Misconceptions about the EU

Naturally as a student, who studies English Law, I learn a fair amount about the EU but as my understanding of the EU grows, I get more annoyed by the media gives rise to all these misconceptions about it.

I'm sure anyone, who's studied UK law and quite possibly the law of a member state of the EU will be aware of the fact that the media always seem to amalgamate The Council of Europe (the body responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights) with the European Union and therefore make out that the European Union is responsible for the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It's true that a member state needs a good record regarding respect of human rights to become a member state of the EU, so a member state is quite likely to be part of the Council of Europe but that doesn't make the Council of Europe a part of the European Union. This conception naturally gives people, who support anti-EU parties like UKIP, the wrong reasons to support such parties, when they hear stories about the ECtHR taking human rights too far by deciding that young men and young women should have to pay the same rate of car insurance, etc.

However, the misconception about the EU that annoys me most is the idea that the European Commission makes most of the EU's laws and so a lot of a member states rules are therefore made by an unelected body. It's true to say that the European Commission proposes most of the EU's legislation but what we aren't told, is that the Commission's proposals don't become law until the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of Europe) has agreed to pass such legislation and the European Parliament has had a chance to propose amendments (which the European Council agrees with) to the legislation. The European Council is made up of ministers from each member state and citizens of each member state vote for the European Parliament, so although the proposals are made by an unelected body, the content and legal status of the proposals are dependant on the decisions of elected bodies. There are also a fair amount of standing committees (and no doubt similar bodies in other member states) in Parliament that scrutinise the Commission's proposals and send their recommendations to the ministers of the European Council, so government and Parliament still play quite a big role in the legislation, which affects Britain. It is therefore ridiculous to use this fact to make it seem as though being part of the EU means that we've been taken over by a non-democratic body, although I agree that the European Parliament and perhaps the European Council should have a greater role to play in this legislative process.

Moreover, the role that Parliament plays in the passing of EU legislation depends on the type of legislation that has been introduced. There are 3 types of legislation: regulations, decisions and directives. Parliament has less of a role in passing decisions and regulations of the  EU because they are essentially decided by the process described in the paragraph above. Directives are also subject to the same process but Parliament decides how directives should be implemented because these are the sorts of laws, that cannot be decided in their entirety by the EU because the efficiency of such laws would be subjective to the individual country, so it is better to let the member state decide how these laws should be implemented in their country. This therefore means that when we see the directive embodied in UK law, it will be embodied in the form of an act, unlike the regulations and decisions, which have names that make it clear that they originate from the EU. Admittedly because of indirect effect, the directive can be used when it is passed by the European Council, without being developed by Parliament, if the meaning of the directive is clear and there is nothing further that must be clarified by Parliament, before it can be legally enforced. There is a particular problem as regards clarity because one judge could enforce a directive (which has not been developed by Parliament) because he thinks it's meaning is clear, whereas another judge might choose to not enforce it because he feels it is ambiguous, so this can cause problems with regard to the principle of the rule of law because a citizen could be unaware of the rule their case will be subject to. Nevertheless, it is still an example of how the EU doesn't always limit Parliament's role in passing legislation.

It should also be remembered that the principle of subsidiarity is an important part of the EU because it means that the EU will only pass legislation in a certain area of law because the extent or the effect of this area of law is such that the EU would pass a more efficient law than the individual member state. This principle is so important to the EU that they have published a document known as, the "Protocol on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and Proportionality", which obliges the Commission to have a wide consultation before proposing laws. This means that the Parliament or Chamber has eight weeks to send the Commission a reasoned opinion as to why a proposal does not conform to the principle of subsidiarity, after they have received the particular legislative proposal. Nevertheless, there are problems regarding the extent of the principle, that have been raised by the Kompetenz-Kompetenz question because the European Court of Justice has at times been known to push the boundaries of subsidiarity, when making decisions about the extent of a law. All the same, this is still an important concept, which is given a lot of consideration by the EU, to the extent that there are certain competences they won't assume, so it means that no Parliament of any member state will lose their entire power to make laws.

So although the EU is a powerful body, it's not as powerful as it can be made out to be.