Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen Report proposes amending, so as to facilitate it, procedure for suspending a Member State

Brussels, 28/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - As we mentioned (see EUROPE of 25 March, p.7), the EP's Committee on Constitutional Affairs has approved the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen Report on the European Parliament's proposals for the intergovernmental Conference, which has to be voted in plenary in the session to be held in Strasbourg from 10 to 14 April. Voted against were: George Berthu (Union for the Europe of Nations), Rijk van Dam (Europe of Democracies and Diversities), Johannes Voggenhuber (Green) and Socialists Hans-Peter Martin, Jacques Poos, Antonio Jose Seguro and Dimitrios Tsatsos (who, with Elmar Brok, is Parliament's representative in the IGC). The Parliamentary Committee adopted, in particular, an amendment tabled by the Socialists and Greens calling on the IGC to amend the procedure for suspending an EU Member State, enshrined in Article 7 of the Amsterdam Treaty, providing for: - the existence of a "serious violation", by a Member State of the principles set out in Article 6 (serious and "persistent", according to the text currently in force) being able to be observed by the Council voting through a majority of 4/5ths of Member States (by the Council meeting at the level of Heads of State or Government and voting through unanimity, according to the current text), on a proposal by a third of Member States or the Commission, and following the EP's assent. This provision, in particular, led to the abstention, and anger, of the member of the CSU Ursula Schleiber.

In addition, on some delicate issues, the position of the members was as follows:

• Enhanced cooperation. This must constitute "a force of attraction to help the Union move forward", only to be used in case of the "effective impossibility" for the EU to act collectively, and must be able to be triggered by at least a third of Member States.
• Commission: from 2005 to 2010, it shall be made up of one member per Member States, from 2010 its president and twenty members. In addition, its president may raise the question of confidence and the Commission shall resign if the EP refuses it that through a majority of its members.
• European Parliament. There has to be a ceiling of 700 members, and an initial transitional adjustment of the number of the members by Member States allowing for this ceiling not being exceeded should be introduced for the 2004-2006 term, as it is likely that a first wave of some new Member States will join the EU towards the years 2004-2009. From 2009, the number of members will be set in relation to the population according to a proportional distribution key corrected by the allocation of a minimum number of four seats per Member State, instead of six (this received a strong reaction on the part of former Luxembourg Minister Jacques Poos: Ed.). In addition (which greatly displeased the most anti-European members), 10% of the members would be elected on European lists from 2009, and Article 191 of the Treaty would have to be amended to stipulate the conditions of funding, including community-wide, of the European political parties.
• Council. A qualified majority is considered as having been secured if it obtains at least the simple majority of the members of the Council representing at least the majority of the total population of the EU. The Council has to split between an executive Council and a legislative Council. Qualified majority shall become the rule in Council, whereas unanimity shall be limited to decisions of a constitutional nature.
• "constitutionalisation" of the treaties. This shall notably be introduced by simplifying the treaties and codifying them into a single text, and by incorporating the future Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty.
• Defence. A Council of Defence Ministers shall be introduced, and the mutual assistance clause of Article V of the WEU Treaty shall be annexed to the EU Treaty in a protocol on the WEU, "which will provide each State with the possibility of joining". In addition, the Permanent Political and Security Committee and the Military Committee should be headed by the High Representative for Cfsp, whereas the Commissioner responsible for external relations would be responsible for the coordinating mechanism for civilian crisis management.

The resolution also calls on the President of the EP to examine, together with the presidents of the parliaments of Member States and candidate countries for accession the proposal of convening an inter-parliamentary conference in the coming months, before the conclusion of the IGC, to discuss the "major challenges of European construction in the next decade and the implications for the Intergovernmental Conference and the next Treaty (See yesterday's EUROPE, p.5, for the proposal made along these lines by the EP's "Constitution" inter-group).

Dialogue with Seixas da Costa - Tsatsos criticises Prodi

Last week, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs discussed the IGC with the chair of the preparatory group, Mr. Seixas da Costa and with the two EP representatives, Messrs. Brok and Tsatsos. The latter blamed Mr. Prodi for having split into two parts his latest intervention in the IGC to raise in detail the issue of the weighting of votes in Council and the composition of the Commission only after the departure of the Euro-MPs.

Chairman of the Constitutional Committee, Mr Napolitano, was also very critical of such discrimination. Mr Brok felt, for his part, that the MEPs should take part in debates on the IGC at national level in order to try to have an impact on the position of their governments and national parliaments. Mr Seixas da Costa mainly said he was quite optimistic about promoting enhanced cooperation in the first and third pillars but not in the second, no doubt because Member States prefer to wait for the results of discussions that are taking place in parallel to the subject of security and defence policy.