Brussels, 29/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament approved by a comfortable majority (398 to 77 and 19 abstentions) the report by elected member of Spanish Partido popular, Inigo Mendez de Vigo, and German Social Democrat Jo Leinen. The report is on the European Council of Laeken, the constitutional process (amendment by British Labour member Richard Corbett) and the future of the European Union. It mainly requests that the next Intergovernmental Conference come to a close at the end of 2003, under Italian Presidency, so that the new treaty may be adopted in December 2003 at the latest and the European elections of June 2004 may give a democratic thrust to the European integration process so that the Parliament can take part in the process alongside the Commission in the most favourable conditions possible. The Parliament, moreover, adopted an amendment by Elmar Brok, Karl-Heinz Florenz and Giorgios Dimitrakopoulos calling for the period between the presentation of results of the future Convention, that is to prepare the IGC, and the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference not to exceed three months. (See yesterday's EUROPE, pages 3 and 4, on the subject of addresses given by Louis Michel and Romano Prodi).
On the subject of the Convention, the EP also requests that: - its President be elected by the Convention and that he or she be a 'political personality with calibre and enjoying great prestige at European level with parliamentary experience"; - its Presidium be composed of the President of the Convention, the Commission representative, two members chosen by the representatives of national parliaments, two representatives from the European Parliament, and the representative of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council and of the following Presidency, fully and actively taking part after the end of the work of the Convention, in "all stages and levels of the IGC"; - the Convention must also have a decision-making procedure allowing it to develop by consensus a single and coherent proposal to be submitted to the Intergovernmental Conference as the only basis for negotiation and decision"; - it must have close contact with the representatives of the civil society, by organising public hearings in Member States.
Furthermore, in addition to the themes of the Declaration of Nice, the next reform should, according to the Parliament, tackle themes such as: - the updating of the European Council, General Affairs Council and other Councils' functions; - the system of Council Presidencies; the abolition of the differentiation between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure; - the introduction of a hierarchy of standards; - the full participation of the EP in common commercial policy, in external economic relations and in the implementation and development of strengthened cooperation; - the election of the Commission President by the European Parliament; - and the designation of the members of the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance by qualified majority, with assent from the European Parliament.
The Mendez de Vigo-Leinen report came with a "minority opinion" by Jens-Peter Bonde, which mainly affirms that the Treaty of Nice should be renegotiated, that the future treaties must be submitted to referendum and that the next treaty must not take the form of a "European Federal Constitution".
The Parliament also adopted a resolution on the European Council of Laeken presented by the EPP-ED, Socialist, Liberal and UEN groups in which it mainly evokes the "external relations" aspects such as: - Afghanistan: the EP calls on the Council to proposal adequate funding in the EU budget in 2002 in order to provide the necessary humanitarian aid, and also calls for proposals on a reconstruction plan for the country, according to lines sketched out at the Ghent Summit; - Middle East: the plenary proposes that the European Council launch, in cooperation with the United States, a new initiative aimed at establishing a viable Palestinian State, while fully respecting the integrity and security of Israel; - Balkans;: the EU calls for the formation of a governmental coalition that is as broad based as possible in Kosovo.
Regarding ESDP, the Parliament affirms that, if it is to become really operational, it must comprise the possibility of using NATO resources. Furthermore, it calls on the European Council to settle the question of democratic accountability in this connection.
Other points of the resolution concern enlargement (the EP calls on the European Council tocondemn the recent remarks by Turkish leaders on annexing Northern Cyprus if the Island joins the EU before a political settlement is found), the economic and social situation (he insisted that the European Council in Barcelona had to be well prepared and it was vital to encourage the public to have more confidence in the euro) and Justice and Home Affairs (Parliament is disappointed that the targets set by the EU have not been reached due to the requirement for unanimous decision-making and the absence of political will in the Member States).
The plenary session approved the report by Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (PDS, Germany, United Left) on the Commission's White Paper on European governance, praising the European Commission's desire for reform, but calling on it to stop taking legislative measures without the necessary consultation with the European Parliament since this could damage the role of Parliament and the Council. The long (45-point) resolution, which we will be publishing in full, stresses the "parliamentarisation" of the EU decision-making system and democratic legitimacy (see EUROPE of 23 November, p.18).
The debate and how Michel Barnier's responded
During the debate, the MEPs raised the issue of the role and the structure of the future Convention, like the President of the EEP-ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering, who exclaimed that he could understand why Member States wanted a document they could decide to take or leave, but the Convention shouldn't be a mere seminar! (On the EU's foreign policy, the CDU MEP said that he had no understanding of how Ariel Sharon had dealt with the EU Troika.) The President of the Socialist group, Enrique Baron, also mentioned the Convention, calling on the EU heads of state to "propose" a president for the Convention, but to leave the president to actually be elected by the Convention itself, adding that he hoped that defence policy would be added to the list of future reform areas. The President of the Liberal group, Pat Cox, echoed Mr Pöttering's view that the next IGC would have to be concluded under the Italian Presidency at the end of 2003. The German Social Democrat Jo Leinen (co-rapporteur with Inigo Mendez de Vigo (EPP, Spain) on the future of Europe) wanted a pause between the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference, but wanted it to simply be a summer break followed by the launch of the IGC in September and also wanted the Convention to be capable of outlining trends supported by the majority. Mr Inigo Mendez de Vigo (EPP, Spain) did not want the Convention to be confined to a "corset" - he said people shouldn't be afraid of the Convention, and hoped the process would lead to a European Convention. The co-President of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, Jens-Peter Bonde (who, along with Messrs Sacredeus and Berthu, was the only MEP on the Constitutional Committee who voted against the Mendez de Vigo/Leinen report), called for "eurorealism", while Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, rapporteur on European governance, highlighted the need to ensure "political pluralism" on the Convention which should not be solely made up of members of the big parties, and should ensure women were properly represented. When presenting her report on governance, she expressed her desire for the interinstitutional working group (announced by President Romano Prodi) to be up and running in the very near future. She described the fact that the Council and the Commission had been preparing an action plan for better regulation for some time, and the fact that working groups had already prepared documents to be discussed at Laeken but had not included the European Parliament in this process despite the EP being a co-legislator, as a "serious rupture in the Community method". Johannes Voggenhuber once again raised the issue of democracy - asking the European Commission where its White Paper on European democracy and on a series of European-level checks and balances had got to. The Mendez de Vigo-Leinen report focuses a little too insistently on "methodology" asserted Oliver Dupuis, MEP on the Bonino List, adding that it was probably better to have a motorbike than a push bike, but the most important thing was to know where one was going. For him, the central issue nowadays is the role of the European Commission, feeling that everyone was tugging at the blanket, wanting it for themselves, but this was destroying the Commission. Scottish National Party MEP Neil McCormick called for the local and regional levels to be given appropriate weight, while Elmar Brok (CDU), President of the Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed the "bilateralism" that various Member States had been indulging in recently. Cristiana Muscardini (Alleanza Nationale) focused on the Union's external activities.
European Commissioner Michel Barnier thanked the Belgian Presidency for its "political voluntarism and courage" and hoped that that the future Convention would be the soundbox that was required in the upward direction towards governments. Mr Barnier again called for Nice to not be interpreted with cold feet or in too firm a fashion, wanting an open and constructive interpretation of the Declaration, dealing with the entirety of all four parts which would demonstrate that the exercise would lead to a constitutional process and fundamental questions about the European project.