More European political responsibility for Member States

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has proposed his plan for achieving more transparency in the approval of certain European decisions. And it won’t be possible any longer for Member States to pass on certain issues nobody wants to touch on to the Commission. “With this proposal the Commission wants to place the political responsibility once more with the Member States, including among other things a greater involvement of the national ministers. And that’s a good thing,” says MEP Anneleen Van Bossuyt.

“Politicians must shoulder their responsibility,” she continues. “The Commission has understood that the centre of gravity should be located among the Member States and that important political decisions may not be taken by an invisible administration.”

Anneleen Van Bossuyt also supports the will to offer more transparency in highly technical European decision-making: “The Commission wants to make public the voting behaviour of national experts in the decisive phase, as well it should. In that way, those European decisions will get a clear national dimension. If the experts can’t reach a consensus, it is indeed only logical that the dossier in question would move on to the national ministers. At the end of the day it is those ministers who have to show political accountability.”