Europe's new year's revolution

Messrs President: Herman Van Rompuy and Jerzy Buzek, conservative heads of the centre-right-dominated European Council and Parliament. Photograph: Council of the European Union

The European Union that enters 2010 is a profoundly changed entity with respect to the one that we knew 12 months earlier.

Four main political developments are responsible for this change. First, the June European Parliament elections ushered in a much more conservative chamber, one with only about 50 percent of returning members. The influx of fresh blood will make this institution a different body. Plus, since December 1, the assembly has had a lot more influence: its legislative powers have effectively doubled.

Second, September's German elections put an end to the indecisiveness of the grand coalition in Berlin, the political impact of which had been felt through Germany's representatives at the EU level too. Third, the October 2 referendum in Ireland paved the way for the Lisbon Treaty to enter into force, creating the new top jobs of European Council president and high representative for foreign and security policy, handed to Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton, and putting an end to the era of institutional navel-gazing. Fourth is the new European Commission: the "Barroso II" team is set to haul Europe out of the economic crisis – at least this is what the Europeans would expect of them.

That is what we know. What we do not know is how the new, supposedly more effective Lisbon-era decision-making will work in a Europe composed almost exclusively of intergovernmental leaders. So far, a few facts are available. First, the new system sees a significant shift of powers from the European Commission to the European Parliament and the European Council. In the new system, there will be fewer original political initiatives coming from the Commission and more from the Council, as well as, increasingly, from the Parliament and from organised civil society through citizens’ initiatives. Furthermore, the Commission’s collegiality is weakened by the high representative’s individual unique position. Baroness Ashton is not an average commissioner. She is not secunda inter pares: she has her individual right of initiative and a potentially a highly visible role in international affairs (for instance, she will be able to address the UN Security Council).

The second emerging reality is the new role for the European Council, traditionally the bastion of EU intergovernmentalism. November's decisions on the top jobs represented a clear choice in favour of candidates with the lowest possible profiles. The member states have been meddling in the Commission – responsibility for the European Neighbourhood Policy has been removed from the high representative’s portfolio and given to the new enlargement commissioner, for example. On the other hand, the European Council now has a permanent head. President Van Rompuy is likely – in time – to try to introduce more Community-method thinking, perhaps bringing a more collegial mindset to the European Council just as collegiality is under threat in the Commission.

Catherine Ashton remains an enigma. She was the lowest-profile choice possible last November, though she is said to be a fast-learner. But can she learn fast enough? The first institutional answer should come with her report on the establishment of the External Action Service in April – unless a new crisis situation demands the intervention of the EU's top diplomat before then. Will we see another spectacle of national foreign ministers racing to the conflict zone: Moratinos vs Kouchner vs Miliband vs Westerwelle? In the medium term though, last November's appointments may be less significant than they now appear. The rolling revolution in foreign policy organisation has been put in place by the Lisbon Treaty and member states can now do little to stop it. All they can do – and they are trying – is limit its impact.

The third known development is the increasingly conservative slant of EU parliamentarism. All EU parliamentary chambers gained significant powers on December 1: national parliaments gained something close to a collective veto power in European decision-making and the European Parliament expanded its legislative and budgetary powers. But what will be the impact of the fact that the European Parliament is so strongly dominated by right-wing groups? Will the chamber be less likely to contest the views of the (also conservative-dominated) EU Council and Commission? The first test will come in January during the hearings of the commissioners-designate.

So was 2009 a good or a bad year for Europe? The painfully long institutional reform process is now over. Consequently, the ten-year “freeze” on some issues is also behind us – we can again talk about taxation or defence, for example. The lame-duck Europe, which lasted too long, has come to an end. In its place has emerged a very cautious Europe, one that did not take off at full speed on December 1 as some had hoped. But then, radical change is not Europe's style. The Union has always been about rolling evolution through a series of small steps. So in the end, the intergovernmental decisions of the European Council could turn out to be surprisingly positive for the prospects of a more supranational Europe in the years to come.