An escalating war of words may culminate this week in a vote by the European Parliament to sack the European Commission over its handling of fraud allegations. The dispute arises from arguments about the European Union's 1996 budget, especially how two commissioners handled their portfolios. While the extent of the alleged fraud is not large and does not concern any of the EU's most heavy areas of expenditure, this is nonetheless an important political dispute coming at a critical time in the Union's evolution.
It takes place ahead of the European Parliament elections next June and at a time when there is much public disenchantment with the state of democratic accountability in the EU - and therefore of its political legitimacy - as it embarks on the single currency, much the most ambitious development in its recent history. There is, in several member-states, a widespread perception that the Commission is an over-centralised and too powerful bureaucracy which needs to be taken down a peg or two. This is despite the reality that it is much smaller than most government departments in the member-states, that most of its employees are translators and that the Union's Court of Auditors says fraud happens predominantly when EU expenditure occurs in the member-states.
MEPs from a number of the groups in the European Parliament tune in readily to such stereotypes about the Commission. Indeed the leaders of the largest group, the Socialists, believe this row is driven politically against two commissioners of their persuasion, Mrs Edith Cresson and Mr Manuel Marin. But the Parliament's procedural complexity and constitutional underdevelopment could combine to see the Socialists supporting a motion to sack the whole Commission rather than have these two picked off in what is effectively an illegal move. This could tip the balance over the two-thirds majority required. Such a vote would create an institutional crisis just as negotiations on reform of the Union's agricultural and structural fund budgets become most intense. Up to now, the Socialist group has defended the Commission although a number of its members have been antagonised by how the Commission president, Mr Jacques Santer, has dealt with the matter in recent days.
He will have his work cut out this week to head off such a vote, calm the overheated atmosphere and convince MEPs that he has handled the matter fairly and effectively. But even if he is successful, this episode highlights a number of shortcomings in the EU's political system. Despite the greater powers given to the Parliament in the Treaty of Amsterdam, including the right to approve the President of the Commission, it is still not possible for it to pass a vote of no confidence in an individual commissioner as distinct from the Commission as a whole. This would require another treaty change, which should be given priority by the member-states in the next Inter-Governmental Conference on institutional reform.
Politically too, this dispute helps to generate public awareness and political debate on how to achieve more democratic accountability. Mr Jacques Delors has usefully proposed that the next President of the Commission should be actively endorsed by parliamentary groups during this year's election campaign, so that he or she could claim a democratic mandate. A supplementary proposal for a second chamber representing national parliaments, suggested by, among others, the leader of Fine Gael, also deserves serious attention.