Brussels, 26/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - Wolfgang Schäuble, the German minister for finance, has mentioned the possibility of holding a referendum in Germany on the transfer of national competencies to the EU. In an interview with the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, on Monday 25 June, he said: “We can give more rights to Brussels but the German people must be able to speak on this issue.” He refused to set a date for a referendum but emphasised that it could occur “sooner than I thought a few months ago” and was a real possibility within the next five years. According to Schäuble, European leaders “want to make concrete proposals for greater integration” during the summit on Thursday and Friday 28-29 June, in Brussels.
Schäuble said that this transfer of competencies should be accompanied by greater democratic legitimacy of the institutions. In this connection, he appealed for strengthening the European Parliament, which would also be conferred with the legislative power of initiative. He described the fact that the European Commission was the only institution with this prerogative, as an anachronism. He declared that the Commission should become a real government and in order for this to happen it had to be elected either by the Parliament or through the direct election of its president. “I support the second option”, he explained. With regard to the question of nation states (some of which have misgivings about conceding further competencies to Brussels), they would be represented in a second chamber at the Parliament, based on the example of the German Bundesrat or US Senate, where the different laws have to be approved by majority voting, as is the case at Parliament.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has already hammered home the fact that “more Europe” is necessary to tackle the euro crisis and that political union is therefore a prerequisite for setting up a budgetary union. (EL/transl.fl)