Brussels, 18/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - On 4 April, the Socialist Group of the European Parliament adopted its contribution to the elaboration of the White Paper on Governance that the European Commission plans to present to the July plenary session (from 2 to 5 July). It stresses that the White Paper should "clearly give the dynamic nature of the exercise of governance" and that the Socialists should above all judge it in relation to the added strength that it will give the "European Union's democratic identity". Thus, in its document entitled "Democratic Governance for Europe", the group reaffirms the central role of the directly elected representatives and the need to strengthen parliamentary democracy and the role of European political parties. "New forms of governance are unacceptable" if they weaken the parliamentary democracy, say the members of the EP Socialist Group. Also, they note that any proposal submitted by the Commission in July should also be judged "in the prospect of enlargement". In practical terms, the Socialist Group proposes:
- The signing by the Parliament, Commission and Council, after the end of the consultation process on the White Paper, of an interinstitutional agreement on democratic governance. The group mainly insists on the need for "a significant contribution by the Council to this approach".
- Signing of a Joint Declaration by the Commission, the Council and the Parliament on dialogue with NGOs, a declaration that could be annexed to the interinstitutional agreement and which would contain concrete commitments by the institutions (on access to documents and on "open and transparent" consultation procedures) and also on the part of the non-governmental organisations themselves (on their financial sources, their members, etc.). The Socialist Group announces that it will soon engage broader and more transparent dialogue with NGOs on the key dossiers, mainly via its Internet site. They urge, however, for the adoption of a "cautious and reasonable approach" to this, and cite the very recent report by the US Congress on the "Congress Online Project", a report that indicates that the senators currently receive 55,000 electronic messages per month. This overloads the computers at Congress and those of the staff there (and the report concludes that "rather than strengthening democracy (…) electronic messaging has increased tension and the discontent of the public towards Congress").
In its report, the Socialist Group speaks of three ambitions set out in the White Paper:
1. Improving the understanding of Europe's objectives. At a general level, the European Socialists welcome the Commission's approach and above all its intention to: (a) identify a limited number of "mobilising projects for the 21st century" and elaborate a "new strategy for communication". In their view, the White Paper could propose how the major political goals set out in the Treaty or established by the successive European Councils could, effectively or in an attractive form, be brought to the knowledge of the citizens as "arousing projects for the 21st century" in the context of a better communication strategy. Such a strategy, they say, could even gain in interest and impact if communication or information campaigns on European themes were systematically carried out on behalf of the three institutions; (b) evolve towards multi-annual political agendas based on a political agreement between the three institutions at the beginning of each legislature. This could significantly improve the visibility and the comprehension of European action, says the Socialist Group, which, however, stresses that this proposal demands "detailed reflection" mainly on the interaction between multi-annual policy agendas but also annual budgets, the future political role of the Council presidencies within such agendas or the improvement of evaluation and monitoring by the Parliament of the work programmes and of the new European Commission's "annual political strategy". Here also, it would be necessary to place the Parliament at the centre of the debate and of the European political choices, says the Socialist Group, which notes, moreover, "with great interest", the idea that, in future, the Commission would present "political alternatives" to the Parliament rather than a "consensus". In its view, things could be taken still further, "if the Commission could clearly indicate the existence of contradictory political objectives regarding which political choices should operate.
2. Restore the effectiveness and the credibility of the Community method. According to the Socialist Group: (a) the Commission is right in wanting to set in place at Community level a framework for "the development and the better use of scientific and technical know-how, as recent crises like that on food safety, have "dramatically shown the limits of scientific expertise to the service of political choices" and the "absolute need for transparency and pluralism of expertise".
At the same time, the Group stresses that with the Commission, Parliament and Member States being regularly led to refer to expertise coming from the same sources, "competition" on scientific expertise should be avoided and a more "cooperative" approach chosen; (b) a broader and more transparent consultation of "organised civil society" is desirable (and the White Paper should reaffirm the "special role played by the social dialogue", and open up a discussion on the future role of the European Parliament in this context), but any attempt to make of such consultation "a substitute" to the role Parliament has to play must be resisted. In addition, one has to avoid arousing expectations among NGOs that "possibly cannot be satisfied". (c) more frequent use of co- and self-regulation instruments could be useful, but one has to oppose systematic use of such instruments and a "more general slide" from the legislative approach to forms of "soft standards or agreements, codes of conduct or voluntary standards", as this is in contradiction with the stated goal of the White Paper, the strengthening of democratic governance in Europe.
3. "broaden the circle of European, national, regional and local public actors". In particular, the Socialist Group: (a) acknowledges the merits of the "open coordination method" launched at the European Council of Lisbon, but considers that in the long-term this method will have to "forge ties towards the Community method"; (b) welcomes decentralisation in the application of Community rules and policies, while stressing that the recommendations made on the subject must be "clearly separated from the broader debate" on the delimitation of competencies; (c) is against "any multiplication of European agencies" (it would be "a fatal weakening for the Commission") and places emphasis on improving the democratic control of agencies by the European Parliament.