Enter the Iberians

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 20

Enter the Iberians

From “The Economist,” London

The European Parliament has acquired 84 new members from Spain and Portugal. When they arrived in Strasbourg for their first session on January 13, the biggest group among the newcomers, the 36 Spanish Socialists, together with six Portuguese, duly joined their socialist colleagues from the rest of the E.E.C.

The second largest contingent, the 13 members of Spain’s opposition Popular Alliance, teamed up with the group led by the British Conservatives.

This first batch of Spanish and Portuguese Euro-M.P.s were not elected directly; they were delegated by their parties in proportion to the number of seats held in their home Parliaments. Direct elections are to be held in both countries later this year.

Spanish and Portuguese voters will get the chance to learn more about the Parliament before the election thanks to a publicity film being made by the British

actor, Mr Peter Ustinov. He joins a list of show-business people, including Alec Guinness, Brigitte Bardot and Salvatore Adamo, who have lent their talents to drum up interest in the E.E.C. cause. That is not easy, because the European Parliament has few real powers beyond that of sacking the European Commission (which it has never done) and battling with E.E.C. Governments over the Community’s budget (which it does every year with relish). In spite of plans to give Parliament a little more scope to air its views, the final decisions still lie with the member-States’ Governments. Undeterred, the Parliament spends a lot of its time firing off firm resolutions about things over which it has no obvious influence at all. On January 14 it backed the European option in the row over the future of Britain’s Westland helicopter company, but nobody

The Parliament has in the past expressed equally firm views on subjects like the Gulf war, Angola, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, human rights in Turkey, the fate of Mr Andrei Sakharov, the future of East Timor, to name but a few.

Will the newcomers change much? The arrival of the Iberian socialists will reduce the CentreRight’s domination of the Parliament, although it still commands an over-all majority, even without the support of the extremists of the European Right. However, Left-Right splits in Parliamentary votes are less frequent that might be expected, because the broad political groups often fight among themselves along narrow national lines. To that extent, the Parliament accurately reflects the incomplete state of European integration.

Copyright, “The Economist.”