Will the project be able to work with a European Assembly constituted in the same way as the present European Assembly?

Technically, yes. Politically and democratically, it would not be the best solution.

In the proposal set out on this site, we suggest that 80% of the European Assembly be constituted by elected members from national Parliaments and 20% by members of the European Parliament. This choice deserves further consideration. The percentage of national elected members could be lowered, for example to 50%.

Technically, it could equally well be lowered to 0%, in which case the composition of the European Assembly would be the same as the present European Parliament but with much wider fiscal and budgetary powers. Since, at the moment, each Member State has the right of veto, the European Parliament cannot adopt a single European tax. If a sufficient number of member States were to agree on a proposal of this sort, it would be a considerable advance for Europe, and one which we would support.

However, we warn of the political and democratic risks that a solution of this type would involve and, more generally, of an excessive lowering of the percentage of national, elected members (below 50%). This could lead to conflicts of legitimacy in the future between the European Assembly and the National Parliaments which, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, would retain the power of voting taxes in the various Member States and also that of ratifying and withdrawing from international treaties (like the European treaties and, in particular, the TDEM). It does seem distinctly preferable to ‘Europeanise’ national Parliaments by placing them at the centre of the democratisation of Europe.

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This post was written by admTDEM