European Parliament by Andrea Noll (ZNet June 14, 2004)   The EU Parliament - a toothless tiger? EU means democracy in very low doses. The EU Parliament is the only EU institution that EU citizens can vote for at all. All other organs - EU Commission, EU Council and EU Council of Ministers - are composed of people either never elected or elected on a national level. Bureaucrats, technocrats, states leaders, ministers, ex politicians. They represent national governments, or are the delegated reps of reps.   The EU Parliament is in fact a toothless tiger. Even in the legislative field it is hostage to the EU Council of (national) Ministers. Consumer rights and environmental issues being nearly the only fields the EU Parliament tiger has set its scent-marks in the past decades. The planned new EU Constitution is supposed to strengthen the Parliament's power. But, it is doubtful if it would allow the tiger any real bite, concerning legislative matters. [Note: the Constitution was passed on 18 June 04 and does invest the EP with more powers]   That the EU Parliament is so disconnected from the real powers can be seen from the fact that even if European voters had overwhelmingly voted for the European Left, this would not in any way be reflected on the EU "governmental" level. As we all know, representative or indirect democracy - as opposed to direct forms of democracy - doesn't work on the level of the people, far less remote controlled representative democracy. The pseudo Parliamentary structures in Strasbourg/Brussels resemble those constitutional monarchies characteristic of European national states in the 19th century, where you had almost powerless Parliaments - to "suggest" and "consent" but with no real decision power; that remained with the monarchs.   So, what's all that fus about EU elections? Isn't it all a big carnival? Many European leftist parties, groups, movements had called up to abstain from June 10-13 voting, arguing that we can't change things on a EU Parliamentary level and in supporting this pseudo institution in the first place we would support its fig leave function for corporate Europe and the planned neoliberal Constitution.   Two things characterize the democracy deficit in the EU: a lack of transparency, and a lack of structures and institutions that enable direct decision-making processes for the people of Europe. Nearly all relevant decision-making processes on a EU level go on behind closed doors or blind window panes. Leftist parties have promised to change this in the EU Parliament - to clean windows for us.   Duplicity in the European Parliament A milestone in the TPN (Transatlantic Policy Network) campaign was the European Parliament resolution on EU-US relations, approved on April 22nd 2004. In a plenary vote in Strasbourg, the European Parliament approved a set of recommendations for the June 25-26 EU-US summit which include the main TPN demands. Under the heading "Completing the Transatlantic Market by 2015", the resolution proposes "the launching of a 10-year Action Plan aimed at deepening and broadening the transatlantic market, as well as the transatlantic economy and monetary cooperation, with the goal of a barrier-free transatlantic market by 2015." [10] The Parliament "asks the forthcoming EU-US Summit to set up a body of experts to elaborate specific proposals to this end." The resolution also recommends "a 2010 accelerated target date for financial services and capital markets, aviation, the digital economy (privacy, security and intellectual property rights), competition policy and regulatory cooperation." The TPN effectively pre-cooked the Parliament's resolution, by exploiting that TPN heavyweight Elmar Brok, a German Christian-Democrat MEP, chairs the parliament's foreign affairs committee. [11] In fact, Elmar Brok simply cut-and-pasted the main TPN demands into the draft European Parliament resolution. When the resolution was discussed in the Committee on Foreign Relations, Brok was far from the only TPN'er present. In fact, over a dozen MEPs (mainly from Christian democratic, liberal and social democratic parties) in this Committee are members of the TPN. [12] Neither Brok nor any of the other TPN'ers ever made the origins of the resolution known. Nor did they inform other parliamentarians about their double roles. Brok is no stranger to double hats: he is also on the payroll of German communications giant Bertelsmann, where he is Vice-President for Media Development. When the resolution was voted on in the EP's plenary session in Strasbourg, the shadow play reached absurd levels. Only Elmar Brok and TPN vice-president Erika Mann spoke: Mann tabled a last-minute oral amendment in order to remove the term 'transatlantic single market', to avoid "complications". [13] Mann's tactical intervention may have been sparked by a press release from Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) criticising the draft EP resolution. The press release had argued that, "negotiations on an EU-US single market would have disastrous consequences, especially considering the excessively anti-environmental and pro-business attitudes of the present Bush administration". [14] Friends in high places The TPN brings together influential parliamentarians and business leaders from both sides of the Atlantic. Its European Parliamentary Committee includes over 85 MEPs. [15] The most prominent of these MEPs is probably European Parliament President Pat Cox, who for instance was part of TPN activities during a visit to Washington D.C. June 23-25 2003. In June 2004, Cox won the Transatlantic Business Award for his work on "the interconnectivity of policy making between the EU and the US". [16] On the US side, the TPN Congressional Group has over 45 members, mainly Republicans but also a dozen Democrats. [17] The 35 member corporations of the TPN include giants like DaimlerChrysler, BP, Nestlé, UPS, IBM, and Boeing. The group's powers are boosted by the far-reaching support of the European Commission. On February 18th, this year a TPN delegation including the MEPs Elmar Brok, Erika Mann and James Elles met with Commission President Prodi, who expressed his support for their action plan. [19] The European Commission also provides generous financial support for the TPN. According to European Commission documents obtained by Corporate Europe Observatory, the EC's Directorate-General for External Relations (DG Relex) contributed over €67,470€ to TPN activities in the period November 2001 until November 2002. [20] TPN events are far from low-budget and some of the bills submitted made the EC frown. Source: CEO (www.corporateeurope.org)