Brussels, 27/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - Jens-Peter Bonde, Danish Co-President of the Europe of democracies and diversities group in the European Parliament, hits again. Bonde, who has been a member of the Parliament since the first European elections, in June 1979, is a prolific writer who has already published a large number of works, highly critical or completely polemic, on European integration, but in Danish. This time he writes in English, to be better heard. His "Nice Treaty explained" asserts that the new treaty is "a treaty of deepening rather the widening", while enlargement is a priority for him. In fact, according to the MEP the treaty does not foresee the necessary "flexibility" for countries in very different positions, while it "includes a timetable for much greater integration (analysis that would no doubt be shared by the partisans of greater integration), which will make enlargement even more difficult". "Why not at least insist that the Treaty of Nice should only be put into effect when the EU has been enlarged by more than the five countries, which can be admitted according to the enlargement protocol of the Amsterdam Treaty without major changes to the rules?", wondered Mr Bonde.
The member of the JuniBevaegelsen (June movement) is also critical over nearly all that is new in the Treaty, and in particular over: what should simplify enhanced cooperation, naturally, but also Article 7 on the risk of violating the principals that form the basis of the European building process by a Member States. The Treaty, asserts Mr Bonde, "creates a legal basis for punishing countries that might be a thorn in the flesh of 80% of EU members", and gives priority to "a majority within the EU" to "criticise and react before any breach of rules has taken place. A country can be punished for the prospect that a breach of some - incidentally very vague - rules might occur". This when, for him, the institutions that "may deal with all human rights violations" are the Council of Europe, the UN, the OSCE, and also the Baltic Council, which he says, have, until now, ensured the monitoring for respect of these rights. The Treaty of Nice "means less democracy, in the same way as the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam", stated Jens-Peter Bonde, when feeling that, following this Treaty, "the national parliaments of the member States will loose more of the legislative powers to EU civil servants and ministers". He raises his voice: "what is European about wanting to reduce the influence of voters in favour of civil servants, ministers (…)?, why is it anti-European to support the idea that voters should have the last word on European issues too?"
In his booklet, which takes on the ideas defended by the SOS Democracy Intergroup in the European Parliament (which includes other Eurosceptic members such as Georges Berthu, from the Rassemlement pour l'Europe, author of a "Counter report on the Treaty of Nice"), Mr Bonde notes that the federalists, which "want more majority decisions and more union (…), a constitution instead of a treaty (…), are diametrically opposed" to the proposals from SOS Democracy. At the same time, he recognises that many federalists "also want openness, decentralisation and democracy", as does he, and thus rejoin his criticisms of the treaty.
Jens-Peter Bonde, unavoidably present on the circuit of European summits, also outlines a short account of the Nice European Council, by describing the way in which the Heads of State and Government reached certain decisions. With regards to that to hold all the European summits in Brussels as soon as the Union has 18 members (which means according to him that "the Belgian capital is seen to be the capital of the European Union, as Washington is the federal capital of the United States and the German federal State now has Berlin as a federal capital"), the MEP writes: "The Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson, did not know of the decision (…). He at first thought that the report must be a mistake, which could be changed. Later he was obliged to say that he too supported the resolution".
The preface of the pamphlet is by… Romano Prodi, who obviously defends the opposite ideas to those of the author, and who asserts in particular that "the main merit of the Treaty of Nice" is precisely to "have paved the way for the arrival of new members". The European Commission President replies indirectly to the MEP when he also feels that it is time "to go beyond the questions of how we should work together, and what we hope to achieve together" on a "lasting and coherent" project to which the citizens of Europe may adhere.
(Nice treaty explained. Forlaget Vindrose. ISBN: 87-7456-650-4. E-mail: jp@bonde.dk, Internet: http://www.bonde.dk ).