The State of the European Union 2017

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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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And we will also take into account the political
and democratic challenges our Union of 27 will
be facing in the future. And of course, the
European Parliament will be closely involved in
this process, as will national Parliaments. But a
vision alone will not suffice. What our citizens
need much more is that someone governs. That
someone responds to the challenges of our time”.
The implicit meaning of the last sentence
could be interpreted like this: While the “outline
of a vision of the future” has still to be given
content (it is, in theory the goal of the White
Paper in March), the expression “what our citi-
zens need is that someone governs” certainly
has been given content, in the short term. It is
the so-called “Bratislava roadmap”,4 adopted
by the European Council in September.
There is the possibility, then, that the “out-
line of a vision of the future” will boil down to
a timetable in the Bratislava roadmap.
We will have to go back to the matter in
more detail once the Commission’s White Paper
is published.
The persistence of the Commission’s
low profile in its role as the promoter of
political debate
The Commission’s work programme for 2017
demonstrates the weakness of the current insti-
tutional line on European governance. From
that point of view, it offers little in the way of
hope of a revival of the role as a promoter of
debate on political union that the Commission
took on in the past, for the sake of the general
interest of the Union.
4
9/47244647412_es.pdf.
The essential content of the programme is
made up of the so-called “Ten political priori-
ties”. Only the last one refers to improvements
under way in aspects of European governance,
but not to innovations that correspond to an
ambitious vision of the future. Indeed, the prior-
ity amounts to no more than a suggestive idea
(“a Union of democratic change”), but its devel-
opment is somewhat disappointing:
“A Union of democratic change […] Better
regulation, accountability and transparency
continue to be the core business model of this
Commission and all EU institutions need to ap-
ply these principles in a consistent and commit-
ted manner if we want to win back the trust of
our citizens. The Commission will work closely
with the European Parliament and the Council
to ensure that the Interinstitutional Agreement
on Better Law-Making is fully implemented and
applied, and will also engage in constructive ne-
gotiations with both institutions on our recent
proposal for a mandatory Transparency Register
covering the European Parliament, Council and
Commission. The Commission will also bring
forward amendments to the Framework
Agreement with the European Parliament to en-
sure that Members of the Commission can
stand for European Parliament elections.
The Commission will propose legislation to
align existing acts with the Treaty provisions on
delegated and implementing acts, thus phasing
out the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. We
will also assess the democratic legitimacy of ex-
isting procedures for the adoption of delegated
and implementing acts and consider options for
changing existing procedures for the adoption
of certain secondary acts.
To ensure that the EU’s legal instruments
have the intended effect, the Commission in-
tends to step up its efforts on the application,
implementation and enforcement of EU law.