Brussels, 12/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - The representative of the Danish Government Hening Christophersen presented the report by the working group he chairs on complementary competencies to the European Convention on Friday, considering in particular that the new treaty "should have a chapter on Union competencies that are now scattered", to the point that, at times, "legal experts are lost sometimes". Mr. Christophersen, who knows these competencies well for having been minister before becoming European Commissioner, made a point of stipulating that his report had been drafted on the basis of existing texts (see ample summary in EUROPE of 7 November, p.5). This report in no way aims to reduce the role of the European Parliament nor re-nationalise certain policies or render the European Union "more intergovernmental", he assured, while recognising that "a few members" of the working group were in favour of returning competencies from European level to the national one. "After all, we are together because we feel there are things we do better together", he exclaimed. As for Article 308, that allows for action to be taken at Community level even without a legal basis, Christophersen noted: according to some it has been used "excessively, I don't share that view, we need such an article, it should be redrafted".
German Social Democrat Klaus Haensch welcomed these remarks by Mr. Christophersen as, he said, certain of the report's conclusions "open the way to another Union: not more, but less co-decision and parliamentary control: not simplification, but more complication". "We must not go down that path", warned the Parliament's former president, providing some precise examples. As to the suggestion of reviewing the reference to an increasingly closer Union, he shouted: "Well then, let's review it! Let's say, in the future Constitution, what many in Maastricht already wanted, instead of the formula an "increasingly closer Union", simply say a "federal Union".
The Christophersen report was the subject of many criticisms on the part of most members of the Convention who accused the group of wanting to reintroduce a very rigid distribution of competencies. Among those were, notably, Euro-MPs like Alain Lamssoure (UDF), rapporteur on the subject, and French Socialist Pervenche Beres, who said that "the great majority of socialists do not agree with these conclusions" and who was especially scathing at the attempt made to have the goal of an "ever close Union" disappear. For Lamassoure, this report "complicates everything", whereas the Convention's role was to simplify. The representative of the Spanish Government, Alfonso Dastis, also disputed the introduction of three rigid categories of competencies, and considered that the new wording "support measures" was no clearer than the expression "complementary competencies". Italian parliamentarian Lamberto Dini considered that research and the trans-European networks were already shared competencies, nor did he find the conclusions on Article 308 convincing. For the representative of the French Government Pierre Mosovici, they had above all to preserve the EU's dynamism, which meant preventing a rigid distribution of competencies and conserving the flexibility offered by Article 308. A point of view also shared by Commissioner Antonio Vitorino, who stressed that recourse to Article 308 was much rarer than the report would lead to believe. The representative of the Dutch Government, Gijs de Vries was worried by this attempt, according to him, of surreptitiously reintroducing a category of competencies that the Convention had already rejected. He also said that the use of article 308 was exceptional and that it would remain so if unanimity was retained.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, backed in this by the representative of the Bundesrat, Erwin Teufel, on the other hand, spoke out in favour of a clear distribution of competencies. He also pleaded in favour of a right of recourse for the regions in the framework of controlling the respect of subsidiarity. Like other members of the Convention, he did, however, believe that rigidity had to be avoided. He said that there had to be the power to have recourse to laws and framework legislation in the field of complementary competencies too and conserve the flexibility offered by Article 308.
British parliamentary David Heatcoat-Amory and Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde were practically the only ones to subscribe to the report's main recommendations.
At his press conference at the end of work in plenary, vice-president Jean-Luc Dehaene said that "the debate allowed for things to be clarified". "I noted that we did not want a catalogue of competencies", and that there was a "very broad consensus to retain the flexibility of Article 308", he added before stating that many criticisms were due in part to the fact that "the report was drafted by a personal collaborator of Mr. Christophersen", who had not wanted to call on the Convention's secretariat.