Citizens' Initiative

Of course this is a pro-EU government, as Ed Davey unremarkably informs the New Statesman. He himself is more Eurosceptical than several, possibly all but one, of his Conservative colleagues in the Cabinet.

From 1st April, appropriately enough, we are now subject to the regime of European Citizens' Initiatives. Any committee of seven, each from a different member-state, can, as it were, initiate such an Initiative calling for legislation. On securing one million online signatures, it will be presented to the European Commission. Which will presumably place it in the round filing cabinet in the corner, insofar as even that is necessary in this digital age. But that is hardly the point.

Except from Malta or Luxembourg, can there be a Member of the European Parliament with fewer than one million constituents? So, why not permit any MEP to do this thing? Or any government of a member-state? Or a resolution of any national parliament? At least the second and third of those ought certainly to be the case.

Speaking of national parliaments, each member-state needs a European Legislative Council elected by and from among those national parliamentarians who owed their positions to direct popular election. Each of the European Legislative Councils would have the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and half or more of them would have the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting.

Seat-taking MPs would organise themselves into caucuses. The largest caucus would elect five by voting for one candidate and with the top five getting in, the second-largest would thus elect four, the third-largest three, the fourth-largest two, and the fifth-largest one. All of the seat-taking MPs would then elect a further 10 by each voting for one candidate and with the top 10 elected at the end. Giving 25 members in all. Any tie would be settled by a run-off ballot.

There should also be a European Senate, again with the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and again with the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of a two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting. The Senate would also have the power to initiate legislation which would then pass to the European Parliament and thence (including back to the Senate) as if it had been initiated there.

Each of the Europarties, currently 11 in number, would appoint one Senator from each member-state at the same time as the elections to the European Parliament; as much as anything else, that would be a powerful insight for British and other voters into who has always been legislating for us at EU level and always will be.

Each member-state would name two permanent offices the occupants of which would always be European Senators, one representing the country's secular and humanist sources of moral sense and cultural identity, and the other representing the country's religious and spiritual sources of moral sense and cultural identity, with neither office able to be changed except with the approval of all of the other Senators in the same category.

And each of the Europarties would also nominate a further two Senators, at the same time as its other appointees, one representing the secular and humanist basis of its philosophy, policies and support, and the other representing the religious and spiritual basis of its philosophy, policies and support. Again, quite an eye-opener, not least in view of quite how many of those figures might very well be British, and quite who those Britons would be.

That would be a start, anyway.

Ed Miliband, over to you.