By Anne-France White - 12th January 2007
The time has come for fair elections for the president of the European parliament, according to French MEP Francis Wurtz.
The communist, who is the chairman of the GUE/NGL group, is running for president of the parliament in the 16 January vote.
But in an informal agreement drawn up two years ago between the socialist PES and the conservative EPP groups, EPP candidate Hans-Gert Poettering is widely expected to be rubber-stamped as the next president.
“This is a candidacy of principle,” Wurtz told this website. “We have always been opposed to this system of backroom deals.”
Like his fellow MEPs Monica Frassoni and Jens-Peter Bonde, Wurtz is running in order to register protest against the power-share agreements between the PES and EPP, which also extend to the distribution of committee chairs.
“We regret that in the name of an artificial consensus, we are not leaving room for the confrontation between different options.”
Wurtz argues that far from being merely a mundane or administrative procedure, the election of the parliament president should be “the opportunity to express a vision of the EU that is different from the dominant vision”.
The Frenchman’s own political stance ranges from demands for more social solidarity to increased environmental awareness, as well as a critique of what he calls the “fortress Europe” approach.
Wurtz also says he wants to see the EU use the weight of its 27 member states to ensure the emergence of fairer rules in world affairs.
“It should be for the citizens – through the MEPs they have elected – to have a voice on the choice of parliament’s next president.”
“We are campaigning for a new system,” the Frenchman adds.
“In votes for the parliament president, the one time there has not been a backroom deal is when the PES and EPP could not agree on a candidate,” he comments wryly.
Wurtz says now is the time for change, as the EU prepares to square up to a number of challenges from the constitution to the EU's direction for the next few years.
“At a time when a great debate is about to start on the future of the EU, the parliament and MEPs must ask for a change of direction in the EU.”
“We cannot make an abstraction of this election,” he concludes.
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