Brussels, 11/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - Spanish Prime minister Jose Maria Aznar has asked for an urgent revision of ESDP tasks so as to include the fight against terrorism. This is what he said when in Brussels on 9 October at a ceremony to hand Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Education and Culture, the European Golden Medal of Merit, that she received from the hands of Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
The debate on the future of Europe should aim to develop not only the contents of the Foreign and Defence Policy, but also the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, said Mr. Aznar, adding that the EU budget was "clearly insufficient" and that, "we shall not be able, in the medium term, to avoid a debate on the Union's resources and the weight of the Community budget". Aznar also spoke out in favour of a "progressive constitutionalisation of the treaties", the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty and granting the Union a legal personality, and suggested the adoption of a "Charter of the National Parliaments", a binding Charter comprising an "obligatory code of conduct for national parliaments" and "which would establish minimum requirements for national parliamentary control". As for the distribution of powers (one of the four "hyphens" of the Nice Declaration), Aznar preferred to speak of "how the Union and its Member States co-ordinate among themselves in order to ensure the effective implementation and management of Community policies". The EU "is in reality a movement", he observed, rejecting a "rigid system of distribution of powers" which "would prevent the EU from assuming powers in matters that needed its intervention". We need a "flexible system", the Spanish Prime Minister concluded, recalling that Member States had "different constitutional traditions".
Mr. Aznar announced that Spain, which will chair the EU Council with the slogan "More Europe", intends inviting countries candidates for accession to the Spring Summit in Barcelona.