Sowing the seeds for political life beyond Juncker
President Juncker is coming up to two years in office. He was elected to office on 15 July 2014 and his new Commission was appointed on 1 November 2014 for a five-year term.
After a slow start, a full legislative package on President Juncker’s priority areas is in full swing. Asking people who know what happens after the first tranche of laws is adopted, there is a look of mild bemusement, and a response “that is it”. Sometime in early 2018 this Commission will start to wind down, and clear the decks for the appointment of the next Commission President.
I’ll not dwell on whether the Spitzenkandidat candidate process will be followed again. There are too many political unknowns from now until 2019. Indeed, a small matter of the UK’s In/Out vote on staying in the EU, will paralyse the EU for most of the rest of President Juncker’s term of office if the UK votes Out on 23 June 2016.
Time for a Cultural Change in the Commission
Whilst President Juncker claims of his administration of “I want to be serious about being big on big things and small on small things” (speech 10 September 2016) it is not clear that the Commission Services have heard him.
Several Directorate-Generals are still trying to push out the door their pet initiatives. Indeed, some Directorate Generals seemingly ignore the new internal checks and balances built into the Commission system introduced via the Better Regulation agenda and Operating Procedures. Others seek to bring back to failed failed policies and rejected by previous Commissions, Council and European Parliament.
Today, it is surprising how many proposals, often with significant impacts, are tabled without having a Road Map, let alone an Impact Assessment. This is a particular issue with delegated legislation. Sometimes it is like only a handful of officials in the Commission understand the Commission’s Working Instructions issued at the start of Juncker’s Presidency. This is bedeviled with a Secretary-General who is reluctant to intervene and quash proposals and initiatives that are outside President Juncker’s priorities , or are in line with Better Regulation guidance.
Vice-President Timmermans tasked with implementing the Better Regulation agenda must wonder what he needs to do to ensure only well designed, European value added proposals make it through to the College. A specific solution would be for a more interventionist Secretary-General or for the Vice-President himself to block non-compliant proposals. It is at time shocking to see proposals being tabled that seek to resuscitate presumed existent policies, that previous Commissions and Heads of State have clearly rejected. This creates unnecessary regulatory and political uncertainty, and it would be easier if pet projects from officials or Commissioners were culled earlier on.
Second, a culture inside the Commission that makes it acceptable to admit that policy or legislative initiatives have failed would be welcome. I have just read the Court of Auditors report on the Baltic Sea Strategy and the Commission’s pitiful reply. Too often, the Commission do not seem prepared to admit that the thinking, implementation and several billions of euros of taxpayers money has failed to deliver on its stated objectives. A culture of denial will not help bring about more effective solutions going forward and will in all likelihood lead to reusing failed thinking .
Sowing the Seeds for Change
The new Inter-Instutitonal Agreement on Better Regulation spells out that the Commission will work with the Council and the European Parliament in the establishment of the priorities of the Commission and the Commission’s multi-annual and annual work programme (see paras 4-11). This will be important when the next President takes office.
This provides a forward thinking organisation with the opportunity to provide the “seeds to land on fertile soil” for the next Commission. Such an organisation would provide clearly thought out solutions and “legislative” templates to solve important problems.
That so few organisations do this in Brussels is surprising.
That said, two studies of the experience in the USA, show that whilst long-term thinking of influencing policy at a structural level is rare and often partisan, the organisations that do embark on a longer term approach, often find their agenda co-opted by an-incoming new Administration or used as the template for a bi-partisan solutions by Congress. For more on this I’d recommend reading “Think Tanks, Public Policy and the Politics of Expertise” by Andrew Rich, and “Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies” by John.W.Kingdom.
Burden Reduction – A long-term game
In case people don’t believe me the Commission, Council and European Parliament have agreed to remove burdensome regulation and simplify existing laws.
“By way of contribution to its regulatory fitness and performance programme (REFIT), the Commission undertakes to present annually an overview, including an annual burden survey, of the results of the Union’s efforts to simplify legislation and to avoid over-regulation and reduce administrative burdens.” (see para 48,ii, Institutional Agreement).
I understand that a group inside the Council will follow this and it a standing item for each Member State Presidency, along with the Commission’s annual report. They will supplement this agenda with “targets” for reductions. It is not an issue that is going to go away.
Here again the pro-active organisation would submit clearly thought out solutions that identifies the problem, establishes the unnecessary costs and impacts, and provides a template policy and legislative solution. Some sectors, like chemicals, are ever popular with Member States for simplification and burden reduction . But, despite a complicated mishmash of hazard and risk management approaches across a broad array of laws, no-one has yet tabled coherent and substantive turnkey solution. Indeed, when pushed for specific details of specific impacts, and their associated costs, most of the time officials working on burden reduction are met with a blank response from industry for specific details.
This must be challenging for the cadre of officials in the Commission, Council and Member States who have been tasked with meeting targets for burden reduction, but face few willing meaningful suggestions, beyond that of re-known, and often decades old, trade association and NGO mantras.