“Who’s Watching Brussels? Why the EU Deserves Better Watchdogs”, Reviewed

The European elections were held some weeks ago now. Votes have been tallied and seats have been filled. It looks as if the dust has settled.

Or has it?

For many of the EU’s 450 million residents, did the elections even disturb any dust?

Here in Ireland, we may wake up to stories around what Mary Lou had for breakfast or how Tom Hanks’s second-cousin-thrice-removed grew up in Cabra West. But the wheeling and dealing in Europe barely makes the headlines.

Mighty economic decisions, green policies, sweeping laws, corruption, migration and deals with dictators, the European machine is ploughing ahead, but with all the hush of an electric automobile along a country lane.

Is the general apathy toward the EU based on a lack of understanding of what the EU does? A lack of trust? Is Europe to blame for the breakdown in communication, or is the breakdown a useful shield for decisions made by member governments?

In the book Who’s watching Brussels? Lise Witteman brings a number of controversial EU decisions and breaches to the fore and highlights how Europe’s watchdogs responded.

Investigating the idea that the EU needs tighter monitoring, she poses the question:  “How democratic can a centre of power be when almost no one understands what is going on or how decisions are made, let alone how you as a citizen can influence them?”

Witteman is the Bureau Brussels team lead for Follow the Money, an investigative platform made up of award-winning journalists with a goal to “uncover the truth in the interest of society”.

Her first book centred around the Dutch industrial lobby in Brussels, and as she admits herself, “Investigating the facts means that we also expose the ugly side of the European Union” and may “unintentionally play into the hands of opponents of ‘Brussels’”, but “you cannot have an open society without having all the information out on the table”.

Honest and illuminating, the book is engaging from the off. It opens with the image of Ursula von der Leyen on the thirteenth floor of the European Commission building.

Promoted to the role of European Commission President under the shadow of domestic scandals, she was quickly thrust into a number of world crises. Covid-19 is one of the first on the agenda.

The pandemic contributed to economic misery across the globe and member states were soon asking the EU what it could do to help ease the pain. After some back and forth, the emerging plan seemed simple enough: provide funds to those European members most in trouble in an effort to boost their economies.

But to achieve this, all members would have to guarantee loans from financial markets to the tune of €750 billion. To protect these loans, caveats were introduced to ensure the money was used for its designated purpose. This meant that member states would need to outline several economic and legislative reforms in order to receive funds.

There’s no evidence to show that fellow member states robustly monitored the reforms afterward. What did become evident was that some member state governments made decisions on reforms with little input from their national parliaments.

Using Italy as an example, the author explains that a 300-page plan, discussed and approved by Italian lawmakers, transformed into a 2,487-page plan by the time the Italian government and Brussels signed off on it.

Finnish professor of European law Päivi Leino-Sandberg sees this as “risking the erosion of parliamentary democracy, because it sidelines national MPs and the general public”.

This can give national governments the opportunity to use recovery packages as leverage to push through their own agendas, while also increasing the danger of playing into the narrative from EU sceptics around “Brussels interference,” leading to a “Blame Brussels’ mindset.

Witteman explains that it was around the time of the pandemic that the concept of Team Europe began to appear.  This was where a number of European bodies pooled resources to maximise efficiency and have greater impact.

Really, this joint initiative was made up of European institutions already in existence but under the umbrella Team Europe, there appears to be less accountability on decisions.

One area Team Europe became involved with was migration, particularly in relation to several North African countries. For example, Tunisia received more than €1 billion of EU funds to reduce the number of migrants departing its shores for Europe.

Not only was this deal agreed with a Tunisian president known to have a dire human rights record, but the 700 elected European MEPS were kept in the dark on the whole agreement.

Who’s watching Brussels? certainly doesn’t dance around these types of hard issues.

It hits on the anti-NGO stance by certain figures in the European Commission. The use of a European-supported charity as a PR vehicle. Von der Leyen’s lack of engagement with the free press, and her behind-the-scenes negotiations with Pfizer’s CEO around the coronavirus vaccine.

There is also the scandal in Qatar, where a group of lawmakers allegedly accepted bribes, a scandal that included the European Parliament’s very own vice-president.

Although power in EU government is weighted towards the Commission and the Council, the book notes that many MEPs in Parliament strive for a democratic Europe, where administrators and politicians are held accountable for their actions.

These MEPs still maintain a veto when it comes to the Commission’s budget, and recently used this veto to encourage the Hungarian government to “uphold European values”.

The current Hungarian government has a reputation for corruption and oppression against minorities, as well as restrictions on freedom of the press.

EU funding irregularities in Hungary have been investigated by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). In early 2019, a proposal was introduced whereby the funding for member states would be cut off if they “tampered with the rule of law”.

But the wording has been diluted and the process took so long to implement that it would take a lawsuit from the Parliament for words “to be turned into deeds”, as David Sassoli pushed for, then president of the Parliament.

OLAF writes recommendations based on its own investigations but is reliant on prosecutors from various member states following up on these recommendations. This doesn’t always happen, and the outcomes are rarely disseminated widely.

Follow the Money investigated three such cases and found the “anti-fraud agency made no public communications about the officials’ involvement in any of the cases, even after wrapping up its investigation”.

Organisations like Transparency International have long “decried ambiguous regulations, inadequate supervision and poor enforcement of institutional rules” when it comes to Europe, while the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is a more recent avenue for investigating abuses relating to EU money.

In 2022, the EPPO opened more than four times as many investigations as OLAF in the same period, and unlike other watchdogs, it has the power to bring crimes before the national courts.

Respected ex-journalist Emily O’Reilly has worked the position of European Ombudsman for over 10 years, a role responsible for monitoring ethical standards within European government.

Again, the Ombudsman’s findings are not always acted on, but she is certainly not shy in calling out problems with the current system and vocalising the “importance of openness in Europe”.

Who’s watching Brussels? really uncovers the hidden underbelly of the EU and explains the difficulties agencies face in the effort to weed out corruption. The book also works as a tool to highlight the need for these agencies, as well as the need for national media and investigative journalists to apply further scrutiny on Europe.

It’s informative, thought-provoking and accessible, even for people with little understanding of Europe, like myself. At the very least, there will be a lot more people “watching Brussels” after reading this book.