Guest post: Why the European Parliament matters, and why you should vote PN tomorrow
Sent in by Matthew S:
I admit it. It has been a terrible electoral campaign. A month has passed and voters are none the wiser about what the European Parliament actually does.
The Labour Party is smug because it knows it’s going to win while the Nationalist Party has fallen for Joseph Muscat’s ruse and been drawn into a Joseph vs. Simon battle. This is a non-starter. Although, unlike Busuttil, Muscat is fat, graceless and bald, Muscat is currently more popular. Not much is going to change that.
What the Nationalist Party should have done instead is explain the role of the European Parliament and why it is necessary to vote for the Nationalist Party tomorrow.
I’ll try to redress the balance.
Most people think that the European Parliament is nothing but a talking shop full of people riding the gravy train to a wonderful retirement. This is NOT the case.
The European Parliament is in fact an extremely powerful body, and under the Lisbon Treaty, it has become more powerful than ever. As much as 90% of what the EU does requires the European Parliament’s approval. It is almost as powerful as the Council of Ministers (the grouping of heads of government) and in some resspects, it is more powerful than national parliaments.
It legislates about finance, economics, environmental regulations, digital rights and health and safety standards. The most notable aspect is that national budgets have to be approved by the European Parliament to make sure that EU laws are being adhered to.
The European Parliament is so powerful that some countries think its power should be reduced. But here’s the rub.
Germany has the Bundesrat and the Bundestag.
Britain has the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Italy has the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic.
France has the National Assembly and the Senate.
And so on.
This is known as a bicameral system. The upper houses in these systems often act as a check and balance to the lower houses. If an upper house doesn’t like a proposed law, it sends it back to the lower house for revision or revocation.
Malta has a unicameral system. Passing laws (especially with a nine-seat majority) is easy. Whatever the parliament approves immediately becomes law.
Except that it doesn’t. The European Parliament is effectively our upper house. It is the only legislative body which keeps our national parliament in check. If the European Parliament is run by Muscat-types, there will be nobody to protect us from Muscat-like excesses.
If the Socialists win a majority in the European Parliament, we will be submitting ourselves to parties like the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement which, a few years ago, brought down Spain and Greece respectively. If the Socialists have a majority, it’s the likes of (God help us) Francois Hollande and Joseph Muscat who will have the upper hand.
Before you vote this Saturday, you should ask yourself whether you prefer British and German industriousness or French protectionism. Hollande is the type who will halt a trans-Pacific agreement with the United States (something which will aid business on both sides) just to protect the French film industry.
The European Parliament matters and this is what it comes down to.
If we vote Labour, the Socialists will have carte blanche to do whatever they please. Our ‘upper house’ will be run by the same people as our ‘lower house’.
If we vote Nationalist, our ‘upper house’ will act as a bulwark against Labour’s and the Socialists’ worst excesses.
If we vote for the freaks, the Communists, the racists and the euro-sceptics, well, we don’t really want to think about that, do we?
I wrote this in the hope that people realise that there is A LOT at stake on Saturday. The national parliament will not change but, for those who haven’t woken up to it yet, our laws are not only drawn up by the national parliament. The European Parliament often has an equal say and sometimes even usurps the national parliament. What happens on Saturday can determine whether Europe will go through yet another recession.
Voting PN tomorrow makes sense because it is the only way to ensure that our budgets won’t go back to tonn taż-żejt policies, job creation won’t go back to iżra-u-rabbi schemes and our deficit will not go higher than 3%.
Europe has endured a lot of painful austerity in the past few years. It makes no sense to throw caution to the wind and hand the reins back to the people who brought about the mess in the first place.
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It also makes no sense to elect to the EP people who do NOT share the European vision and who never believed in the EU and who today are very sceptical about Europe.
It is wasting your vote. It is just like having someone who does not believe in law and order join the police force or someone who does not believe in God join the priesthood.
I am sure that the MEP candidates discovered during their house visits that a vast number of Maltese do not know why and for what they are voting tomorrow.
This is the reason why the campaign was drawn in such a way.
That’s exactly my point. The Nationalist Party could have run a campaign similar to the EU membership one, one which is educational, because most people have no idea what they are voting for. They think it doesn’t matter who gets elected.
Simon Busuttil is the perfect candidate to run such a campaign because he has the right experience and expertise. He has done it once before already and knows the workings of the European Parliament back to front.
It would have been fresh and interesting and it would have caught Labour off guard. It would have laid to rest many myths about the European Parliament and given voters a fresh perspective on what the European Parliament is.
The educational aspect would have been beneficial to people’s understanding of Europe and democracy regardless of the election’s result.
After explaining what’s at stake, it could then ask people for their vote.
I agree – the EU is our ‘upper house’. And we DESPERATELY need that.
However, any EU ‘upper house’ input (especially if seen to throw a spanner in the PL government works) will have people crying ‘indhil tal-barranin’…..and the PL know this very well, and will use this tactic – don’t underestimate them.
Obviously voting for PN candidates.
It is the only party with the right vision for Malta. Huge achievements with Independence, EU membership, higher standard of living, peace of mind and a successful nation throughout. Human rights and all kinds of freedom have been improved and secured.
Malta has enjoyed a lengthy prosperous period of 26 years, bar 22 months of the Sant Labour government, which is unprecedented in its history.
PN representatives come from a political school of thought which has roots that run deep in the history and civilization of the European continent and has pioneered the European project from its inception.
‘Except that it doesn’t. The European Parliament is effectively our upper house. It is the only legislative body which keeps our national parliament in check. If the European Parliament is run by Muscat-types, there will be nobody to protect us from Muscat-like excesses.’
Eddie was a great visionary on this – he knew that PN wouldn’t be in government for a hundred years, and so for the good of Malta, steered us in the EU, for exactly the above purpose.
So that PL wouldn’t have a free hand at everything when in government – at least there’ll be someone watching out for our good.
Well said, Matthew.
I disagree with most of what Matthew S. has written. Because what he describes the European Parliament as we would like it, not as it is.
National governments are still the primary decision-makers in EU countries. National budgets are still made by them. Government appointments are still made by them. Laws are still passed by national parliaments and legal notices are still made by the executive branch without even going through the national parliament, let alone the European one.
And MEPs come from parties and positions so different (even within their respective groupings) that a common strategy is impossible.
Even worse, that 90% is just approval (i.e. votes) of what the EU Commission decides, not bottom-up proposals.
The real power is in the hands of the EU Commission, where commissioners are appointed by national governments.
The Nationalist Party are shit-scared of the big issues. I mean the big global issues that require a European strategy.
Labour isn’t, but they have cut themselves off from Europe and have now joined the Chinese Union.
Until the Nationalist Party stop gazing at the Maltese navel and crane their necks to look beyond our borders at the wider world, the European Parliament elections, and to an extent the European Union will be as irrelevant as ever.
The Nationalist Party may have been the ones to give us a European passport, but they have yet to engage with Europe.
Now is the time to cast off the shackles of the mind. They have nothing to lose. They have already lost the election. In political terms, you can’t go any lower.
They are standing for election to the European Parliament. Good. They say that Malta now has a voice in Europe and the world. Fine words indeed.
I challenge them to build a political project not just for Malta, but for Europe and the world.
P.S. The first step being, of course, to recognise Europe’s global enemy: China.
Why do you consider China as a global enemy?
They are convinced of their racial superiority. To them we are subhumans. They are also convinced that it is their historical destiny to rule the world. Everything they have done has one aim only: to damage the rest of the world and place it at a disadvantage.
They are greedy, duplicitous, cynical, have no respect for human life or liberty, have no respect for animal life or the natural environment, and have no respect for history either. They imprison, torture and oppress their own people, they hold human rights in contempt, and they abhor democracy and free speech. They seek to confound our plans and to inflict damage on anyone who stands in their way.
Is that enough or do you need more?
Dragun b’valuri totalitarji terribli, egemonija mondjali u megalomania kommunista.
On Facebook it would seem that the top-rated PL candidate for the MEP elections has already started his celebratory pub crawl.
Matthew S: wishful thinking.
Look at the latest EP foray into Maltese politics – the much maligned IIP scheme. What has happened? So much noise for nothing.
Not only, the IIP scheme got the European Commission’s blessing. The EP is in practice nothing but an expensive gathering of talking heads, leading a cushy life-style. And this is coming from a staunch supporter of the European ideal.
However, as things are looking now, the EU has no strategy of its own when it comes to politics on the world stage.
EU strategy is Washington strategy. I do not know why this is happening, when our Europe has bred so many great minds for so many centuries.
I have been voting with regularity since 1987, however, this time, for the first time, it is going to be a fringe vote for me. Not necessarily because I support the fringe, but more so to try to convey a message (for all its worth), that in my view, not all is well with the EP and the leaders of OUR Europe.
Europe should get its priorities right. Europe should take care of its own.
The European Parliament is powerful but it has its limits. Muscat found a loophole (citizenship, although European by its very own nature, is regulated solely by nations. The EU is not a nation) and used it. The European Parliament was screwed.
The latest EP foray into Maltese politics is not the IIP scheme. That’s just the one which made a splash. Hundreds of decisions are taken every year by the EP. These get integrated into Maltese law without people even realising.
I’m sorry to hear that you are going to waste your vote on a fringe party. Your reasoning is skewed. Voting for someone whose ideas you don’t agree with doesn’t make any sense. Those are the ideas they will try to implement if they get elected.
If there’s someone in the room who must mention the unmentionable, then let it be me.
Norman Lowell is the only MEP candidate to have fought his campaign on European issues. He is the only one to have stated in clear terms what he will do in the European parliament if elected to the European parliament.
The others may have a better plan, and a better position on European issues, but they have largely failed to articulate it, preferring to concentrate on domestic and local issues.
I won’t be voting for the fringe parties but I see Another John’s point.
The way I see it, the EU needs to be led by the Right. And please do not think for a moment that I am referring to Farage or Lowell. They are just self-aggrandising loonies. I mean a Liberal Right convinced of the superiority of the European civilisation (or we’d be adopting another way of life) and convinced of the EU’s original aim, as stated by its founding fathers: peace and prosperity for its people. For its people, mind.
At some point we forgot the original aim and started to solve everyone else’s problems, when back home it’s a mess.
Lowell often says that he hates the EU but loves Europe (and then he supports Mintoff and the party that destroyed our European identity).
The other politicians seem to love the EU more than they love Europe.
“Muscat found a loophole (citizenship, although European by its very own nature, is regulated solely by nations. The EU is not a nation)”
Turning citizenship into a financial instrument was key to Muscat’s approach through that loophole.
This loophole was identified and singled out as far back as 2006 by Muscat in his role as MEP.
Baxxter, you have nailed it. Political correctness has gone, or rather, has been pushed too far; as has the gravy train. Anyone remembers the Roman Empire?
Well, I may have nailed it, Another John, but Lowell’s acolytes haven’t.
You mentioned the Roman Empire. Ask Arlette Baldacchino. She tried to tug at my heartstrings with her piece on the “Turkish” conquest of Constantinople and then got it all wrong with her “Saint Sophia”.
Lowell’s posters for his activity at the hideously non-European Montekristo estates include a generous helping of “lasagna” in the menu. Ave indeed. And three cheers for Kevin Ellul Bonici, the Mintoffian, the story of whose connivance is yet to be written.
Why should we let these fruitcakes, creeps and cretins claim the right to own the Right? The Right is somewhere else entirely. And something else too. Of course if the Nationalist Party is now Left-Wing then it is our job to rebuild a Liberal Right.
The sad truth about the European Parliament is that while it is true that its powers have greatly increased since Lisbon, there is not a single government in Europe that does not now regret this.
National governments are increasingly finding ways to circumvent the EP, and its powerlessness is rendered most evident when it comes to crisis management such as the euro crisis, where it plays little part in the mechanisms that have been put in place.
I do not really expect objective debate in this forum but this article’s naïveté is truly striking. Malta has 6 MEPs in Brussels – Six. Any power or influence Malta can expect to have comes not from the EP but from the Council of Ministers and the soft power generated from the trust Malta slowly builds up over time – trust sadly dented in the passport debacle.
Maltese governments know this the moment they are elected and start dealing with ‘Europe’. This writer should be questioning how the increased powers of the EP since Lisbon tie in with the principle of subsidiarity, which is crucial for non-core small economies like Malta that must thrive on competitive advantage and would be badly affected by more centralisation in key areas such as tax.
These matters are more effectively dealt with in the Council of Ministers, where Malta is one voice of 28, then in the EP where our 6 MEPs are lost in a chamber of 500 + MEPs.
So you mean, if the Socialists win, we will have the same situation as the last 10 years. PN in power in Malta and EPP in EU. Why weren’t you urging people to vote for Labour MEPs to keep the PN in check last 2 elections than?