Strasbourg, 05/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - Approving its rapporteur, Francesco Turchi (Alleanza nazionale), the European Parliament amended several points of the Council's proposals for a decision concerning the financial consequences of the expiry of the ECSC Treaty and the financial guidelines for management of the ECSC "in liquidation". At the rapporteur's request, the plenary session postponed the final vote on the legislative resolution, pending, as the rapporteur stated, verification of the possibility that there will be an agreement with Commission and Council on increasing the Parliament's role in this procedure. The rapporteur notes the "anomaly" which consists in calling on the Parliament to give discharge to the coal and steel research fund without having its word to say on its financial management. In its view, the only way to remedy this would be to bring the legislative act in question under codecision procedure.
The Commission's first reaction was not encouraging. Margot Wallström made it clear that the decisions taken in Nice guide the Commission as to the track that it should follow and that the Commission should comply with this. The Commission cannot accept the request to follow codecision procedure, Ms Wallström told the plenary.
The same principles (essentially the concern not to see the Parliament "dispossessed" of its role) are defended in the amendments that the German Social Democrat Rolf Linkhor presented to the proposal of decision concerning the coal and steel research fund. The suggestion to enlarge research "after ECSC" from 24 July 2004 by creating a foundation that would cover all the aspects of research is not new, but, as Ms Wallström recalled, it was rejected by the Council. The most reasonable solution, taking into account the rather limited amount that is at stake, would be for the Commission to continue to manage ECSC operations, as it has done in the past, said Ms Wallström, who pleased the Parliament further by
confirming that the environmental considerations evoked by Mr Linkhor are things that the Commission holds dear. Research projects currently financed in the context of the ECSC Treaty grant great importance to clean technology and to energy saving, she stressed.