Strasbourg, 13/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission President, Romano Prodi, in presenting on 13 February to the European Parliament to Commission programme for 2001, kept himself to outlining the main points of this programme and especially raised the debate, which is already open, over the post-Nice process. In his speech entitled "State of the Union 2001", Mr Prodi noted, to start with, that this time the annual debate over the European Commission programme, "finally broaches the issue of the direction of the Europe of tomorrow". In 2000, we "maintained the undertakings made," asserted Mr Prodi who said he was "proud" of the Commission personnel, from which "we asked a great deal", by launching "radical internal reforms". This internal reform is not, in itself, "a political objective", but it remains one of the main building sites in 2001, he admitted, and, in feeling that "an administration cannot survive for long in such stressful conditions", he said he was decided to "rapidly complete this internal reform, while respecting all our undertakings".
As for the post Nice, Mr Prodi noted with satisfaction that the process he had described last January before the Parliament (first, a phase of "open reflection"; then the launch, during the summit next December in Laeken, of a phase of "structured reflection"; finally, an intergovernmental conference "short and decision-making") today seems largely accepted. He also felt that the first phase, which will occupy 2001, is "fundamental", because "what was especially lacking, in Nice, was the prior in-depth debate on what we expect from Europe and for Europe", and because the logic of the "not said" and the "constructive ambiguities" seem today to have "exhausted its ammunition". In noting that, since 1981 - thus for nearly a generation - Europe has "experienced a permanent institutional earthquake", Mr Prodi exclaimed: it would be dangerous that the continent's unity is built around "a pact that has become vague, engagements hardly fulfilled or defeatist after thoughts". "It no doubt is a case of a re-founding debate, of a constitutional nature", he asserted, by underlining the need to place this debate at the right level, "not that of the shape of bananas, invented themes or artificially deformed, but that of the true issues, which truly interest the citizens". These true issues, according to him, are, for example, as follows: - are we in agreement over the need to build a "political entity", and not just a commercial one?"; - what level of social and economic solidarity are we prepared to set out between ourselves?; - do we feel the same solidarity with regards to internal security?; - what environment will we leave for future generations?; - what are the best instruments to protect and assert our values of democracy, solidarity and justice?
To be clear that "I do not mistake the political debate, open in the most ample manner to civil society, with democratic representation", added Romano Prodi (in implicitly answering the MEPs criticisms which, within the Constitutional Committee, had expressed doubts over the formula of the "forum" suggested by Commissioner Barnier for this debate: see EUROPE of 7 February, p.). "It is the European and national parliamentarians, who have a specific legitimacy (…) We should take this into account when it comes to structuring this whole reflection (…) we will then enter into the second phase, after Laeken, and nobody envisages it without a significant participation by the European Parliament and national parliaments" added Mr Prodi, for whom, after Laeken and "after a suitable preparation", this structured reflection will have to be based upon "a formula gathering together all the protagonists: the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the governments and the Commission". It is during this "dialogue between the European Council and the Convention (or Conference, or Assembly, I will not adventure into the dangerous ground of terminology!) that the issues could be specified and we will finally be able to draw the institutional consequences", felt Romano Prodi, will assuring of his "full support" Commissioner Barnier who had insisted over the need to "bring out a coherent and viable process for our enlarged Union". The Commission will contribute to the debate notably through its White Paper on "forms of European government", he recalled, while exhorting not to expect from this document (which will be presented before the end of the summer) "a complete delimitation of the competences of the Union and the States". But this document will contribute, by trying to "define the instruments of an authentic administrative decentralisation, as well as the means to apply common policies at the most opportune level, the closest possible to the citizens".
Among the main themes for this year, Mr Prodi raised:
The follow-up of the Lisbon strategy and the Stockholm Summit (see EUROPE of 8 February, p.6, concerning Mr Prodi's press conference).
Drafting of a strategy from sustainable development, which will be discussed at the Gothenburg European Council. It will require translating this concept, "in itself rather abstract, into concrete and understandable terms", asserted Mr Prodi, who added that this will be a strategy "directed towards innovation and an increase in investments, by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by future technology". I have written to President Nicole Fontaine suggesting the holding of a broad debate on this theme in the European Parliament, as a long-term project of this kind requires an "effective prior consulation", he added.
The holding of a new trade round (one of our main priorities for 2001). Here, Mr Prodi, hoped that the Council and Parliament accept, "this month" the "everything but arms" proposal from Commissioner Lamy: the UN Secretary General, with whom I spoke on the telephone after his visit to the Middle East, explicitly asked me to invite you to complete this plan, said Mr Prodi.
Contacts with the new American administration. Obviously, President Bush has "his regional priorities, but I know that he does not underestimate the importance of the multilateral system", asserted Mr Prodi. The introduction of the Euro, at the end of this year. As soon as the Euro "will have the aspect of hard cash in people's pockets", it will become a daily reality, and "my Commission will work hard with the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies, to complete the preparations" for this even of historic importance.
European MPs call for suitable role on post-Nice process
The debate which followed the speech by Mr Prodi mainly covered the post-Nice. With regards to the European Commission programme for this year, several MEPs questioned whether the Commission is not overloading the ship (must the Commission make a proposal on the formulation of the curriculum vita at the European level?, wondered, for example, the British Liberal Democrat Graham Watson, President of the Freedoms and Citizen's Rights Committee). With regard to the post-Nice, the leitmotiv was, all the groups and nationalities mixed, the assertion of the need to clearly and significantly involve the European Parliament in this process. We asked for it during our working days in Berlin, recalled the President of the EPP group, the German Hans-Gert Pottering, who, moreover, invited the Commission to make asylum and immigration policy one of the central themes of its programme. Shocked by the absence of a Council representative in this debate (but the Parliament has either way planned to question it over to post-Nice during its March session, after the signing of the Treaty, on 26 February in Nice: see EUROPE of 12 February, p.12), Mr Pottering once more asserted that European affairs are not part of foreign policy, and that they should thus be discussed within a "Council of Ministers for Europe". The crux of the matter is not to make additional proposals, but to truly do what has been proposed, said for his turn Enrique Baron, Spanish President of the Socialist group. For him the crucial tasks consists of ensuring the accession of European citizens to the European plan, which implies among others that the Commission proposes a text for a simplified treaty. Must we be contented with a "forum" on post-Nice, or to insist on a Convention? To this question, the President of the Liberal group, the Irishman Pat Cox answered that he would accept the idea of a "forum of participation which would not preclude fuller participation" by the Parliament. Mr Cox made a few criticisms over the Commission programme (49 pages of "high density" text, concerning 593 different initiatives, he said), in feeling that we "must change the way we do this", and by suggesting that the Parliament holds a debate on the Commission's future programme as of the end of the year, which would enable the Commission President to tell the Council, in January, what the Commission and Parliament want. For the Finn Heidi Haulata, Co-President of the Green/ALE group, the Union's priority must be to provide itself with the means to react to the challenges of globalisation and its repercussions in the social field. As for the post-Nice, while hoping for a greater role for the European Parliament, Mrs Haulata is of those who particularly insists on an active participation by citizens before the Laeken European Council. Francis Wurtz, French President of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group, questioned the Commission's priorities: according to him, seven lines on the "neighbouring policy" ("poor and reducing" notion) to designate the Union strategy in the Balkans, its relations with Russia and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, is little. The same applies for development policy and the Social Agenda. As for the relations with citizens, Mr Wurtz feels that it is necessary to "accept the confrontation of options in the light of day, before the decision and while daring to change heading is the society's priorities confront the agendas of the Community elite's". We talk as if the ratification of Nice was a done deal, warned, for the Union for a Europe of Nations group, the Irishman Gerard Collins, convinced that a debate over the future of Europe cannot precede, but only follow its ratification in all the Member States.
The impatience of some to rekindle a new round of negotiations was also denounced George Brthu, French member of the same group: citizens want none of it, he said. Above all, said Denmark's Jens-Peter Bonde, co-President of the Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group, citizens want the debate to take place in broad daylight, respecting the wealth of Europe in its differences and the principle of subsidiarity. Felice Bigliardo (Movimento sociale/Fiamma Tricolor, Italy), for his part, sees in the Commission's programme an obvious contradiction between calls for liberalisation and insistence on sustainable development, and launched an appeal to propose aid programmes for the young, with a minimum starting wage, in projects precisely allowing to ensure this sustainable development. The demand of an adequate participation of Parliament in the post-Nice process was reiterated by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, German Christian-Democrat Elmar Brok, pleading in favour of a clear process that does not lead to "folkloric conclusions" and that would then allow each to do as they pleased. It is the decision-making structures that need improving, said Mr. Brok, who, regarding issues of security, urged the institutions to put an end to the unease vis-à-vis the new American Administration. Two former Presidents of the EP also took to the floor: German Christian-Democrat Klaus Haensch, for whom one should no longer speak of "post-Nice", but of the future of Europe at the beginning of the 21st century, and Spain's Jose Maria Gil-Robles (Partido Popular) who welcomed the details provided by President Prodi regarding the words of Michel Barnier to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs last week. Gil-Robles did, however, consider that the European Commission could not wait for the Laeken Summit to make proposals. British Conservative Edward McMillan-Scott said that a lesson could be drawn from the Commission's programme: we can do better if we do less … Like Mr. Haensch, McMillan-Scott would like to hear talk of the future of Europe rather than post-Nice. One choice that seems clear to him: the next exercise must be different to the previous ones, opening up to the whole of society.
Prodi stresses that a future "inter-institutional body" based on the model
of the Convention must not decide through unanimity
McMillan-Scott (as well as Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, German PDS, Parliamentary rapporteur on "Governance") drew attention to the fact that, in 2004, the Commission and Parliament will have ended their respective terms of office. This did not escape the attention of the President. Answering MEP questions, Romano Prodi said: "the Union's looming historic development has not to take place in a phase of transition, at a time when the Commission no longer has power. I raise this problem, without suggesting a solution", said Mr. Prodi, who, moreover, tried to reassure MEPs on the structuring of the debate on the Union's future. We must, he said, create an "inter-institutional body on the model of the Convention", but "going beyond the model already used". According to him, this "assembly" (I do not find the terms assembly, council, committee quite right, Prodi remarked) will have to make proposals which, contrary to those made by the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, need not be taken through unanimity. A broad representation will have to be assured, but with a sufficiently "agile" number of participants to be ale to decide, through a majority, he said.
Prodi also reassured MEPs regarding the respect of subsidiarity (models of curricula vitae will certainly not be compulsory: the goal is to enable the young better to defend themselves on an open international market) and sustainable development. And, to those who criticise the excess of details in the Commission's programme, he replied: once the priorities set, there must be detailed documents, which "will be extremely tiresome…."