Grandiosity is the Achilles’ heel of the Eurocrat. There has always been a strong case to be made for the European Union and, more often than not, the job of making that case falls to MEPs, European commissioners and EU civil servants.
Marian Harkin, the independent MEP for Midlands-North-West, is not your average EU grandee. Throughout her three terms at the Strasbourg parliament, the former community activist has retained a degree of apparent distance from Euro clubbiness and groupthink. In recent days, however, she has been publicly wrestling with a dilemma that will strike many as a rarefied problem.
Harkin is eager to speak at all three of the Citizens’ Dialogue meetings to be held in her constituency over coming months. Her dilemma arises from the fact that two of these meetings are scheduled for dates on which she and the other three MEPs in her constituency are required to be present in Strasbourg for votes in the parliament’s plenary session.
Citizens’ Dialogue is the collective title of an EU-wide series of public debates organised by the European Commission. The primary topic under discussion is “the future of Europe”. The first Irish Citizens’ Dialogue was held in Dublin last October. Brexit and growing concerns about its implications for Ireland have given the venture added impetus in these parts. A further five debates — at Galway, Cork, Donegal, Meath and Dublin again — have been scheduled for February to May.
Each meeting will be attended by a European commissioner or similarly senior official and other EU decision-makers “such as members of the European parliament, national, regional and local politicians”.
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Cheerleading for EU institutions by members of EU institutions is a virtually pointless endeavour. The EU’s usefulness and relevance to the wider populace is a more debatable contention. But ironically the people who know the EU best are often the least well placed to argue its merits.
Despite these contradictions, Harkin’s dilemma seems a little overblown. MEPs are forever complaining that their work is misunderstood and underappreciated by their constituents. Missing a vote in Strasbourg seems a small price to pay for an opportunity to engage in public debate about European issues on their home patch. For Harkin, however, the clash of dates is more than just a scheduling conflict. In a letter to The Irish Times she suggested that the apparent obstacle to attendance by MEPs such as herself raised a question about the effectiveness of the Citizens’ Dialogue enterprise. The Irish events are staged in association with the Department of Foreign Affairs and enthusiastically promoted by other arms of government.
Harkin is suspicious of a decision that has the effect of excluding herself and her fellow MEPs from the discussion.
She raised her complaints with Helen McEntee, the junior minister for European affairs. In what Harkin described as a “brief reply”, McEntee simply expressed regret that the scheduling of the debates did not suit the MEP’s calendar. Harkin wrote: “My calendar is not the issue; it’s the calendar of all four MEPs representing their constituency.”
McEntee’s blasé response is certainly at odds with the avowed purpose of the Citizens’ Dialogues. Announcing the schedule this month, she presented the debates as an undertaking of enormous importance and urgency, an indispensable engagement between the electorate and the elected. “It is vital that Ireland brings its influence to bear on the future of the European Union,” McEntee said.
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“The EU is not perfect and responding to the needs and concerns of our citizens should be a priority. The EU must, therefore, look to its citizens for guidance to hear from them what they want from the EU and how they want it to work better for them.”
The notion that “the needs and concerns of our citizens” are a priority for the high muckety-mucks of EU policymaking is most amusing, especially for anyone who recalls the heavy-handed manner in which Ireland was treated after the 2008 financial crisis. In truth, this whole Citizens’ Dialogue business smacks of a PR wheeze, as much for the Irish government as the EU establishment.
Last October’s Dublin debate was attended by Violeta Bulc, the EU’s transport commissioner, and Brian Hayes, the Fine Gael MEP. During her visit, Bulc addressed the Oireachtas transport committee and was taken on tours of Dublin airport and port. Hayes also brought her to Marlborough Street for a look at the cross-city Luas interconnector, part-funded by EU money. At each of these appointments ministers queued up to be photographed alongside the EU commissioner.
Given the negligible impact of the debate itself, it’s hard to see Bulc’s involvement in the Citizens’ Dialogue as anything other than an elaborate photo-opportunity.
Though they frequently talk about the need for greater dialogue between the people and the power-wielders, EU chiefs have never been very good at engaging in it. Hard sell and risible exaggeration are frequently deployed in lieu of coherent argument or upfront candour. Many of the lofty claims made on behalf of the EU are too corny to be believable, too sweet to be wholesome.
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Even at a time when Irish Euroscepticism is conspicuously muted, not least because we can see the energy-sapping muddle in which the British have landed themselves with Brexit, there is little evident appetite for serious debate about Ireland’s relationship with the EU. Grandstanding and grandiosity remain the preferred form of communication.