PUTTING THE NATIONALISM BEFORE THE TRANS:

Slovak president joins sceptics on European Parliament (Lucia Kubosova, 11/02/05, EU Observer)

Speaking to German daily Die Welt, Ivan Gasparovic suggested the European Parliament in its current form was a "mammoth" and should rather consist of national MPs.

"I see the biggest problem [as being] in the relationship between the European Parliament and national parliaments", he said, adding that having MEPs who also sit in national assemblies would mean that the Brussels institution would deal with the real concerns of citizens. [...]

Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja recently expressed a similar idea, explaining that the European Parliament should be selected from among members of national assemblies to make it more representative and responsible.

Meanwhile, Czech president Vaclav Klaus is promoting the concept of an "Organization of European States" whose members would be individual member states rather than their citizens, represented directly through institutions such as the current European Parliament.

Of course, transnational institutions are specifically designed to circumvent the real concerns of citizens and vindicate the unpopular concerns of elites, so these kinds of reforms ruin their whole project.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2005 7:57 AM