APPEAL FOR A TWO CHAMBER EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: WHY HAS IT TAKEN SO LONG???

The European Union already in effect has two legislative bodies: The European Parliament itself and the Council when acting in a legislative capacity (co-decision), although the Council does not do so in the formally open manner usually associated with a parliament.

The first proposal for a two chamber European Parliament drawn from the national parliaments was made in 1953 (60 years ago) in a draft Treaty for a European Political Community' drawn up by the Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community. This draft treaty included provisions for a Parliament consisting of two chambers: A chamber of peoples made up of members representing the peoples united in the Community, and a Senate made up of Senators representing the people of each State and chosen from among the national parliaments.

Proposals for a second chamber are not new: In 1999, Vlaclav Havel, then President of the Czech Republic declared that alongside the European Parliament, whose structure reflects the rise of the Member States, a smaller secod chamber should be created in which each national parliament would mandate, for example, two members. In this second chamber, the votes of smaller member states would have equal weight to those of large states.

In May 2000 (13 year ago), German Joschka Fischer, then Minister for Foreign Affairs argued that a bicameral European Parliament was necessary in order to represent two different elements: A Europe of nation-states and Europe of citizens. He identified two possible models for such a chamber: either a Senate with a small membership, with each Member State having the same number of members; or a chamber like the German Bundesrat, where the number of members would vary according to the size of the Member State. In 2001, the German President Johannes Rau, in a speech to the European Parliament argued for the creation of a second chamber. But in this version, the new chamber would be formed by the ministers of the Member States: in other words, it would be a modified version of the existing Council of Ministers transformed into a Chamber of States. Alongside this would sit the European Parliament to be known as a Citizen's Chamber. A more fully worked out but still broad brush version of the same scheme was put forward by the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who proposed that the Council of Ministers should become a 'Chamber of the States (as in the Rau formula).

Senior French politicians also did join the debate. The French Minister Lionel Jospin argued for the establishment of a Congress of national parliaments which would meet regularly to monitor the application of the principle of subsidiarity and would hold an annual debate on the state of the Union.

British Commissioner Patten made a more wide ranging proposal for a second chamber, which would include representatives of the regions of Europe as well as members of national parliaments. One possible solution would be he said to create a second chamber of the European Parliament which could help to apply the principle of subsidiarity: determining which decisions really need to be taken at the European level and which should be left to the nations. It would important he said to keep the process as light as posible. Members could be drawn from national parliaments- perhaps also with some regional and other representatives replacing the Economic and Social Committee of the Regions. They would not scrutinize all legislation but look only at proposals that were opposed on subsidiarity grounds by a given number of Member States.

A similar approach, containing representatives of both national and regional legislatures was proposed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, MEP: Legislative power he wrote could be invested in two chambers. The first would be the European Parliament elected directly by the people of Europe. The legislative authority of this body would be such that it could debate and decide all the issues affecting European interests, but no more than that. In other words, the principle of subsidiarity would be upheld and anything that did not fall within the scope of its responsibility would be the responsibility of national or regional assemblies. There can be no exception to this rule. A second chamber should be able to provide this control. The members of the second chamber would not be elected by direct suffrage, but selected from representatives of national and regional asemblies. Like the U.S. Senate, this chamber should be based on a system of equal rather than proportional representation, not directly related to the size of population of each country. Its main job would be to represent the interests of the various Member States.

Last but not least in 2000, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that a second chamber of the European Parliament, consisting of representatives of national parliaments should be created to perform two tasks: To review the EU's work in the light of, and thereby help the implementation of an agreed statement of principles setting out what should be done at European level and what should be done by the Member States (in effect to monitor the operation of the principles of subsidiarity, providing political review by a body of democratically elected politicians, and to help provide democratic oversight at a European level of the common foreign and security policy.

It may make good sense to reexamine the above proposals and launch a debate in advance of the next European elections.