Berlin / Paris, 10/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - At a meeting of the Committee on European Affairs at the Budestag on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine openly criticized the statements of Chancellor Schroeder on the future of Europe delivered for the attention of the SPD Conference in the autumn (in particular, see yesterday's EUROPE, p.3).
According to the French daily, Liberation, Mr. Vedrine said in particular that the project presented by the German Social-Democrat Party "clearly broke the balance to the detriment of the Council and Member States", whereas all European institutions ought to be strengthened". "The more we strengthen the European Parliament and Commission, the less we should reduce the Council to the role of second chamber. We should in fact strengthen and modernize it", said Vedrine. He then spoke out against the remark of a German MP who considered that it would be more democratic to strengthen Parliament's legislative powers and hand over all the executive to the Commission, by shouting: "In my country, we do not consider that governments are undemocratic. The decisions taken in Europe for fifty years now have been taken by democratic governments. Among them, there have been historic intergovernmental decisions, like the euro, for example".
Speaking before the Delegation for the European Union of the National Assembly, chaired by Alain Barrau, in Paris, the French Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany affirmed, according to an Assembly press release, that, whereas the SPD document refers to a redefinition of the objectives of the CAP, he wanted to "conserve the founding rules of the common agricultural policy, principle integrated Community policy, while gradually having it evolve."