2. The government of europe: a prototype

The EU’s organizational structure is extremely complex, but a brief look at it is important to illustrate the extent to which a regional government has been created. As with all governments, the structure and the authority of the various EU units play an important part in determining how policy is made and which policies are adopted. Figure 9.2 gives a brief overview of this structure. The EU’s government can be divided for analysis into the political leadership, the bureaucracy, the legislature, and the judiciary.

Political Leadership

Political decision making occurs within the Council of the European Union, usually called the Council of Ministers. The council meets twice a year as a gathering of the prime ministers and other heads of government and decides on the most important policy directions for the EU. The council meets more often with lesser ministers (often finance ministers) in attendance to supplement the prime ministerial meetings. Most sessions are held in Brussels, Belgium, which is the principal site of the EU administrative element. Decisions are made by a weighted-vote plan (termed "qualified majority voting"). Under this plan the larger EU countries have more votes on some matters. There are a total of 87 votes, with each country’s allocation ranging from 10 votes for France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy to 2 votes for Luxembourg. Unanimity is often required, but 62 of the 87 votes are sometimes sufficient to make policy.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy in the EU is organized within the European Commission. The 20-member commission administers policy adopted by the council. Individual commissioners are selected from the member-states on the basis of two each from France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain and one commissioner from each of the other members. The commissioners are not, however, supposed to represent the viewpoint of their country. They serve five-year terms and act as a cabinet for the EU, with each commissioner overseeing an area of administrative activity. One of the commissioners is selected by the Council of Europe to be the commission president.

This official serves as the EU’s administrative head and is the overall director of the EU bureaucracy headquartered in Brussels.

The post of President of the Commission has evolved into one of the most significant in the EU, arguably something like a president of the European Union A great deal of that evolution can also be attributed to Jacques Delors, a French national who served as president from 1983 through 1994 and who became known as "Mr. Europe" because of his strong advocacy of European integration. Delors and his staff created a core structure, informally referred to as "Eurocracy," which has a European point of view, rather than a national orientation

Delors’s aggressive stance caused a negative reaction m some countries, and when he stepped down the British and some others pressed for the election of a president who would be more restrained. This led the Council of Europe to choose Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Jacques Santer, who took a lower profile than did Delors. Santer’s successor, Romano Prodi of Italy, has followed suit. Nevertheless, the size and power of the EU bureaucracy mean that anyone serving as its president will be a person of significant influence.

Yet another indication of the importance of the commission, as well as the political integration of Europe, is the emergence of an ever larger, more active, and more powerful EU infrastructure. The EU"s administrative staff has almost quintupled since 1970 to about 29,000 today. The number of EU regulations, decisions, and directives from one or the other EU body has risen from an annual 345 in 1970 to over 600. The EU’s 2002 budget is about $86 billion, raised from tariff revenues, from contributions based on each member’s gross domestic product, and from part of each member’s VAT.

Legislative Branch

The European Parliament (EP) serves as the EU’s legislative branch and meets in Strasbourg, France. It has 626 members, apportioned among the EU countries on a modified population basis and elected to five-year terms. The most populous country (Germany) has 99 seats; the least populous country (Luxembourg) has 6 seats. Unlike most international congresses, such as the UN General Assembly, the EP’s members are elected by voters in their respective countries. Furthermore, instead of organizing themselves within the EP by country, the representatives have tended to group themselves by political persuasion. The 1999 elections, for example, resulted in the moderately conservative coalition, called the European People’s Party (EPP), winning 223 seats and the moderately liberal coalition, the Socialist Party of Europe (SPE), winning 179 seats. It was the first time in the EU’s history that the EPP had gained more seats than the SPE. The remaining seats were scattered among seven identifiable groupings of legislators and a few dozen unaffiliated members.

The EP has had mostly advisory authority, but it is struggling to carve out a more authoritative role. That goal was advanced under the Treaty of Amsterdam, which extends the EP’s "co-decision" authority with the Council of Ministers to a greater number of matters. The EP can also veto some regulations issued by the commission and it confirms the President of the Commission. A key power, albeit one that is so far little used, is the EP’s ability to accept or reject the EU budget proposed by the commission.

Judicial Branch

The Court of Justice is the main element of the judicial branch of the EU. The 15-member court hears cases brought to it by member-states or other EU institutions and sometimes acts as a court of appeals for decisions of lower EU courts. The combined treaties of the EU are often considered its "constitution." Like the EU’s other institutions, the courts have gained authority over time. In one illustrative case, the Court of Justice ruled that certain VAT exemptions in Great Britain violated EU treaties and would have to be eliminated. The ruling prompted some members of the British Parliament to grumble that it was the first time since Charles I’s reign (1625-1649) that the House of Commons had been compelled to raise taxes. Another bit of evidence of the mounting influence of the court is that us workload became so heavy that the EU created a new, lower court, the Court of First Instance, which hears cases related to the EU brought by corporations and individuals.