THE NEXT SUPERPOWER? Press Room

Brussels' Beltway Problem --- Calls Mount for More Transparency and Communication
by Mary Jacoby and Glenn R. Simpson
published June 24, 2005

Brussels -- BRUSSELS HAS A Beltway problem.

The seat of the European Union government is increasingly under attack as opaque, out of touch and enamored with perks and special interests. This predicament mirrors the situation of politicians in Washington, where political professionals refer to it as the "Inside the Beltway" syndrome. Both government towns are surrounded by highways that cordon them from the masses -- Washington has its Capital Beltway, while Brussels is inside Ring Road Zero.

The defeat of the EU constitution by voters in two founding countries, France and the Netherlands, has underlined a distrust of EU institutions among an electorate that doesn't get to vote on EU policies or top officials. "I think it was generally a vote against Brussels being out of touch with the people," says departing U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Rockwell Schnabel, of the treaty's rejection. "People don't feel they have a say in what's going on."

In Europe, "You are seeing the first stages of a genuine populist rebellion," said Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. Speaker of the House, who was in France on May 29 when French voters rejected the constitution, plunging the 25-member EU into political crisis.

In one sense, it suggests the EU's growing importance, he said, because, "It means the European experiment has gotten far enough down the road that people are demanding that it be more accountable and transparent."

Mr. Gingrich, a onetime rabble-rousing backbencher who vaulted to power on an accountability platform, and center-left pollster Stanley Greenberg, an American who works for Britain's Labour Party and the Italian left, say European voters' dissatisfaction with Brussels bureaucrats mirrors the "throw-the-bums-out" attitude of U.S. voters in 1994 when they rejected the 40-year reign of House Democrats in favor of Mr. Gingrich's team.

The common factor is "a sense of this remote place that seems to operate by its own rules, where people are high paid, bureaucratic, and imposing rules that are out of touch," Mr. Greenberg said. In Europe, he added, those concerns come on top of anxiety about global competition, unemployment, and a loss of national sovereignty.

While many officials here are inclined to continue governing as if there are no larger lessons from the treaty's defeat, calls are increasing in Europe for more transparency in Brussels and better communication with voters. On Thursday, the European Parliament addressed what might be called an "Inside the Ring Road" problem: the financial perks of its members. In a deal to forgo widely abused travel allowances, parliament is raising the salaries of many members.

But many ethics issues remain. The 732-member Parliament, housed in a modern glass-walled building meant to symbolize transparency, allows parliamentarians to put family members on their public payrolls but not disclose their duties or pay. Parliamentarians are allowed to hold outside jobs, including with industries they help regulate, with only cursory disclosure required.

Siim Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia who is the EU's commissioner for administration and antifraud, said accountability is needed to erase "enormous shadows of suspicion," many of them unjustified, that are "terribly damaging to the EU's image."

In the face of entrenched Brussels interests, Mr. Kallas has dropped an earlier call for a U.S.-style lobbying disclosure requirements detailing what interests lobbyists are working for and how much they are paid. Instead, Mr. Kallas backs the lobbyists' preferred remedy: voluntary adherence to a code of ethics, drafted by the lobbyists.

"I don't try to declare some kind of crusade against lobbyists," Mr. Kallas said in an interview. "I just want to have some kind of openness."

Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish member of Parliament and long-time reformer, said Mr. Kallas has good intentions, but "the system doesn't allow him to deliver." One obstacle: unelected bureaucrats in the powerful European Commission, the EU's policy-making arm, Mr. Bonde said.

Although they wield much more authority than the directly elected Parliament, which can amend but not propose laws (that's the purview of the commission), both the European Commission and its equally powerful counterpart, the Council of the European Union, operate in secrecy much of the time. Even though he is a member of parliament's budget committee, Mr. Bonde said he can get little information about EU accounting, which the European Court of Auditors has declared in disarray.

An EOS Gallup Europe post-referendum survey of voters in the Netherlands -- where 61% of voters said "no" to a constitution -- revealed that support for the "European project" actually remains quite strong, with only 8% saying they oppose closer integration. For 32% of "no" voters, the problem was simply "lack of information" about the treaty, the survey said.