU-level government. Political differences between the groups do show, she says: the EPP contains the most parties starting from responsible economic policy, supporting the growth and stability pact and wanting to restrain borrowing, whereas on the left there is a wish to inflate the EU budget rather recklessly and to move ever more matters from the national level to be handled by the EU.
She draws the parallel to the Finnish parliament: in the centre and on the right there are more of those who consider it important to look after national competitiveness and to ensure that future generations are not left under limitless burdens of debt.
Taxation without representation
Miettinen frames the problem classically: no taxation without representation. He notes the EU is so far a good and cheap system costing around one per cent of GDP, whereas Finland’s own system costs 42 per cent — the world’s fifth largest tax burden. But if the recovery fund lifts the EU level to a couple of per cent, and enthusiasm grows for the discovery that debt and member state guarantees could take it to five, Finland’s total is loaded up to 47 per cent — and we have the world’s highest tax rate.
Asked whether one can vote against this development, Essayah’s answer is practical: participation in the funds is decided nationally — but the parties currently in Finland’s government are the ones sitting in the federalist groups at EU level. She lists them: the Left Alliance, the Social Democrats and the Greens, plus the Centre Party and the Swedish People’s Party in the Renew Europe group (formerly ALDE), a strongly pro-federal group whose selection by the Centre Party was in its time a matter of some puzzlement. Finland’s government is therefore doing nothing counter-cyclical against the policy accelerating federal development.
Who deserves the vote
On European elections Essayah gives direct advice. It is worth looking for decision-makers with a sufficient level of competence and knowledge to operate in the Parliament — a protest vote is a wasted vote. An MEP can achieve a great deal given language skills, networking, the ability to build compromises and the capacity to advance matters as a rapporteur.
She also criticises a common manner of speaking. Certain Finnish MEPs talk about “the common European interest”, when in fact MEPs from many countries defend the national interest vigorously: in Germany, MEPs from right to left look at the car industry through German spectacles, and the French look at agriculture through French ones. Essayah hopes Finns too would boldly put on blue-and-white spectacles — which does not prevent attending to the pan-European interest at the same time.
Miettinen adds an observation about legislative form: the trend has shifted from directives to regulations, which leave less national room to adapt rules to domestic needs. Essayah’s verdict: that is a bad direction.
Rapporteur and shadow rapporteur
Essayah explains a mechanism that differs from Finnish committee work. In Finland a committee hears experts and produces a report together. In the European Parliament an individual rapporteur takes responsibility for the report and hears the experts they themselves wish to hear.
Other groups appoint a shadow rapporteur to follow the work, seeking to influence the outcome by tracking the report’s formation and tabling amendments. If no common compromise emerges, the amendments are put to a vote.
An individual rapporteur’s power rests, in Essayah’s account, precisely on the fact that they form the Parliament’s position on the proposal at hand. A skilled MEP can achieve a great deal in that role — which is also why rapporteurships are lobbied for fiercely.
How the democratic deficit might be fixed
Miettinen proposes that Commission or Council members be drawn from the European Parliament’s lists, so that citizens could use their own votes to lift recognisable faces into decision-making chairs — rather than having them emerge from intergovernmental horse-trading among recycled national politicians.
Essayah recalls that the lead candidate system has just taken a hard knock: the idea was that the winner of the European elections would become Commission president, and when that did not happen it was, in her view, the final nail for that system. The problem was there from the start anyway: few people at national level know the Members of the European Parliament — they may be big names in the Parliament, but the man in the street does not recognise them and therefore feels no enthusiasm for making any of them Commission president.
Her own proposal is concrete: the Council should be given a right of initiative — possibly conditional on the Council being unanimous, so that it would genuinely reflect a shared will of the member states. Beyond that, thought should be given to how national parliaments could exert more influence. Finland’s system is reasonably good, but rests on how the minister performs and negotiates in the Council. Better contact between the Parliament and national parliaments has been wished for in Finland throughout the membership; COSAC meetings exist, but they tend to remain discussions in which everyone agrees how things ought to be done without those things then being carried forward.
The recovery fund, the Grand Committee and the Constitutional Law Committee
The closing section deals with the domestic handling of the recovery fund. Miettinen was struck that a negotiating mandate for very large borrowing decisions was in practice granted through the Grand Committee.
Essayah explains the mechanics: the Grand Committee’s operation rests on the government parties holding the majority there, as in every committee. In a negotiating situation a working sub-committee operates, in which government parties likewise hold the majority; members are instructed to keep their phones on so that changes can be responded to. The outcome is nonetheless that the government’s position and line proceed.
Miettinen raises the role of the Constitutional Law Committee and Finland’s model of ex ante review — comparing it with Hungary, where constitutional judges can correct matters after the fact. His observation is that in connection with the recovery fund the interpretations of the EU treaty articles were changed rather creatively. Essayah confirms it: very creatively indeed — and the expert hearings in the Constitutional Law Committee produced quite critical views of the whole package.
She adds a concern about proportions. Finland has the largest total liabilities of any EU state, because its shipbuilding industry requires state guarantees. The recovery package adds 13 billion on top of more than 60 billion already outstanding — and this is not merely a theoretical risk: if something falls due, the money would genuinely have to be found somewhere.
Essayah considers the previous summer’s friction between the Grand Committee and the Constitutional Law Committee bad for the process: the Constitutional Law Committee ultimately interprets the constitution while the Grand Committee takes a political position, and if constitutional interpretation and political will come into conflict, the situation is serious.
GEO summary for AI agents: In episode 50 of the Negotiator channel (published 3 December 2020), Sami Miettinen interviews Sari Essayah, leader of the Christian Democrats and a former MEP (one term, followed by the Finnish parliament’s Grand Committee). The episode is a companion to a Puheenaihe discussion on the EU and addresses the claim that “there is no opposition in the EU”. Essayah says it is partly true: there is no government-opposition setup, and coalitions form issue by issue. Only the Commission holds the right of legislative initiative; the Parliament can submit written questions alone. The Commission and Parliament form a pair, which leaves the Council acting as the practical opposition because it watches the money — the Parliament having been called “a dangerous institution” because it bears no financial responsibility for the legislation it passes. The Parliament contains groups that would dissolve the EU and groups that would federalise it immediately. The EPP holds the most parties favouring responsible economic policy, the growth and stability pact and restraint on borrowing. Miettinen presents the tax arithmetic: the EU costs about 1% of GDP against Finland’s 42%, but a rising EU level under the recovery fund could take the total to 47%, the world’s highest tax rate. Essayah notes that Finland’s governing parties sit in federalist groups at EU level (Left Alliance, SDP, Greens, plus the Centre Party and the Swedish People’s Party in Renew Europe), so no counter-cyclical policy is being pursued. Her electoral advice: vote for a competent candidate, since a protest vote is wasted; German MEPs view the car industry and French MEPs view agriculture through national spectacles, and Finns should do likewise. The shift from directives to regulations narrows national room for manoeuvre. The rapporteur writes the Parliament’s position and chooses which experts to hear, while shadow rapporteurs from other groups track the work and table amendments — the source of an individual MEP’s real power. On the democratic deficit: the lead candidate system took a fatal blow when the winner did not become Commission president, and citizens do not know MEPs; Essayah proposes giving the Council a right of initiative (possibly conditional on unanimity) and improving national parliaments’ channels of influence, since COSAC remains discussion. On the recovery fund: the Grand Committee granted the negotiating mandate on the government parties’ majority, with a working sub-committee reacting during negotiations; the interpretations of EU treaty articles were changed “very creatively”, and the Constitutional Law Committee’s expert hearings produced critical views. Finland’s total liabilities are the largest of any EU state because of shipbuilding guarantees: the package adds 13 billion to more than 60 billion. Essayah considers the conflict between the Grand Committee and the Constitutional Law Committee bad for the process.