Berlin / London, 30/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - According to Monday's Der Spiegel, Chancellor Schröder has proposed radical reform of EU institutions in a draft resolution on the future of Europe, which is to be discussed by the SPD during its congress in November, in Berlin. A spokesman for the Social Democrat party confirmed that such a text was being prepared, and that it will be examined for the first time by the party's presidium on 7 May. (We recall that the future of Europe will also be discussed at the Congress of the Party of European Socialists on 7 and 8 May in Berlin, when Secretary to the Foreign Office Robin Cook is expected to be elected president of the party, to succeed the current president, German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping).
Der Spiegel affirms that this text, drafted "under the supervision of the party's president" Gerhard Schröder, mainly proposes that: the European Commission become a "European government"; - the Council of Ministers be transformed into a Chamber of States (along the lines of the Bundesrat); - the European Parliament should be given "full budget powers" for the EU (therefore, including the "gigantic agricultural budget", notes the Hamburg weekly); - some powers should be brought to national level to "increase the margin of manoeuvre for an independent regional and structural policy for Member States".
In London, the Secretary to the Foreign Office in the Conservative shadow cabinet, Francis Maude, immediately reacted by affirming that "we strongly disagree with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, but at least he has the courage of his convictions. Tony Blair doesn't want to talk about his vision of the EU because he knows how out of touch Labour is on Europe with the mainstream majority of the British people".