Brussels, 16/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The "Group of Representatives of the Member States" within the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the EU's institutional reform, chaired by Mr. Seixas da Costa, devoted its first meeting, on Tuesday, to an initial exchange of views on the extension of qualified majority voting within the Council. It also defined its agenda and work programme. At its next meeting, on Friday 25 February, the issue of the possible enlargement of the IGC's agenda will be broached.
According to Mr. Brok, it is significant that the Presidency should have begun by discussing qualified majority voting - Mr. Tsatsos places emphasis on equality between Member States
Strasbourg, 16/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The two representatives of the European Parliament within the Seixas da Costa Group, Elmar Brok (German, EPP) and Dimitri Tstasos (Greek, Socialist) briefed the press on Wednesday on the Group's first meeting. Mr. Brok considered that the fact that the Portuguese Presidency should have placed the extension of qualified majority voting as first item for discussion to be "an important sign" of its priorities. Several governmental representatives considered, as we did, representatives of Parliament, that in future majority decision-taking should be the rule and unanimity the exception, said Mr. Brok, the Portuguese Presidency having indicated the "categories" of decisions that would continue to be taken through unanimity (for Parliament, it has to continue to apply to issues of a "constitutional" nature, mainly questions that demand ratification by national parliaments). We also affirmed, and nobody contradicted us, that Parliament was demanding co-decision everywhere where, in future, decisions are taken through a qualified majority, Mr. Brock went on. He added that he had had the impression that the Portuguese Presidency was interpreting the mandate given to the IGC in a broad manner, and said that the Presidency had announced that it would "develop ideas in the spring already" on issues that could be dealt with beyond those already set out in the brief.
As for Mr. Tstatsos, he observed that the meeting had enabled them to understand the "national sensitivities" on issues dealt with: "we shall have to look more closely at certain cases", he believed, stating, for example, that the representatives of certain Member States had shown themselves to be reserved as to allocating new powers to the Union.. Mr. Tsatsos also said that in the long run the EU's democratisation would demand genuine European parties, as citizens too had to participate and organise themselves, and he placed emphasis on equality between Member States.