Brussels, 31/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - In defining the working procedures and methods which will result, in summer 2001, with the adoption of its White Paper on Union Governance (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.6), the European Commission specified the aims of this document. A note from the spokesman's service, summarising the intentions of President Prodi (who personally pledged before the European Parliament that he would establish this document), indicates the two "main avenues" to be covered by the White Paper:
The need to modify methods of governance so that they are more comprehensible and live up to the expectations of citizens better do not only concern Europe. The note stresses that, in general, "public decision-making appears to the citizen to be complex, unintelligible, contradictory, authoritarian, and remote from day-to-day concerns". Most of the Member States have embarked upon a process of discussion and administrative reform to seek solutions. Meeting this challenge is an imperative, as "Europe is far from the ordinary citizen by its very nature, and it is suffering the effects of this misalignment even more than national, regional or local authorities". The White Paper is proposing to rethink obsolete methods of intervention, take stock of the situation of new forms of governance, and put forward proposals without taboo.
On Tuesday, the Commission held an exchange of views on this problem, several Commissioners speaking of specific subjects such as: the possible link between the White Paper and the current IGC (subjects partially overlap but the timetables are not concurrent and the White Paper is of a more general nature); the attitude of the Länder (which threaten not to ratify the reform resulting from the IGC if their powers and their autonomy are not entirely safeguarded); the need to consult citizens (through their representative bodies), already in the preparatory phase.
The Commission has definitively fixed the following working method: A group of Commissioners working under President Prodi will map out the political direction of the White Paper. It will be assisted by a steering committee provided by the President's Office and the Secretary-General. There will be an interdepartmental working party made up of officials from the main Directorates-General concerned. The work will involve a large measure of dialogue with all interested parties. There will be particular consultation of those who could be described as Community policy users. The actual drafting of the White Paper will be the responsibility of a very small team attached to the Secretariat-General and headed by Jérôme Vignon.