Brussels, 07/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, has written to José Maria Aznar outlining that next week's European Council in Barcelona, "provides a good opportunity to continue the discussion on how we can achieve substantial reform of the working methods of the Council (Secretary General Javier Solana will be submitting a report on the subject at Barcelona) and expressing his wish that they can reach agreement on a "set of proposals in this area" at the Summit in Seville in June.
Mr Persson proposes setting up working programmes for the EU Council Presidency, which he considers as, "a joint task for a team of several successive presidencies" and for which the Presidency must revise the work programme each year.
Mr Persson also stresses the co-ordination role that the General Affairs Council ought to play. In reply to those who suggest creating a new co-ordinating organisation within the Council, Mr Persson suggests finding a, "solution that is best for the Union collectively" and that they, "cannot be hampered by the specific distribution of competence inside individual Member States". He is therefore insisting that the General Affairs Council, in the real sense of the word, becomes "a Council with a responsibility across the pillars", that should cover trade, development, immigration, crisis management and "classical" foreign policy issues. According to Mr Persson, each Member State would be responsible for sending a Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Affairs or a Vice Prime Minister to the different Councils, provided that all Member States are represented by those with a "clear political mandate". Mr Persson is also of the opinion that the "tours de table" at the Council should only take place in exceptional circumstances (also requested by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder in their joint letter: see EUROPE 25-26 February page 5).
Mr Persson believes that the European Council is in need of a "sort of Regulation" for deciding how and when certain subjects can be included on the agenda in order to avoid issues coming to the surface that have not been prepared for, to the "detriment of the Community method". Mr Persson would like to see an agenda adopted at the beginning of each summit, with additional subjects being allowed only on unanimity. He also points out that that the size of delegations to the summits should be reduced considerably and that the conclusions of the Presidency should be much more concise and focus on the sensitive political issues that are being discussed at the meeting.
Mr Persson asserts that, "the national languages of all Member States must remain languages of the Union", which is essential for the legitimacy of the Union. At the same time he recognises that with enlargement, which will double the number of languages, "we basically need four times as many interpreters. Interpreters will soon outnumber delegates". He suggests reducing the number of working languages but, "without excluding the possibility of benefiting from the use of a specific language", which could introduce a "request and pay" system, according to which, each Member State would pay, "its full share of the cost for the interpretation to/from the language(s) it has requested".
Mr Persson insists that there is a need for greater transparency at the Council and suggests having open meetings at the beginning and end of legislative procedures; the results of the votes and statements in the Council minutes being accessible to the public. Officials should be allowed to orally provide information if requested, except in "well-defined cases" where it is to be kept confidential or secret and, "Officials should also be encouraged to discuss openly and publicly general issues that are dealt with by the institutions".