Brussels, 04/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 February, the European Parliament (EP), European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and Committee of the Regions (CoR) will sign cooperation agreements that aim “to strengthen the EU's democratic front” and to create “a new institutional balance”. This joint initiative should result in the three institutions moving closer together on the administrative and political levels.
Emerging from the shadows of the three enormous institutions - the Council of the EU, the European Commission and the European Parliament - has always been the primary objective of President of the EESC Henri Malosse (see EUROPE 10830). This cooperation agreement therefore chimes perfectly with his objective. As regards the principle, it is about strengthening the EU's democratic aspect and finding a new institutional balance, Malosse told EUROPE on 4 February. This is a shift, which in Malosse's view, is necessary because the EESC has for “too long been destabilised” by the Parliament's rise in power.
The concept of “sharing and pooling capacities” is taken from the area of defence, but can also very well be applied to this triangular cooperation agreement. The “functional” objective is to “make the [institutions'] legislative activities complementary and not to superimpose them”, says Malosse. The main illustrations of the institutions thus moving closer together on the administrative and political levels in concrete and immediate terms are the coordination of working agendas, close cooperation between the rapporteurs, the Parliament picking up on some of the EESC's and CoR's own initiative opinions that correspond to their individual areas of work, and speeches in the relevant committees. In the annex to the agreement is also an administrative agreement. The EESC and the CoR commit to contributing to the creation of a research service for MEPs and joint management with the EP of some translation staff.
The agreement, which will be signed on the sidelines of the Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg by European Parliament President Martin Schulz and Malosse, is characterised by the inclusion of a section in the agreement that is missing from the agreement with the CoR. The EESC will thus conduct impact studies on European legislation, which will feed the work of the two institutions. In Malosse's view, “this is a new dimension of the EESC's political activity” which “puts us back at the centre of the institutional triangle”. (JK/transl.fl)