Hi, I’m Tim Haughton, Reader in European Politics at the University of Birmingham and
I’ve been the editor of the JCMS annual review of the European Union since 2008.
We’ve heard a lot in this referendum campaign about sovereignty, control, power and influence.
But not a lot of the discussion has been accurate.
How much power, how much influence do we have as a Member State of the EU and how much more
control would we have if we left?
If you agree to join any club you agree to abide by the rules. If you join any international
organization you agree to pool sovereignty.
Being a member of NATO, for example, includes Article 5 of the Washington Treaty which states
that an attack on one member states is an attack on all. And we as members of NATO agree
to defend that fellow member state under attack, just as they would be obliged to come to our
defence if we were attacked.
The EU though involves the pooling of sovereignty in more areas than most international organizations.
As my first year undergraduates know well the European Union is a complicated system.
The EU is a unique set of institutional arrangements which blend together what political scientists
like me call supranational and intergovernmental elements. Supranational means above the national
and intergovernmental means between the national governments.
Much media coverage of the EU suggests that supranational bodies like the Commission are
really powerful. The Commission does have powers, but the key decision-making and legislative
bodies are intergovernmental. The Commission generates proposals, some of which are good,
some not so good, but it doesn’t decide.
The key decision-making bodies are intergovernmental.
Legislation is made by a mixture of the European Parliament which is directly elected by citizens
and the Council made up of ministers from each of the member states. Ministers like
George Osbourne and Michael Gove sit around the table and decide on proposals.
And the big decisions are made by the European Council. These are the meetings of the heads
of government. David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Francois Holland sit around this table.
And the really big decisions form part of treaties: these treaties have to be agreed
by every member state. The UK like any other member state can veto a treaty.
The accession of all new countries involves a treaty which means the European Parliament,
the European Council and the national political system through referendum or a vote in parliament
would have to approve any accession of any new state. In other words, Turkey will only
become a member state if the UK agrees. And that’s before we talk about the complex
negotiation process.
In other words decisions are not made by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, but by our directly
elected representatives and our politicians.
It may not be a perfectly democratic system, but then the UK has the House of Lords and
an unelected monarch as our head of state.
Of course, these are collective decisions. So we don’t always get what we want. But
of the 2634 decisions made by the Council between 1999 and 2016 the UK voted in favour
95% of the time. It has abstained 3% of the time and disagreed 2% of the time.
The European Parliament plays an increasingly important part in EU decision making. Infact
we can say that legislation is made by a combination of the council and the European parliament.
So elected MEPs can have an influence over decisions.
It’s worth stressing that virtually nothing happens in the EU without the big three i.e.
UK, France and Germany being in control of it.
The UK, for example, was at the forefront of the creation of the Single Market. Without
British influence the single market may not have been created.
The last UK government the Conservative – Lib Dem coalition undertook a massive study of
the powers of the EU known as the Balance of Competences Review. The conclusion was
that the balance between the EU institutions and member states was about right.
What would happen if we left?
We wouldn’t be outvoted in the Council. But then again we wouldn’t be around the
table influencing the decisions.
If we had a Norwegian style arrangement we would remain subject to the single market
rules, but have no say over what those rules would be so they would become much more beneficial
to other states in Europe. To have power and influence you need to be sat around the table.
We are not fed a diet of Brussels by the EU. In fact we play an integral role in cooking
up and preparing the dishes in Brussels. Leaving would mean we’d have no say over the menu
and might have to make do with crumbs.