European Union: Europe´s First Government Crisis

In the end Santer's cabinet was humbled and overthrown by the report of an independent commission of five experts, who examined the performance of the commission and came to a devastating result, confirming most of the allegations and adding others. Tolerance of fraud, waste and nepotism were among the accusations of the experts who had been engaged by the European Parliament. The general conclusion: Santer had lost control of his commissioners as well as of the Brussels burocracy.

After this conclusion the German Social Democrats in the EU Parliament asked for the resignation of the whole Commission. Some commissioner still tried to refuse, claiming that this would be an injustice against those commissioners who had, without doubt, done a good job, but Santer decided for the resignation of the whole cabinet.

When Santer and his commissioners finally resigned at the end of March, nothing was the same again in Europe. The British Guardian compared the resignation of the mighty Commission in Bruxelles with nothing less than the French Revolution: with Santer as Louis XIV and the French commissioner Edith Cresson as Marie Antoinette.

In fact, the equilibrium between the European institutions has been changed. For too long the EU Commission in Bruxelles had refused the Parliament's request to control their action. The misbalance between the EU institutions penalized the parliament in favor of the executive Commission and the legislative Council of Ministers. Now the European Parliament in Strasbourg, for decades little more than a powerless club for elderly deputies, finally took revenge. The latest reforms, introduced under the supervision of Helmut Kohl, had already enforced the Parliament's responsibilities and with the next reform these duties should be strengthened even more.

On May 1st the new treaty of Amsterdam will come into force : signed in December, it gives more power to the assembly in Strasbourg in order to make it more similar to a real parliament. In future the president of the Commission, who is still nominated by national prime ministers, will have to ask the deputies to be confirmed in parliament with a confidence vote. Anticipating the new duties the president of the EU-Parliament, Spain's José Maria Gil-Robles, already exercised a strong pressure on national leaders asking them to nominate an immediate successor for Santer.

With the sky darkened by the clouds of war in Kosovo, Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schröder feared now for the success of the summit to be held in Berlin

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