Impeachment debacle lowers standing of U.S. democracy

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON (JP): To say that this week's events show American democracy on its way down and European democracy on its way up would be far too simplistic -- but there is a temptation to say just that.

They are more or less impeaching a president in Europe, too. Jacques Santer, president of the European Commission, and all 19 fellow Commissioners face a vote of censure in the European Parliament that could force them out of office by the end of the week. In the new single-currency Europe, a battle is being fought to establish democratic control of the evolving federal state.

How different from Washington, where the topic that obsesses the capital seems quite removed from the concerns of normal Americans. The impeachment of Bill Clinton lays bare both the ideological sectarianism that disfigures American politics, and the burden of a federal constitution so intricate and self- canceling that it seems to have been designed by Rube Goldberg on speed.

There is irony here, for 25 years ago Americans were the pragmatists and Europeans seemed hopelessly divided by ideology. Even sharper was the contrast between the cumbersome but time- tested democratic machinery of the U.S. federal government and the unrepresentative and stifling bureaucracy in Brussels that administered the few federal aspects of what we then called the European Economic Community.

But that was then, and this is now. The general decline in deference, and in particular its effects on the mass media, have transformed politics everywhere -- mostly for the better, by making it a more open and accountable trade. But it has also raised the body count of disgraced politicians -- and in the United States, for quite specific and local reasons, it has gravely undermined the political process.

In most European countries, problems with zipper control are not considered a hanging offense, and politicians are not usually forced to confess them or perjure themselves by denying them.

Moreover, if a politician does disgrace himself by local standards, he is usually out of office by the next day -- whereas the U.S. federal constitution makes it practically impossible to remove the offender. That's why we have had a year of officially sanctioned judicial voyeurism in Washington, and are now watching an utterly futile impeachment process begin in the Senate.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers 201 years ago, "(the impeachment process) will connect itself with the pre- existing factions...and the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by real demonstrations of innocence or guilt." The constitution has not changed much since then, and it is still true: the two-thirds majority of votes needed to convict Clinton in the Senate are simply not there.

Nobody would deny that the United States Senate is a vastly more powerful body, with a far stronger democratic tradition, than the European Parliament (which was not even directly elected until the 1980s). What is striking, however, is the trend lines -- for as the U.S. system drifts towards paralysis and irrelevance (and the Americans who even bother to vote fall from one-half towards one-third), a pan-European federal democracy is struggling to be born.

It will not stand or fall on the outcome of this week's vote in Strasbourg (where the European Parliament actually sits, to keep it at arm's length from the bureaucrats in Brussels). Indeed, European Commission President Jacques Santer will almost certainly serve out the remaining year of his term, though he may have to sacrifice a couple of his Commissioners. As in the U.S. Senate, the two-thirds majority of votes to oust him is just not there.

But there is something important happening in the European Community. A legislature that only gained democratic legitimacy itself a decade ago is now trying to bring the appointed bureaucracy in Brussels under its control.

The specific issue is accusations of fraud and mismanagement by various Commissioners, compounded by attempts at a cover-up in Brussels. No high drama here -- but the undramatic truth is that almost all the historic clashes between legislatures and official bureaucracies that have ended in the extension of democracy have been about the control of spending.

Whether the European Parliament wins or loses this battle, it is likely to win the war, for the far more integrated Europe that is being called into existence by the creation of the single currency needs more democratic institutions. As former Commission president Jacques Delors wrote recently, "It is clear that even with 15 members the European system no longer works adequately" -- and there are another ten countries in the queue to join.

Apart from the European Parliament feeling its oats, plans are starting to surface for democratizing the rest of the Brussels machinery that will administer the emerging federal Europe. Delors himself, for example, is urging all the socialist parties in the European Parliament to commit themselves to a single candidate for the president of the European Commission in this June's elections.

It is the EU's 15 governments who choose the European Commission, and national governments do not surrender power easily to a democratically elected but multi-national legislature.

However, the European Parliament has the right to veto their choice of president -- so one can see a deal where the 13 EU countries with left-wing governments agree to choose the candidate of the Strasbourg parliament(where the socialists are the biggest party).

That would give the next Commission president a democratic legitimacy that none of his predecessors have enjoyed. And though it would initially depend on a deal between consenting socialists in Strasbourg and the various European capitals, it would create a tradition that would be hard to ignore in future appointments.

It was by just such gradualism that the U.S. federal democracy took shape: a few states deciding to elect their senators rather than appoint them, for example, ultimately created irresistible pressure for a wholly elected Senate.

It will take time, but Europe is setting off down the same road. And no, democracy and the federal system are not dying in the U.S. They are just going through a very bad patch.