Brussels, 14/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs adopted by 21 to 6 votes the report of British Labour Party member Richard Corbett on the general revision of the Parliamentary Regulation. The voting took six hours and will be re-discussed in plenary session in February.
The main change concerns the composition of political groups. In future, sixteen MEPs from at least a fifth of Member States will be needed to form a group, whereas this number currently stands at 23 MEPs from at least two Member States. If there are three Member States, 18 MEPs will be enough or 14 if there are 4 Member States.
Other amendments concern: the ending, in cases of serious misconduct, of the EP Presidents and Vice Presidents' mandate, parliamentary committees and inter-parliamentary delegations, questorships or other functions (in order for this to happen, the Presidents' Conference proposal will need a majority of three fifths of the vote of at least three political groups and at the plenary vote, a majority of two thirds; the introduction when presenting reports of a financial statement explaining financial expenditure; the option for Parliament, three months after receiving a Draft Execution Measure, to oppose the measure if it goes beyond the remit for which it was intended (such a clause was included in the Lamfalussy report - Ed); the replacing of emergency debates with other structures; the possibility of recalling Parliament in emergencies or exceptional circumstances when it is not in session; limits on explanations on verbal voting (two per MEP per session); the use of MEPs' mother tongue during plenary sessions but with simultaneous interpretation into other official languages instead of every official language.
Radical MEP, Olivier Dupuis, was visibly and acutely opposed to these proposals, particularly those on the composition of political groups, which he claimed would reduce the remit of MEPs by transferring their activities to the "big groups". Mr Dupuis said that he was afraid that the aspects from the proposals to revoke the mandate in cases of serious misconduct would set an "extremely dangerous" political precedent. He also stated that plans to limit discussions on current emergency problems would be even more serious, as they would do away with one of the rare political instruments used to rapidly reach decisions with regard to regimes that very often benefit from the attention of the Commission and Council or indeed with which they are closely involved.