Brussels, 20/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a letter addressed on 19 November to the EU Heads of State and Government, President Romano Prodi explains that "six concrete steps" can help to prepare the March 2003 Summit and make it a success, and also help to strengthen confidence and keep the Lisbon strategy on track. The measures are as follows:
(1) Key decisions must be taken to implement reforms in transport and energy markets: the Member States must ensure that the EP and Council are able to adopt pending packages concerning the creation of a Single European Sky, energy (including a date for the opening of markets for household customers), and substantial progress on the further development of Community railways.
(2) The end of year deadline must be met for new legislation on the taxation of energy products and for agreement on the so-called tax package.
(3) The momentum behind the integration of financial services and capital markets must be maintained. Thus, an agreement must be reached on all the elements of the action plan for financial services before the EP elections in May 2004. A first target for March 2003 is the definitive adoption of directives on prospectuses and pension funds, and substantial progress towards the adoption, in single reading, of the new takeover bid proposal. Also, it is urgent to define a European approach on corporate governance in the light of recent scandals, on the basis of the conclusions of the Jaap Winter working group.
(4) The question of Community patent must be resolved once and for all. Mr Prodi states he cannot rule out withdrawing the Commission proposal if there is no move forward by the March summit. It would be a "major admission of failure", he states.
(5) Before next spring, it is necessary to tackle the deficit in transposing Community rules, a deficit that has grown worse since Barcelona. Only Finland has achieved the objective of zero tolerance for transposition of the directives, Mr Prodi recalls.
(6) The Council and the EP must reach an agreement by the end of this year on measures to be taken to improve the regulatory environment. In this connection, the President foresees making "proposals in January in the Spring Report on how to do this", but, he adds, "in parallel, we must see agreement between Council and the European Parliament as part of a new framework for better regulation to ensure that the process of adopting these simplifying measures is fast and effective".