Brussels, 09/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament must "very rapidly" begin work on a report broaching both the results of negotiations on the Treaty of Nice and post-Nice, while knowing that, whereas national parliaments may reject the Treaty, it may itself express a "radically" negative judgement on the text without, however, being able to reject it, said the Chair of the EP's Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Giorgio Napolitano (Domcratici di sinistra), when opening a very lively discussion Monday evening on the detailed evaluation that Parliament will have to make of the new Treaty, following its initial political reaction after the Summit of Nice, in December in Strasbourg. The declaration that the European Council adopted on post-Nice has the merit of not proposing the method of an Intergovernmental Conference that Parliament had regarded as "unsustainable", and it sketches out "a different process, even though, for now, very vague", with a contribution by the European Commission, European Parliament participation and an opening to civil society and, especially, national parliaments, remarked the former leader of the Camera dei Deputati, stating that the EP must rapidly take the initiative, without waiting for the European Council of Gothenburg, which is to present a report on post-Nice, in June. Other than this report on Nice and post-nice, the EP should adopt "own-initiative reports" on specific aspects, like relations with national parliaments, said Mr. Napolitano, recalling that the EP must already draw up an opinion for the Foreign Affairs Committee on enlargement and intended drawing up a report on governance (that of the Commission on this subject has been announced for next Spring).. We must also return to the reform of the Council, he added. The "crucial point" remains the relationship between enlargement and deepening, said Giorgio Napolitano, noting that the governments of certain countries applicants for membership had welcomed the outcome of Nice precisely because that field of qualified majority voting had not been broadened so much, whereas they feared that the new rules would relegate them more easily to the minority.
During Monday evening's debate within the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, only two British MEPs - Conservative Christopher Beazley and Labour's Richard Corbett - considered that, despite all their reservations, Parliament could say yes to the Treaty of Nice. All the others said either that, to be accepted this text should be improved (yes, but how?, asked, among others, the leader of the Union of European Federalists, Jo Leinen) or some simply said "no", the pro-Europeans joining in this refusal of the "Euroscpetics", like Denmark's Jens-Peter Bonde.
The judgement of the two EP representatives in the Intergovernmental Conference was negative, but more nuanced for reek Socialist Dimitris Tsatsos than for German Christian-Democrat Elmar Brok, more categorical (along the hard line taken by the German members of the EPP against the Schreoder Government). In Nice, "we sacrificed certain principles", like that of the balance between the large and small Member States, in favour of "efficiency", without for that improving efficiency, exclaimed Mr. Tstasos, denouncing the bargaining in Nice, which, he said, made of the European Parliament the place to compensate those who were not satisfied with other points (you have fewer votes in Council, you will have more Euro-MPs, etc.). According to him, Parliament should therefore say that the Nice Treaty is "bad", while "possibly agreeing to maybe approving it if it secures some progress. This Treaty is the first text that is a step back in European integration since the rejection of the European Community of defence in the Fifties (by the French National assembly: Ed) and the first step back decided by a European body, Mr. Brok opined, for whom the European Parliament must demand "improvements" to the text. It's preferable to have an Edinburgh before the Danish referendum than an Edinburgh after, he said referring to the negotiations, at the European Council of Edinburgh in December 1992, over the Danish "opt outs" that had enabled the Danes, in the second referendum, to say "yes" to Maastricht. Mr. Brok especially criticised the decisions taken concerning the threshold for a qualified majority: in an enlarged Union, the threshold could reach 75%, whereas in such a Union, the minority block will move from 88 to only 91, which means that it will be more difficult to take decisions, noted the member of the CDU, considering that the small countries would find it increasingly difficult to contribute to the formation of a "critical mass" within Council. As for the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, Mr. Brok reaffirmed that the Czech and Hungarians needed to have as many members as the Belgians and Portuguese; is the number of seats planned for them another "typing error", like the one President Chirac pointed out regarding the votes allocated to Poland in the Council? He asked.
I am less pessimist than you on the "irretrevability" of the situation, exclaimed the British Conservative Christopher Beazley, who once said that in addition to the priority, its enlargements, and who call for, before the ratification of the new Treaty, they also ask the candidate countries to contribute to the post-Nice debate. Mr Beazley also felt that the Parliament should draft a report on the issue (raised in particular by Alain Lamassoure, he recalled) of the eastern border of the European Union and also debated the relations between the EU and countries such as, for example, the Ukraine. After the Single Act, after Maastricht, after Amsterdam, the Parliament had already said that these were cases of insufficient Treaties, but it had ended up accepting them, noted the British Conservative Richard Corbett, who emphasised the advances of the Nice Treaty and who felt that, if the Parliament called for changes, the result would be a new meeting, "with the same people around the same table, the same pressure, the same result" except for a few "decorative" improvements. According to him, the more arguable results, such as the increase in the ceiling of qualified majority and the allocation of seats in the European Parliament, do not form an "immediate worry" and will correct themselves in part, during the enlargement negotiations: I do not feel for one minute that the Czech Republic would accept to have less MEPs than Belgium and Portugal, he notably asserted.
I am not in agreement with this attempt to find in details a justification to our yes, commented with bitterness the Italian Green Monica Frassoni, who noted with "bitterness" that certain "pro-European" governments , such as the Italian, German or Belgian, had not prevented the results, unacceptable for her, in the Nice negotiation. I cannot say "yes" to this Treaty, but I fear a resolution from the Parliament where we are drawing-up a long list of grievances and we end up saying "yes" regardless, she stated, while concluding: the Parliament can very well say "yes" or "no" while expressing a negative judgement on the Treaty and in deciding to minimise everything on the post-Nice, even if the themes that the Nice Declaration proposes for this process "are not enthusing themes, but even endangered themes". The Heads of State and Government have "failed", announced the Austrian Green Johannes Voggenhuber, who denounced an enormous increase in the weight of the executive against the elected Parliament and rose up against a negotiation consisting of granting "fishing boats against fundamental rights, more votes against the intervention of structural funds and so on".
Sadly, the European Parliament has no power to block the Treaty, as we have not asked it to give its assent, but a simple assessment, underlined the British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff, for whom the judgement of the Parliament should be very critical: we must also fight against the prejudice that the Heads of State and Government feed with regards to the European Parliament, he exhorted. The Nice Treaty "is insufficient", we have always said that if we want to enlarge the EU we must deepen integration, asserted the CDU member Karl von Wogau, who, with regards to the post-Nice, raised in particular subsidiarity (in certain fields we must give more "room for manoeuvre" to the Member States, but in others, such as security and defence, we must do more together, he remarked). As for the German Social Democrat Jo Leinen, who also asserts that, after Nice, the Parliament looses power against the executive, he felt that no national parliament "would say no, in an isolated manner" to the Nice Treaty. How should the European Parliament now act?, he asked, adding: "this Treaty does not yet have my yes". At the same time, as with other MEPs, Mr Leinen notes that, with the negotiation of the Nice Treaty, "the IGC is discredited", and that it will not be able to continue in the same shape (but Mr Brok felt that it is necessary to abandon the illusion that a forum such as the Convention which drafted the Charter of Fundamental Rights may adopt a text with the legal value of Treaty).
As for Jens-Peter Bonde (Danish co-President of the Europe of Democracy and Diversities group), stated: we must send a strong message to the governments by rejecting the Treaty, "we cannot adopt a text like this, so unclear (…), it is unusable". I have spent the Christmas holidays reading this text, but it has not been enough to understand where it will take us, he commented. He also felt that, during the last "clean-up" of the text before its official signing, in five weeks, the Parliament will have the time to denounce its failings. Since the ratification process in the national parliaments will last less than one and a half years, we will have twenty months to gain improvements of the Treaty, added Mr Bonde.