On Thursday 14 September in Strasbourg, the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) discussed the draft revision of the Treaties submitted by five MEPs from the main pro-European political groups - EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left (see EUROPE 13241/10).
The proposal, which aims to activate Article 48, allowing a Convention to be convened on a revision of the institutional architecture of the European Union, is the “collective work” of the five rapporteurs, based on contributions from eleven parliamentary committees, said Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgian). He highlighted three objectives: - incorporating the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe into the Treaties; - preparing the EU for future enlargement; - giving the EU the capacity to meet the challenges of the future.
One of the major points concerns the move from unanimity to qualified majority voting by Member States for Council decisions in certain areas of foreign policy and taxation. The idea is to change the rules on qualified majority voting, which would be achieved by a majority of countries representing more than half the population.
“It’s not ideal”, admitted Mr Verhofstadt, but it will “rebalance power in favour of the ‘small’ and ‘medium-sized’ Member States” in order to do away with the current qualified majority, where Germany and France together have almost a veto.
The Belgian Liberal also spoke of strengthening the principle of subsidiarity, with the introduction of a ‘green card’ mechanism that would make it possible to stop a European legislative initiative, as well as granting the EU greater powers in the areas of health and defence. “On the other hand, when a committee recommended that nothing be changed, for example, the Agriculture Committee, we followed that position”, he pointed out.
Although the authors of the draft stress that the draft is the result of an overall compromise, the draft revision of the Treaties will be open to amendments, to be tabled on Wednesday 27 September, with a view to a vote in the AFCO Committee in October and then in the plenary session in November.
At a press conference the day before, Mr Verhofstadt had called on the Spanish Presidency of the Council to take up the issue and ask the Member States to vote by a simple majority on transferring the matter to the European Council.
In his view, decisions on the opening of EU membership negotiations with countries such as Ukraine must go hand in hand with those relating to the internal reform of the EU and its capacity to ‘absorb’ new countries. This last subject will be raised at the informal European summit in Granada at the beginning of October. Mr Verhofstadt believes that a decision by the European Council is possible before the end of 2023, so that the next Belgian Presidency of the Council can begin preparations for the future Convention, which will not start work until after the European elections in June 2024, once the Parliament has been reconstituted.
In her State of the Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen again called for a European Convention and “a modification of the Treaties, if and when necessary” (see EUROPE 13249/9). “But we cannot [...] wait to amend the Treaties before moving ahead with enlargement”, she added, aware of the difficulty of the task of deepening the EU.
Mr Verhofstadt does not share this vision.
Having initially participated in the work of the five rapporteurs, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (ECR, Polish) withdrew his name from the project, opposing any attempt to grant more powers to ‘Brussels’ (see EUROPE 13242/17).
To see the draft revision of the treaties drawn up by the five rapporteurs, go to https://aeur.eu/f/8kb (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)