Strasbourg, 04/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted a long resolution on the Gothenburg Summit, commenting on the following areas:
1. Nice Treaty/Future of European project. The EP called on the European Council of acknowledge that the untransparent methods used to revise the Treaty directly contributed to the Irish people's rejection of the Nice Treaty and hoped that the Irish government would respect the Treaty ratification deadlines. It also called for an appropriate Convention to be set up by the Laeken Summit
2. Sustainable development. The EP welcomed the agreement on general principles, but deplored the lack of decisions over concrete measures (or quantitative targets) which are due to be outlined by the Belgian Presidency at the Laeken Summit in time for the Barcelona European Summit in 2002; stressed that it was both necessary and urgent to review the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy in the light of sustainable development, respecting a detailed timetable.
3. Follow-up of Stockholm Summit. The EP welcomed the continuation of negotiations on the tax package, asking for a deadline to be set for signing a definitive agreement on the whole package and for negotiations with third countries to be speeded up; called on the Council to speed up the formal adoption of the common position on the Directive on informing and consulting workers in the EU, including sanctions for non-compliance.
4. Transatlantic relations. The EP expressed its disappointment with the "unilateral position of non-cooperation" taken by the United States on the Kyoto Protocol and hoped that the definition of five strategic themes by the EU and the US covering both challenges to security and to economic development and a multilateral trading system would provide greater coherence and convergence on both sides of the Atlantic.
5. External relations. The EP called for: a) for the common security and defence policy for extra effort to be made to reach agreement on the EU getting permanent access to NATO's means and capacities; b) for the Middle East for Javier Solana to prepare a general programme for the area to help restore confidence and cooperation once the crisis is over. The EP again called for an international team of observers to be sent to the occupied territories; c) on FYROM, for Messrs Solana and Léotard to apply diplomatic pressure to get an agreement between the FYROM government and the Albanian minority. A Green amendment supported the Council's determination to link future financial aid to Macedonia to tangible progress in the negotiations between the two sides.
As for the violent demonstrations at the Gothenburg Summit, the EP felt that this behaviour was totally unacceptable in a democratic society, but stressed the importance of the right to peacefully demonstrate. The plenary session rejected an amendment by Mr Fiori (Forza Italia for EPP/ED) calling for the EU and its Member States to co-ordinate national security agencies to exchange more information on rioters, their leaders, their organisations and their funding systems, and to ban "known troublemakers" from travelling to summits abroad.
Gothenburg clearly demonstrated that the enlargement process is irreversible, tot he satisfaction of Mr Berthu (Rassemblement pour la France) who signalled during the debate that it was necessary to state just as clearly that enlargement does not depend on the Nice Treaty. He said that we want to welcome candidate countries into a democratic EU and for that reason, we welcomed the "lucid and courageous" choice by the Irish. This choice was not seconded by Mr Cuchnahan (EPP/ED, Ireland), who warned against the Eurosceptics in the Irish government, such as the Finance Minister. The Italian Radical Dell'Alba said that the Gothenburg demonstrations served as a lesson to governments that were too reticent about visions of the European project that differed from their own, and he welcomed the Swedish Presidency's common position that had been adopted on the International Criminal Tribunal. Mr Rutelli (Conservatives, Italy) called on the EP to be prouder of itself since it is the first example of a supranational parliament that is continuing to expand and this was the role that the EP should pursue in the debates over the future of Europe. For Mr Lamassoure (UDF, France), two contradictory decisions were taken at Gothenburg - the enlargement timetable was confirmed but at the same time, it had been decided to ignore the consequences of the Irish No vote on the Nice Treaty. This gave rise to enormous uncertainty about the future since the outcome of the Irish elections next year would have to be awaited, and the new government would have to find arguments to convince the population. He described the situation as the Nice Treaty being a door slammed shut by the Irish rather than an Open Sesame. The UK Conservative Mr McMillan-Scott said that it was a mistake to continue 'business as usual' with the European project after the Irish vote and called not for a "Convention" but a "Parliamentary Conference" (of members of national parliaments and MEPs) to prepare the way for the next Intergovernmental Conference. Whilst welcoming some of the remarkable areas of success of the Swedish Presidency, Mr Corbett (PES, UK) said that the beginning of each Presidency was accompanied by often exaggerated expectations despite the fact that each Presidency has to work with an inherited agenda for what was only a very short period of time.
Ending the debate, Mr Persson responded to the Gothenburg violence controversy (see p.8 of yesterday's EUROPE) by saying that the demonstrators might call themselves anti-fascist, but their attitude to the police and their methods was 'fascist'.