Nice, 08/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The document on institutional reform that is presently on the table is not a text that the Parliament could approve, said on Friday morning to the press, in Nice, the German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok, one of the European Parliament representatives to the Intergovernmental Conference on EU institutional reform (Mr Brok was expressing himself before the presentation of a new draft Treaty containing proposals also on the most delicate issues left out until now: the weighting of votes, the formation of the European Commission, the allocation of seats in the European Parliament). It is fine to say that there will be an "after Nice", but it will first require resolving the Amsterdam leftovers, asserted Mr Brok (who was, with Elisabeth Guigou, European Parliament representative at the previous IGC). For the European Parliament, the number of Commissioners or the number of vote in the Council are issues of relative importance, while the core is the extension of qualified majority voting, repeated Mr Brok, who called on European leaders gathered in Nice to cover the "last meters" that must lead to a Treaty enabling the EU to enlarge without weakening. If we have an enlargement without adapting the structures it requires, Margaret Thatcher would have won, and I would not like for, ten years after having left politics, Mrs Thatcher to determine European policy, exclaimed Mr Brok.
The other European Parliament representative to the IGC, the Greek Socialist Dimitris Tsarsos, insisted in particular for the attributing of codecision to the European Parliament everywhere where there is qualified majority: some countries oppose this by asserting that codecision, take time, but democracy "lasts even longer",, and that they must accept it, he exclaimed. I have the impression that in the IGC they paid too much attention to efficiency and not enough to democracy, said Mr Tsatsos.