Brussels, 15/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The second formal plenary session of the European Convention, meeting in the afternoon of 15 April and in the morning of 16 April to examine the tasks that Members would like the European Union to exercise, was marked by several novelties, announced at the beginning of the work by its President Valery Giscard d'Estaing: - the possibility, to improve "the speed and dynamism" of plenary sessions, to provide Members with the "possibility of asking each other questions, to react on the spot" to what their colleagues have to say (after a package of five interventions); - the possibility for Members from candidate countries for accession to speak in their own languages. For this week's plenary, the request was made for Slovenia, Lithuania and Latvia: the representatives were translated by their own interpreters into an official Union language, then to be translated into the other languages by EU interpreters.
At the request of several Members who had wanted, as VGE indicated, "to use" Eurobarometers in the work, the Convention received the latest European Commission Eurobarometer on Monday on the position of citizens concerning the future of Europe (see below).
Pierre Moscovici suggests setting up working groups to report to the Convention on certain issues
During Monday afternoon's debate, the representative of the French Government, Pierre Moscovici stressed the need to "simplify and clarify how the organisation of exercising competencie" in the Union (what exactly do you mean by that?, Luxembourg's Ben Favot MEP asked him, taking advantage of this first opportunity to dialogue). At the same time, he sent out a warning: "let's be careful, in wanting to simplify, let's not to fall into the simplistic! Even the large federal States, whose fundamental laws have established such lists (of competencies), have no "pure" distribution of powers". We must not therefore "place back into question the major acquis of European construction", Moscovici went on, for whom they should "take a closer look at modes of action - or rather co-action - the Union and Member States, and see whether it is possible to hand both such a clear and as simple as possible decision-making procedure". In this context, we could, according to him, set up "working groups", that could report to the Convention on certain issues, like the organisation of powers in economic and social fields, and which would be "representative of all the institutional, political and geographical origins that exist within the Convention" (Mr. Moscovici here spoke of the "necessary presence of our colleagues from candidate countries"). As to substance, Moscovici considers that account needs taking of the "three pillars" of the Treaty, and, regarding CFSP, wonders: despite its inadequacies, "who would seriously dare state that these weaknesses come from the fact that it is not integrated in the Community legal order?".
What interests me here, is a "change of perspective", the representative of the Bundesrat, Erwin Teufel stressed, for whom each problem has not "automatically to become a Union task". Mr. Teufel pleaded especially for the creation of a new parliamentary body responsible for checking, at an early stage, the respect of the principle of subsidiarity (see Europe of 13 April, p.7). To Mr. Teufel, who said that the distribution of powers had not to be one-way, Hannes Voggenhuber MEP replied: political union is possibly reversible, but economic integration is not, the single market is not reversible. Let's speak of Union tasks, and not yet about the distribution of powers, exclaimed Alain Lamassoure MEP, rapporteur on the subject, wanting the future Treaty to open up by a "declaration of peace in the world" together with an "act of formal repentance for the past". The EU must not try to "develop a common identity", we must keep cultural and national diversity, and "not stretch the elastic of solidarity" to the point of losing this feeling of solidarity among citizens, screamed Peter Skaarp, representative of the Danish Parliament. As for the representative of the Lithuanian government, Rytis Martikonis, speaking in his own language, he set out a series of areas where the Union should act, ranging from the establishment of good neighbourly relations to the promotion of science and innovation. Membership of the EU is not the best option for Malta, decreed Alfred Sant, representative of the Maltese Parliament and former head (from 1996 to 1998) of the Labour Government that froze his countries request for membership of the EU.
At a general level, I'm in favour of handing more tasks to the EU, declared the representative of the Polish Parliament, Edmund Wittbrodt, whereas the representative of the French National Assembly, Alain Barrau, placed emphasis on the "European citizenship" dimension (one of the EU's first tasks is precisely to ensure that Europeans gradually feel they are "European citizens", he stressed).
Is a catalogue of competencies needed? This would have the advantage of creating greater clarity but would be too rigid a construction, according to the British minister for European affairs, Peter Hain. Their approach was not to say no, but rather to establish a number of principles that would allow them to define who was responsible for what, as well as mechanisms for associating national parliaments in checking whether subsidiarity were respected, he added. Actions that are currently conducted at central European level could then be conducted at a national level, pointed out the European commissioner Michel Barnier, in emphasising that the essential criteria was "added European value" obviously in "two directions" - external relations and the economy. Speaking to Danish Mep, Krarrup, Mr Barnier stressed that the Eurobarometer results revealed the daily expectations of citizens - peace, security, the fight against unemployment and crime, product safety and quality, environmental protection, which are on a level with expectations at a national level. This meant that organisation should be improved and action should be taken where national governments were unable to act alone.