Strasbourg, 18/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption of the reports by British Labour member Richard Corbett and a report by British Conservative Lord Inglewood, the Parliament last week amended its regulation. Some of the changes take into account the disappearance of the ECSC or aim to adjust the regulation with regard to the Treaty of Nice. They will take effect at the same time as the Treaty. Other changes seek to simplify or improve certain procedures, but this major reform has not, however, really resulted in alleviating a text that remains very complex.
The following brief overview gives the main changes concerning:
1) General review of the regulation. The Corbett report introduces a first simplification by providing for procedural motions or the rights that may be exercised by a political group or a variable number of MEPs (9, 12, or 32 depending on the case) to now be exercised by a group or 32 MEPs. The definition of a political group was simplified. In order to form a group it will now be necessary to group together at least 16 MEPs elected in at least one fifth of the Member States. This provision will take effect on 1 July 2004. A political group or 32 MEPs may ask for an extraordinary debate on a theme of major interest concerning EU policy to be included on the agenda. The request may be presented in writing to the president at least three hours before the beginning of the period of the session concerned. Deferral of a debate should be requested at least 24 hours in advance, but a group or 32 MEPs maintain the right to request postponement of the vote at any moment. The Council and/or the High Representative as well as the Commission are invited to each plenary debate concerning the CFSP, and the High Representative is also invited to make a declaration to the Parliament at least four times a year. Parliament also seeks to reduce the number of votes in plenary. It thus introduces a provision that allows the president to invite the relevant committee to meet each time that the number of amendments presented on a report is above fifty. Only those which have obtained the favourable vote by at least one tenth of the members of the committee will then be put to the plenary vote. The Parliament, however, did not manage, as was hoped by some of the MEPs and services, to reduce the mass of documents used at the sitting. The reports will continue to include an explanatory statement that will also be completed by a financial statement.
With the adoption of the Inglewood report, the Parliament also devoted brief texts to the justification of amendments reached in 1999. The debate on Thursday afternoon (during the Strasbourg sessions) on urgent topical problems and issues of major importance (Article 50) changes its name and will henceforth exclusively cover "cases of violation of human rights, democracy and rule of law". It will not therefore allow natural disasters or other problems to be discussed (as was the case last Thursday for foot and mouth disease). The Council and Commission questions times may be divided, with the agreement of these institutions, into times for separate questions addressed to the different Commissioners or, in the case of the Council, to the Presidency, to the High Representative or to the Eurogroup president. In addition to the control of respect of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the Parliament will ensure that each legislative act is conform to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and to the Rule of Law. Other changes specify certain procedures (introduction of action before the Court of Justice, Hughes procedure, arbitration of power conflicts between parliamentary committees, a procedure without amendment or debate) and introduce: 1) an electronic register of petitions allowing citizens to be actively involved in any petition declared admissible; 2) a procedure for the early cessation of functions allowing the Parliament, by a two-third majority and at a proposal of the Conference of Presidents, to put an end to the function of any person holding a mandate elected to the EP (president, vice-president, Quaestor, president of the Commission, etc.) for serious misdemeanour. It should be noted that the Parliament rejected an amendment aimed at limiting the number of voting explanations to two per MEP and per sitting. The representative of Italian retirees, Carlo Fatuzzo, had protested against this amendment which, he said, was only aimed at himself since he is the only one in fact to make more than two voting explanations per sitting.
2) The balance of rights between MEPs as individuals or belonging to groups. During the vote on the second report by Mr Corbett, the plenary did not follow its Committee on Constitutional Affairs which above all proposed it should improve the representation of non-attached members within the Conference of Presidents. The Parliament, however, introduced a provision that specifies it is only when the MEPs concerned deny sharing political affinities that it is necessary for the Parliament to appreciate whether the group is formed in conformity with the regulation. The plenary rejected an amendment by Italian Green member elected in Belgium, Monica Frassoni, and by Italian Radical Gianfranco Dell'Alba, who proposed a "mixed group" should be formed for MEPs who do not belong to one and the same political group.
Small groups express concern
During the debate, "large" and "small" groups opposed each other. Thus, the EPP-ED, PES, ELDR groups said they were pleased the plenary debates were going to be more alive whereas the Greens/EFA, GUE/NGL, EDD, UEN and non-attached protested that this reform would reduce their rights still further. The prospective of enlargement makes this reform absolutely necessary, and the Treaty of Nice involves amendments anyway. The report proposes "a whole series of measures to alleviate the plenary at the time of voting, as in general". It suggests that the consensual reports, which obtained at least 90% of the votes in committee, go through plenary for a single vote without debate and without amendments except if there is a request to the contrary. It proposes that reports for which "a very large number of amendments" is proposed should be able to be referred back to committee to be "filtered". It also proposed replacing emergency procedures by other procedures. For the unfolding of discussions, Richard Corbett proposed a compromise between supporters and adversaries of the "catch-the-eye" debate: debates would begin with a speaker from each group then move on to "catch-the-eye" speeches. Richard Corbett rapidly presented his second report on the balance of rights between MEPs individually and groups. British Conservative Lord Inglewood then presented his report on the amendment of the regulation concerning the justification of amendments. "There is no reason for all the amendments to be justified individually, as this should be left to the responsibility of the authors", he said.
Linda McAvan (PES, UK) welcomed on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs the fact that "this report will simplify the life" of the MEPs and make things 'more understandable for the outside world". Bartho Pronk (EPP, NL), did the same on behalf of the Committee on Budgets. Christa Randzio-Plath (PES, Germany), speaking on behalf of the economic and monetary committee, said she was pleased with the proposals concerning dialogue with the ECB and the economic policy guidelines, but took a stance against the adoption of amendment 59 on the vote without debate and without amendment of the reports approved at 90% in committee. Joachim Wuermeling, speaking on behalf of the EPP-ED Group, declared he supported the report's aim to reach "more political and more responsible work". Dutch national Margrietus van den Berg, speaking for the PES, also took a stance in favour of "catch-the-eye", more lively debates, and of limiting the number of speakers per group. For the Liberals, Andrew Duff said he hoped it would be compulsory to have "catch-the-eye" discussion. Monica Frassoni, on the other hand, speaking for the Greens/EFA, said she was "very sceptical", her group having been very perplex from the outset about the idea of going beyond reforms which arise from the Treaty of Nice. "This report relies more on Mr Corbett's creativity than on necessity", she declared. Sylvia Kaufmann, from GUE/NGL, announced that her group "does not support" the report. She is mainly against the amendment of Article 110. "For us, it is a matter of the political group's right to present amendments, and the argument that the amendments of a small group do not have any chance of being adopted and slow down the procedure is just not valid". Jens-Peter Bonde (EDD) said "an end must be put to the discrimination between those who belong to a group and those who do not belong". Georges Berthu (French, NA) was also opposed to the report which "wants to give the Parliament powers that it does not have" and which, under the pretext of "alleviating procedures" aims, he says, at "making minorities keep silent".