Brussels, 25/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Parliament will regularly attend meetings of the college of the European commissioners. This announcement was made on Wednesday 25 April by the Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, following the first meeting of this kind. Barroso emphasised the importance of this collaboration and explained that if Martin Schulz agrees, they will from now on repeat this exercise on a regular basis.
The president of the Commission said that it was crucially important that the two institutions continue to deepen their cooperation through a “privileged partnership”. He also explained that he and Schulz consider that this partnership is key to making progress in implementation of the EU economic strategy. He added that the two institutions could together pave the way ahead for a stronger European Union and greater democratic legitimacy because they should not forget that the Commission is responsible to the Parliament and the Parliament is directly elected by citizens.
The two presidents highlighted the importance of the Community method. Barroso explained that “the strong commitment of our two institutions to the Community method is the best way of helping the EU to make progress and to make it prosperous… The Community method is the only way of guaranteeing fairness and commitment to the general European interest.”
Schulz stressed that the Europe he envisages is linked to the Community method and said: “We want to pursue European integration; there is no question of going backwards… We want more integration but some countries are talking about renationalisation; the European institutions have to work hand-in-hand to avoid that.” (CG/transl.fl)