THE TIME HAS COME FOR EU REFORM: EU LEADERS, PLEASE STAND UP!

The Centre for European Reform has outlined 35 practical, feasible reform ideas that, if properly implemented, would make a better EU and would win widespread support across the member states.

Reforms not requiring treaty change

A stronger and more effective European Commission: The EU needs a Commission that is strong and independent, rather than dependent on the European Parliament. The member-states should appoint senior politicians as Commissioners, and ensure that the nex Commission President is a heavy weight. They should mandate the Commission to maintain an equal distance between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. When the new European Commissio takes office, it should join the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament in drwaing up a tripartite accord on the EU's work programme. To deal with the problem of there being too many commissioners, they should be divided into seniors and juniors. The seniors should co-ordinate the work of the juniors and sometimes meet among themselves.

Improving the quality of rule-making: The impact assessments that the Commission carries out before legislating need to become more credible. When the Commission decides to drop a proposed measure as a result of an impact assessment, it should publicise the decision. The Council of Ministers should appoint external experts to sit on the Commission's Impact Assessment Board. When the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament propose significant amendments to EU legislation, they should carry out their own impact assessments.

Enhancing the role of national parliaments: National parliaments need to play a bigger role in policing subsidiarity, the idea that the EU should only act when strictly necessary. The existing 'yellow card procedure' allows a third of the EU's national parliaments to club together to ask that a Commission proposal be withdrwan, on grounds of subsidiarity. The Commission should agree to treat a yellow card as a 'red card', by promising to abandon any proposal that faces a yellow card.

Improving oversight of European institutions and policies: The EU should strengthen both the European Court of Auditors and OLAF, the Union's anti-fraud unit. The Court of Auditors should produce its reports more speedily. The European Parliament should bolster the Court's auithority by insisting that its findings be debated and acted upon. OLAF should be reconstituted outside the Commission, given more resources and made to conduct a thorough review of its investigative standards. The EU should ask Transparency International, the anti-corruption NGO, to publish a special report that ranks the European institutions alongside the member states.

Better intergration of EU's external policies: The EU needs to do a better job of ensuring that its various external policies are aligned strategically. The next Commission President should make clear that he or she regards the High Representtaive/Vice President (HRVP) as having authority over the development, humanitarian aid and enlargement Commissioners. They should serve as deputies to the High Representative, as should a senior official within the European External Action Service (EEAS). The President of the Commission should co-ordinate the work of the HRVP and the Trade Commissioner. The EEAS currently has to operate under Commission rules and procedures. These should be modified so that the EEAS can act more speedily and have more freedom to set its own procedures and decide how its money is spent.

Managing conflict between the eurozone and the single market: However, the Eurogroup develops, the EU's main decision-making body should remain the Council of Ministers, meeting at 28. Countries that are not in the euro should gain observer rights in the Eurogroup. Any new eurozone institutions that emerge should not undermine the Commission's role in policing the single market and in ensuring smooth relations between the euro ins and outs.

Extending the single market: The EU should make deepening the single market a bigger priority. Each member-state should designate a senior minister to attend meetings of a new single market council. The EU should extend the single market in services by focusing on the liberalisation of those services that are most easily traded such as business services, information technology and telecom services, construction and transport. It should dismantle barriers to e-commerce, which may entail some harmonisation of laws on sales, privacy, intellectual property and consumer protection.

Sustaining Europe's energy market: The growth of national subsidy schemes for renewable energy threatens to disrupt the single market. The member states should support the Commission's efforts to complete and sustain a single market in energy. They should implement its guidelines on national subsidy schemes for renewable energy, for example by avoiding sudden or retrospective changes to national schemes. And if national governments choose to subsidise back-up capacity (which may be needed when there is no wind or sun) they should allow companies from other member-states to provide that capacity.

Controlling carbon emissions: The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is currently failing to provide incentives for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies. So the EU should set a floor price of carbon in the ETS. The price should be at € 30 per ton, and increase by at least € 1 each year. The EU should also adopt an emissions performance standard to ensure that power generation produces no more carbon than a new gas power station.

Free and fair migration: Current EU rules on free movement of labour are highly beneficial to every member-state. The problem of some people moving from one EU country to another in order to claim welfare is negligible. But it needs to be addressed, lest support for free movement diminishes. The rules on providing social security for migrants should be amended so that their families cannot claim benefits from a member-state unless they reside in it. Governments should issue European Social Insurance Cards to those citizens wanting to move to another member-state. The cards would make it easier to identify and track welfare cheats, as well as provide  solid information about migratory movements. Wherever they were in Europe, EU nationals would use the same identity number to access local services. One problem with debates over immigration is the lack of good data. EU Interior and Employment Ministers should establish a standing 'migration advisory committee', staffed with independent experts. The body should advise EU governments and institutions on migratory movements, analyse the Union's overall labour needs and develop criteria for judging in what situation flows may be restricted.

A more flexible working time directive: The working time directive does little harm to the European economy. But it needs a minor amendment, to deal with the problem left by two rulings in the European Court of Justice. This should ensure that member-states are free to choose their own definition of rest periods and on-call time.

Simpler free trade agreements: The EU should make the negotiation of free trade agreements easier by dropping their human rights clauses. An exception should be made when the E negotiates with neighbours that aspire either to join it or to develop a closer association. However, the EU should be serious about conditionality in its foreign policy. It should not give aid or technical assistance to countries that abuse human rights. And the EU should make clear that the quality of its political relationship with a partner will depend in part, on its human right record.

A more modern EU budget: The EU budget should prioritise cross-border projects that would boost economic growth. But most of the budget is spent on farming and regional aid. EU leaders should establish a strategic review to report in 2016 on how the Union's budget should evolve after 2020. More money should be spent on pan-European transport and energy links, the European Research Council, the EU's neighbourhood and development assistance. Member-states with a per capita GDP of 90 percent of the EU average, oer above, should no longer receive regional funds. Member-states receiving these funds should certify that their local governments have spent them properly. The EU should limit the amount of subsidy that can go to large farms. The member-states should start to share the cost of the single farm payments with the EU budget. Eventually, in the richer countries, the government should bear all the cost of subsidising farmers.

The EU cannot reform itself or better nurture economic growth without a more strategic and effective Commission. The European Council should chose heavyweights. The Commission needs a reforming president who will champion growth-boosting policies. The European Council needs a leader who can manage the potentially fraught relationship between an integrating eurozone and the non-euro states. The High Representative should be strong enough to help forge common foreign policies and to speak credibly for the EU.