Martin Schulz opened the negotiation. The speech given to the heads of state and government last week by the president of the European Parliament represents a significant moment in the EU's institutional development. Parliament, we know, has the power to approve or reject the multiannual financial framework covering the next seven years, and it has used this power in an extremely good way - it neither approved the European Council's draft as it stood nor did it reject the draft outright, but it pointed out the conditions under which it could accept it. This procedure enables the financial framework to be negotiated between the two institutions - which is something the Treaty does not explicitly lay out. Instead of a yes or a no, the Parliament has thus found a way of transforming the cut and dried procedure into a Parliament-Council negotiation. The main political groups decided not to contest the overall allocation (increasing it would have led to a blockage as several member states are not in a position to approve more funding right now) but to centre the negotiation from the outset on the objectives and forms of action.
Martin Schulz's speech - which he gave before the summit on 14 March - was a foretaste of the mindset and direction of the Parliament's position. In practice, this speech has constituted the first phase of the negotiations that will follow with the Council.
Parliament's view of the way to go. Mr Schulz opened his speech - which was longer, more lively and more concrete than typical similar speeches- by saying how pleased he was with summit's support for the financial transaction tax (long called for by the Parliament) and for the capping of bankers' bonuses. He then spoke of the basic principle of the parallelism between controlling expenditure and boosting the economy - “budgetary consolidation must go hand in hand with investments to stimulate growth.” Yet the president of the Parliament noted that the general public is largely ignorant of this Community reality and does not understand why budgetary consolidation and reforms “are fundamental to a successful shared future”. The contents of “the Growth and Employment Pact, with its budget of €120 billion (…) have gone largely unnoticed by the general public” and the contents of this pact therefore need to be made known. Let me add that the attitude of part of the media is totally unjustified. The fashion is for them to disparage European construction and there are commentators who add to this, showing their ignorance, populaism and cowardice.
Three key requirements. Mr Schulz then pointed out that the Parliament and European Council “will endeavour to reach a compromise which is consistent with the interests of EU citizens and which guarantees Europe's financial viability”. The Parliament has three key requirements:
the European budget must be “geared to generating growth and jobs”, bringing added value to the investment, which must constitute a sound future for citizens.
this budget must plug the gap between commitments and payments so that the EU avoids the debt trap
the multiannual allocation must include a revision clause which: (i) offers a maximum degree of flexibility between financial years and categories of expenditure; (ii) includes an agreement on new own resources of the EU; (iii) maintains the principle of the unity of the EU budget.
Essential demands. It is obvious that the essential demands are those in point (3) - elasticity of the multiannual budget with the possibility of transferring credits from one area to another and from one year to another; the possibility of increasing the resources; the rejection of a separate budget for the eurozone.
There will be much to negotiate and it will not always be easy. Mr Schulz stated that 506 votes were cast against the current draft when it was rejected by the Parliament and that qualified majority will be needed for the draft to be approved. This means that 506 negative votes must be transformed into at least 378 votes in favour. This is an elegant way of saying with numbers that the European Council will have to take ample account of the Parliament's demands summarised above.
Mr Schulz also underlined that the decisions to be taken must be in the context of the treaties already in force. Discussions on the constitutional reforms are important - and even desirable - but the current crisis must be overcome with the instruments that already exist. This column will come back to this point.
(FR/transl.fl)