The EU Parliament’s fading voice

The European Parliament is facing a quiet crisis: its ability to hold the European Commission accountable, never as strong as it might be, is fading.

A letter circulated recently in the EU Parliament invited Members to sign a request to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to address “the growing problem of delayed and evasive answers given by the Commission to written Parliamentary questions.”

Widely seen as an intrinsic part of the parliamentary ‘toolbox’, parliamentary questions (PQs) help shine the light of public scrutiny on administrative decisions. They force agency leaders to explain their actions and justify inaction. They are an important source of information for both the public and the media on what happens behind closed doors.

The parliamentary question system in the EU Parliament is constrained, woefully inadequate, in decline and in need of a reboot.

At present, MEPs are limited to a maximum of 20 parliamentary questions, written or oral, over a “rolling three-month period”. One question per month can be designated for ‘priority’ answer. Priority questions are supposed to be answered within three weeks. Other questions are supposed to be answered in six weeks.

All draft questions are ‘vetted’ before being passed to the Commission. Questions which are ‘similar’ to questions already submitted or in process are ‘discouraged’, a process that mutes the Parliament’s pulse on key issues.

The Commission’s treatment of parliamentary questions has been the subject of well-earned criticism.

The time requirements for answering questions are “more honoured in the breach than the observance’.

Analysis conducted by an MEP in the ninth Parliament concluded that over 90% of PQ replies were answered late. It also showed an average delay of 40 days in answering priority questions. The more sensitive the question the longer the delay. A priority question submitted in July 2022 on text messages between Commission President von der Leyen Commission and the CEO of Pfizer, an issue back in the news recently, was not answered until March 2023. [ P-002647/2022/rev.1]

The Commission’s routine failure to meet the prescribed deadlines for answering questions is not the only problem. Replies from the Commission frequently fail to address the issues raised in questions, are incomplete, misleading, dismissive, disrespectful, inaccurate and on some occasions are deceptive.

MEPs are left with little recourse beyond shaking their fists at the sky.

This dysfunction has consequences. The number of PQs has plummeted from a peak of 15,500 in 2015 to just over 3,700 in 2023. Compare that to the Irish Parliament, which handled over 200,000 questions from 2020 to 2023, and the EU’s system looks dangerously anaemic. Frustration among MEPs is palpable, with some seeing PQs as not worth pursuing.

This trend echoes warnings in a 2009 Centre for European Policy Studies paper, “The European Parliament – More Powerful, Less Legitimate?”

That paper cautioned that measures to increase the efficiency of the Parliament could undermine its role as a forum of debate. It warned against significant elements of the Parliament’s work being conducted away from the public view and concluded that should bureaucratisation trump politicisation, the legitimacy of the EP would be undermined with voters becoming ever more alienated from its work.

PQs, as a political tool, are essential for keeping the Commission accountable and for engaging with issues that concern Europe’s citizens. The EU Parliament’s PQ system needs a reboot, not a requiem. MEPs need to fight for their right to ask hard questions and get truthful answers.

The response to the letter from MEPs to the Commission President, when it arrives, will be interesting.

EUalive’s columnist Dick Roche was the Minister of State for European affairs when Ireland conducted the two referendums on the Treaty of Lisbon of the European Union, in 2008 and 2009. is othe columns can be found here.

Photo: The European Parliament in Brussels. European Parliament Multimedia Centre.