A couple of weeks a go I ran into Geoffrey Nice QC, a former prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague. The British barrister told me why he thought the International Court of Justice had been less effective than it could have been. The reason, he said, was because it the Court was not surrounded by any other accountability mechanisms, which make sure national judicial systems worked – Parliament, bar associations, and, of course, the ever-inquisitive media.
I thought of Nice’s comments as “Yachtgate” started rolling and questions were raised about Lord Mandelson’s contacts with Oleg Deripaska. The Russian oligarch is said to stands to benefit from three decisions made at the time Lord Mandelson was a European trade commissioner.
Though it is clear that the Business Secretary has been less than forthright about his relations with Mr. Deripaska – for example when he first met the Russian – he denies any wrongdoing. And in this he is backed up by the EU’s top trade official, Irish diplomat David O’Sullivan, who insists that there had been “no political interference” from the then-Commissioner when the EU cut aluminium tariffs – saving the Russian oligarch huge sums.
But this takes me back to Nice’s comments. How come this is the first anyone hears about this? Even if, as Lord Mandelson contests, there is no improper relationship between him and Mr. Deripaska why did this not come to light before? Was it, like the problems surrounding ICTY, because the EU still has not developed the kind of accountability mechanisms require in a normal society?
Days after the British media started the story, the European ombudsman ruled that Mandelson’s office had been “wrongly blanking out the names of industry lobbyists” in documents released to the public. It went further, saying that “disclosure of names of individual lobbyists is essential”. But why was this not examined before?
I know, I know… there are no good answers to this. Or at least no answers beyond the fact that there is a European political class even though there is not yet a European “demos”. And without a “demos”, which includes a vibrant civil society and press corps, the very notion of accountability may be a mirage. But that, of course, does not explain the paucity of official oversight. The real question may be why has the EU system of governance not even been able to create the necessary oversight mimicry?
