Brussels, 06/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - The chair of the working group on simplification, Giuliano Amato, presented the group's recommendations on Thursday. He stressed that it suggests reducing the number of instruments from 15 to 6: - two legislative instruments, laws and framework laws; a non-legislative but binding instrument, decisions; two non-legislative and non-binding instruments, recommendations and opinions; and one instrument, the regulation, reserved for delegated and implementation acts. The final report by the working group (see EUROPE of 5 December, p.5) received a generally positive welcome although there is still divergence over some points.
French Christian Democrat Alain Lamassoure noted that it had taken 12 years to reach a technical definition of jam. Like others, he urged for the rule of unanimity to be abolished. Lamberto Dini, representing the Italian parliament, hoped there would be the fewest possible exceptions to codecision in Council, and criticised the very vague passage in the text on exceptions for "areas of great political sensitivity for States". Alfonso Dastis, representing the Spanish government, and the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, on the other hand, justified keeping the limited number of exceptions. Among the fields that should remain subject to unanimity, the French national mainly cited agriculture. The idea of deciding by qualified majority on tax issues "gives us pimples", admitted Swedish Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen, joined on this by the representative of the Estonian government, Henrik Hololei and British Minister Peter Hain. Unlike the representative of the Dutch government, Gijs De Vries, who considers that the open method of coordination would lose flexibility if it were paralysed in a treaty, German Social Democrat Klaus Hänsch is in favour of establishing the treaty. Austrian Green member Johannes Voggenhuber, on the other hand, sees this as an open door to sneaking the intergovernmental method back in. British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff requests that its use be expressly banned when the treaty authorises recourse to legislative procedure. The recommendations of the group on budgetary procedure were well received by MEPs and representatives of Benelux whose memorandum goes even further as it is in favour of EP participation in fixing receipts and spending and, as the Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said, it urges for "Union financing ensured by a stable, equitable and autonomous system". The representatives of the governments of Spain, Alfonso Dastis, Denmark Henning Christophersen, Ireland Dick Roche and Sweden Lena Hjelm-Wallen, on the other hand, fear a loss of influence by States on their spending. Dominique de Villepin was against the abolition of the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory spending but took a stance in favour of the creation, in time, of a Community tax. Drawing the first conclusions of this debate, Chairman Valéry Giscard d'Estaing noted broad consensus concerning extension of codecision, the disappearance of cooperation procedure and other recommendations of the group. He noted that the budgetary chapter remains controversial but adds that he himself also has "doubts about five-year financial programming".