Warm welcome for Schröder/Blair letter - Pöttering stresses role of European Commission, Leinen focuses on Treaty amendments

Brussels, 26/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commenting on the Schröder/Blair letter on reforming the European Council and the Council (see yesterday's EUROPE, p 5), German Social Democratic MEP Klaus Hänsch, Member of the Praesidium of the Convention on the future of Europe, said that it appears that some EU heads of state at least cannot put up with the way the European Council operates and want the reform process to get started. He said that the ideas in the letter were not new, but what is new is the desire to implement them, adding that several of them would not require changes to the Treaty but simply for the Council to operate differently (abolishing the "round the table" exchanges of view for example and for the Summits to return to their initial vocation, namely of providing strategic input rather than as an appeal body for failed Council decisions)

Another German Social Democrat MEP Jo Leinen also commented that some reforms were feasible without changing the Treaty, but said that the Convention on the future of Europe should call for fundamental and structural reforms of the Council by amending the Treaties. The President of the Union of European Federalists calls for a standing Council of European Ministers to be set up and for the six-monthly rotating Presidency to be replaced by a two and a half year Presidency. He wants the Council to be seen as a Chamber of States rather than as a European government dealing with both legislative and executive tasks

The President of the European Parliament's EPP-ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering, welcomed some of the suggestions by the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister but said that the Convention should also address the problem of the Council. He warned against the danger of the Council trying to short-circuit the Convention through unilateral reform proposals in order to ensure it keeps its dominant position. He criticised the spotlight being placed in the Schröder/Blair letter on the role of the Council, saying that the institutional structure of the EU should not be challenged