The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE DIFFICULT ROAD TOWARDS A NECESSARY EUROPEAN FEDERAL UNION 63 who they vote for, the European Commission, that is to say the government of the Union, is going to be a coalition of all the parties that have some power in Europe. Even though their vote may have gone to the majority choice, it may be that the Commissioner who has most influence on their activity is of an opposing po- litical stripe. Moreover, they cannot change them. A Polish citizen cannot vote for the Lithuanian government and therefore cannot prevent there being a Commissioner from the Social Democratic Party in charge of the Community health portfolio. In fact, the European voter has no alternative; they cannot choose between different European policies, because the European Commission always takes in almost the entire political spectrum. Consequently, if they do not agree with what is being done, their only opportunity to express their rejection is to vote for marginal or minority parties, which are usual populist and anti-Euro- pean, or abstain. The upshot is that the EU is confused with certain transitory policies and voters think that if they reject them, they should also reject it. The independence of the European Commission stems from the fact that, after the required consultations, the European Council appoints as candidate for president a person who can secure a majority in the European Parliament, as has been happening since the previous elections, preferably a top of the ticket in the elections to the European Parliament. We reject the widely debated idea of merging the posts of president of the European Council and president of the European Commission into one single figure – in line too with the Spinelli Group’s s view –, as it would produce an unde- sirable merging of the intergovernmental and community spheres, which should be clearly separate, and of different levels of decision. Moreover, it would be very detrimental to the independence of the European Commission, which in practice could become an appendage of the European Council. The most important thing is that – once the European Parliament is sworn in – the president can freely choose the commissioners, who could be no more than 18, without receiving any pro- posals from the member states. In other words, using exclusively technical and political criteria, though, of course, they must respect certain territorial and gender balances, in accordance with their political support, in the same way it is done in any member state. Only in that way will European citizens identify the European Commission with a certain political colour – or a coalition – according to the election results and with a certain set of policies that they will have the option of changing in the following election. The second essential aspect of the European Commission’s independence as a European gov- ernment is that the budget it administers should not come from the budget of the member states, as happens now for the most part. He who pays the piper calls the tune. And he who pays more, has a bigger say. That is the origin of the EU’s democratic limitations. The European Commission answers on how it spends its mon- ey to those who provide it, that is to say, it an- swers to the member states, through its legiti- macy stems from the people. If the budget came from the people, it would answer to them and it would be truly independent of the mem- ber states. To achieve that, it would be neces- sary for the European institutions, that is, the European Commission, taking into account the power of codecision of the European Parliament and the Council, to have the capability to raise direct and indirect taxes at least in a certain per- centage of the budget. That could gradually in-