Brussels, 11/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - Giorgio Napolitano (Democratici di sinistra), Chairman of the EU Committee on Constitutional Affairs, presented the broad lines of his report on the role of national parliaments in the EU's institutional architecture on Tuesday afternoon before his committee. EU Member State and candidate country parliament members were also present. He stressed that the latter were informed before the European Parliament's final position in this connection had been adopted. Mr Napolitano pointed out that his proposals are based on the fact that there is a risk of greater democratic deficit in the EU. To remedy this, he urged for the Union's decision-making system to come under the competence of the Parliament. To make up for this deficit, it will not be enough for the next IGC to tackle the Union's policies. It should also reach "more transparency, more participation and more democracy", he said. He noted that the Parliament will not be able to claim powers just for itself, and that the "importance of strengthening the European Parliament at a later date cannot escape the national parliaments", as democracy cannot develop and survive at the level of the nation alone. In his report, Mr Napolitano sketches out three "roads" for the future, namely: 1) the strengthening of the powers of the national parliaments towards their governments. This is the "fundamental road", he said, pointing out that the European Parliament is ready to back the demands for amending the Amsterdam Protocol on the national parliaments as requested by COSAC (which groups the representatives of EP and national parliamentary bodies specialised in European affairs) during its meeting in Versailles under French Presidency; 2) intensification of relations between the EP and national parliaments. Mr Napolitano announced that he is proposing a special framework agreement making the current consultations "systematic". In his view, COSAC could play an important role, including as an "interface" with the European Council, before the summits at the end of the Presidency, and also be an appropriate place for verifying respect of subsidiarity. On the other hand, he still has reservation about the proposal made by the French Senate to create a second chamber of national parliamentarians. This would entail "confusion" about authority and be unwieldy from an institutional point of view, he said, suggesting that the composition and the role of COSAC should be better defined rather than a new instituiton created; 3) the claim put forward by the national and European parliaments for a role that they have never had, a role for ratifying the treaties. At the current time, the parliaments and the Member States can only express themselves through a "yes" or a "no", while the European Parliament does not even have assent in this field, he recalled. Instead, he suggested that the European Parliament and the national parliaments should be attributed shared constituent power, which would turn a "new page" for them.
During the debate, the idea of creating a second chamber received practically no support, and EU Council President Louis Michel denounced the contradiction: "one cannot demand greater integration while at the same time introducing a national component into the European institutions!", he said. "The Union's immediate future is enlargement", Mr Michel also said, adding that the rejection of the Treaty of Nice would be "a very bad message for candidate countries". Opening the debate on the future of Europe, he declared: "we must never stop recalling the extent of the values that are at the heart of the acquis". He recalled that "solidarity is not just an empty word", and thus reacted to the "indifference if not the ingratitude" of part of the European citizens. The Declaration of Nice must not "fetter" the debate, he reaffirmed. And, on the subject of power sharing, he remarked that the exercise "may bring into question the solidarity within the Union" and repatriate certain competences that belonged to it. He exclaimed: "I do not agree". It is wrong, he pounded out, that the European Commission "should surreptitiously acquire the powers of Member States" without their knowing it, as "we are the ones who wished to deepen the Union. We have decided it very often, sometimes on the basis of Commission proposals".
EP Vice-President Guido Podestà affirmed on behalf of President Nicole Fontaine that the Irish rejection of the Treaty of Nice was a "lesson in humility" and a call to "listen to the populations". It will not be in continuing to fight each other for "one more seat or one more comma" that we shall regain their confidence, he said. And he once more urged for a Convention to be set in place that would present to the next IGC a "draft Constitution based on the results of a broad political debate".
Its legitimacy would be too strong for its proposals to be taken as no more than "amicable recommendations", he said.
Lamassoure poses problem of the regions - a "hidden player"
in the debate on breakdown of powers
Alain Lamassoure (UDF, France) sketched out the broad lines of his report on the breakdown of powers between the EU and the Member States. He felt that there are three reasons to bring it up to date: - texts must be simplified; - these texts were established forty years ago, and account should be taken of the developments that have occurred since then; - a "strong demand" along these lines has been felt for several years now, "a little on the part of the national parliaments and considerably from certain regions". In this debate, "there is a hidden player, the most active - the regions" (mainly those with a "constitutional" status), he warned.
Mr Lamassoure presnted a questionnaire that should allow the debate to be structured. In his view, one should ask: 1) How are we situated regarding acquis communautaire? In his questionnaire, Mr Lamassoure notes a contradiction, that is, that the same governments that call for powers to be redistributed also call for candidates to pledge to fully respect acquis. He asks: "Should the candidate countries be involved in reflection: if significant breakthroughs take place before accession, what will happen to negotiation on acquis communautaire? So far, he observed before the constitutional committee, "we say we are not touching anything, but we cannot be serious about updating if it does not affect anything that we have done over the past forty years"; 2) "How are we situated compared to the Treaty?". In his questionnaire, Mr Lamassoure considers that it is not just a matter in this debate of carrying out, like the European Institute in Florence, "an exercise in constant law, but rather to adopt the constitutional approach", in conformity with the resolution of the EP of 25 October 2000. He therefore proposes making a distinction in the Treaty between the constitutional part (subject to heavy review procedure) and the non-constitutional part (describing policies); 3) "Should one deal with a hierarchy of Commujnity norms, at least making a distinction between "political ddcisions" and technical decisions"?. Speaking before his colleagues, the rapporteur noted that "we often have to vote on texts that are so detailed that, in reality, we understand nothing". In his questionnaire, he recalls that such a proposal had been made in the Spinelli Report in 1984 and, before Maastricht, by Italy and Luxembourg, and before Nice by Portugal, whereas, in its resolution of 13 April 2000, the EP proposed that a distinction should be made between legislative acts (adopted by the Council) and administrative acts (adopted by the Commission alone); 4) "What is the sanction for non-respect of the breakdown of powers". There is probably need for "jurisdictional control", said the rapporteur, who asks: "perhaps it is also necessary to have political control, by a political body to be created?"; 5) Should the level of the regions and other territorial communities be evoked? Mr Lamassoure raised the problem before his colleagues of the next accession to the EU of very sparsely populated countries, less populated than some regions of the current EU and which, unlike the latter, will have representatives at the Council and the Commission. "At the Committee of the Regions, one sometimes hears regional representatives say that they are more representative than the European Parliament or even the national parliaments, because they are closer to the citizens …", he also remarked.
In our part of the world, there is considerable talk about the question of breaking down powers, said Polish parliamentarian Marek Mazurkiewicz, who expressed oppostiion to any "centralisation of decisions"; He asked for the "sovereignty of Member States to be guaranteed". Rather than raising the problem of sovereignty, one should ask what can be done best at European level, replied Austrian parliamentarian Caspar Einem, who felt that the control of subsidiarity must be jurisdictional, but not political. This opinion was shared by MEP Monica Frassoni, who felt that the setting in place of a control body on subsidiarity composed of national and European members of parliament would be a "high risk operation". Danish parliamentarian Elisabeth Arnold urged, for her part, for texts to be simplified. She said that when the Treaty was put before our populations this caused much confusion as they did not find it very easy to understand. Italian Senator Mario Greco felt, for his part, that in some fields European directives are too precise (e.g. the size of beans) and in others not enough (example, the rules concerning operations like the EDF/Fiat-Mointedison affair). Finally, Turkish MP Kursat Eser, although he felt that subsidiarity must not bring into question powers already attributed to the EU, was highly critical of the "centralised super-State". He affirmed that the debate on the future of Europe must be based on two principles: - "respect of national, regional and cultural diversities"; - and decisions taken "as close to the citizens as possible". When the scope of qualified majority is enlarged, some Member States feared they would be find it impossible to "shape their own policy", he said.