EU presidency warns of 'authoritarian tendencies'

Europe must go local to counterbalance Europe's “centralistic and authoritarian tendencies”, the Austrian EU presidency has warned.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel has urged the EU to make good on rules which stipulate that decision-making should be carried out at the local level.

The principle is known as “subsidiarity” in Brussels jargon, an idea with origins in the Vatican, setting the limits of Roman Catholic interference in family life.

Schüssel argues that if regional and local authorities are ignored, the EU is compounding public perceptions of an out-of-touch or centralist Brussels.

“Centralistic, authoritarian tendencies always begin with a disregard for the rights of small entities,” he said in St Pölten on Wednesday.

“It is therefore essential to consciously implement subsidiarity and respect for small entities and to uphold the rights of the regions as an antidote to the democratic deficit of the EU.”

Speaking to the FT, Schüssel especially criticised the European Court of Justice for ignoring “national feelings”.

Vienna is angry over an EU court ruling forcing Austria to open medical schools to German students even though education is a national policy area.

“People see there is a tendency towards centralisation,” he warned. “You see it in France, Germany, Spain, also Britain. It is not just in the small or medium sized countries.”

To push the localist and decentralising agenda, the Austrian EU presidency has hosted a conference entitled Europe begins at home.

Speaking at the St Pölten event, Committee of the Regions President Michel Delebarre called on the EU to boost legitimacy by getting closer to citizens.

“The title of this conference expresses the weak point of European construction such as it has been conceived and developed so far, particularly, according to the fashionable jargon, an often elitist or ‘top down’ character.”

“It is not surprising that citizens feel themselves increasingly distant,” he said.

European commission vice-president Günter Verheugen stressed that the decentralised approach would be key to cutting EU red tape.

José Manuel Barroso’s administration has cut back on legislation with an already-light 2005 programme of 53 legislative acts slashed to just 31 in 2006

Verheugen is also leading efforts to cut 15,000 pages from the 90,000 page Brussels rulebook, known as the ‘acquis’.

“The commission will have to make plain for all to see… that all the steps of the subsidiarity control process have been taken. This will have to be made transparent,” he said.

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