“A vast majority” of Member States consider that “this is not the right time” to go ahead and transfer the European Parliament’s request to convene a Convention to reform the European treaties to the European Council, Czech Minister for European Affairs Mikuláš Bek said on Tuesday 18 October after the General Affairs Council.
Mr Bek referred to the “international context” marked by the socio-economic consequences for the European Union of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, as well as to the work underway in Parliament which could lead to new “proposals”, to justify the EU Council’s position.
In June, Parliament adopted a second resolution calling for a review of the functioning of the EU (see EUROPE 12968/17). Its Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) is preparing a specific report to detail the changes to the EU treaties that it has already formulated. But MEPs are impatient with the slow procedure in the EU Council and do not want Member States to use the ongoing work in Parliament as an excuse not to submit the dossier to the European Council.
In a letter to Mr Bek on Monday, Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgian) said he was “surprised” that the EU Council was deliberating on the best time to forward Parliament’s request to the European Council, “and even more so that the EU Council is considering a vote on this matter”.
In response to a question from EUROPE, the Czech Minister stressed that, according to the EU Council’s legal experts, “a vote” is required by a simple majority of Member States. He agreed that Member States should not postpone any action without justification, stating their “firm commitment” to wait for the AFCO Committee to complete its work next spring. Some countries are also developing proposals for treaty reform, he added.
In his letter, Mr Verhofstadt reiterates that at this stage “no second proposal is foreseen by the Parliament” on the basis of the procedure described in Article 48 TEU.
See Mr Verhofstadt’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/3o0 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)