from the countries
concerned (a sub-formation of the European Parliament reduced to the
euro zone countries ), or a new Chamber based on grouping a portion of
the members of the national parliaments (e.g. 30 French MPs from the
National Assembly, 40 members from the German Bundestag, 30 Italian
deputies, etc., based on the population of each country, according to a
simple principle: one citizen, one vote). This second solution, which
takes up the idea of a “European Chamber” proposed by Joschka Fischer in
2011, is, we believe, the only option for moving towards political
union. It is impossible to completely deprive the national parliaments
of their power to set taxes. Precisely, it is on the basis of national
parliamentary sovereignty that a shared European parliamentary
sovereignty can be forged.
In this scheme, the European Union would have two
chambers: the existingEuropean Parliament, directly elected by the
citizens of the EU 28, and the European Chamber, representing the States
through their national parliaments. The European Chamber would
initially involve only the countries of the euro zone that want to move
towards a greater political, fiscal and budgetary union. But it would be
designed to welcome all EU countries agreeing to go down this road. A
Minister of Finance of the euro zone, and eventually an actual European
government, would answer to the European Chamber.
This new democratic architecture for Europe would
make it possible to finally overcome today’s inertia and the myth that
the Council of Heads of State could serve as a second chamber
representing the States. This wrong fable reflects the political
impotence of our continent: it is impossible for one person to represent
a country, unless we resign ourselves