Strasbourg, 30/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The head of the Socialist group, Enrique Baron, and one of its Vice-Presidents, Hannes Swoboda, announced in Strasbourg that the PES had approved a discussion paper on a reform of the European Parliament. The MEPs debate on the Parliamentary reform got underway last summer, in the light of a report by James Provan (British Conservative). However, the talks have got bogged down a bit, according to Mr Baron, and Mr Swoboda said the PES was planning to resuscitate the proceedings. We are seeking to have this issue included on the agenda for the Conference of Presidents "and the sooner the better"; stressed Mr Baron, adding that the aim of the reform should be to make the institution as transparent as possible for EU citizens, more effective in the way it carries out its legislative and monitoring activities and more responsible in its relationships with other institutions. The discussion paper stresses that come the Nice Treaty, the Parliament's position has to be strengthened by extending the scope of the co-decision procedure. Recalling that the Parliament is dealing this year with 257 legislative proposals, including 109 under the co-decision procedure, the report recommends:
1. A better system for planning the plenary session agenda, by highlighting certain items: legislative power: giving priority to issues that have a direct impact on citizens; inspection powers: better use of the available instruments, whilst phasing out the urgent debates and Council questions and referring question time to the Commission, whilst retaining solely the Council and Commission declarations and oral and written question by way of verification instruments (emergency debates would be held within the context of the Foreign Affairs and Development Committee, for example) ; a more political and transparent agenda : with a monthly debate on foreign policy themes, attended by the Council Presidency and possibly the CFSP representative (replacing urgent debates) and every second session, a debate with the Council and the Commission on EMU, social policy, the third pillar and other EU policies (for these themes it is increasingly important for the Council to be represented at the appropriate political level to a greater extent during plenary sessions ).
2. Limiting the number of procedures dealt with during plenary sessions. The Socialist group recalls that in 2000, apart from the 109 proposals and co-decision procedures, the Parliament received 175 non-legislative proposals, including 127 communications, and suggests that these texts of uneven importance, should not be covered by the same procedure (during the session now in progress, Mr Swoboda told reporters, we have adopted two reports - the Riis-Joergensen and Evans reports - on Commission reports describing the situation in 1999, and « this kind of thing makes us look fairly silly »). Hence the need to streamline the procedures, using less complicated processes such as delegating decision-making powers to a committee or procedures without further debate. The Socialist group also recommends making the adoption of the Commission's legislative programme a « review process » in the context of the Parliamentary committees and replacing its by a debate on the year's political priorities (« state of the Union »), at the start of each year, with the Council and the Commission.
3. Better management of the time needed for the voting procedures. The Socialist group talks about giving priority to amendments tabled by the committees over individual ones and restricting the scope for tabling amendments during plenary sessions (when 400 amendments are presented, this is tantamount to «filibustering », and the work is held up "on the whims" of one or two MEPs, Mr Baron told reporters). It also calls for the number of nominal calls to be limited, except during the final vote. The paper says that this should not be regarded as "a bid to limit MEPs' individual rights" but a way of "enhancing the joint endeavours, which need to be better managed during the committee stage" (there are more MPs involved at the committee stage than during the plenary proceedings, according to Mr Swoboda).
4. Organising debates that are « more lively ». The PES has come up with the practical idea of dividing certain debates in two: the first would focus on presenting the positions of the group, whilst the second would allow the MEPs present (hence in the light of a pre-determined list of speakers) to express themselves according to the « catch-the-president's eye » formula.