Brussels, 24/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Hans-Gert Poeterring, President of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament, qualified as "pragmatic" the attitude of the European council of 20 and 21 March on Iraq. According to the CDU member, in the current difficult situation it is already a good thing that the Fifteen should have succeeded in not worsening their differences on the subject. As to the Belgian initiative of rekindling the defence policy by beginning with the Franco-German axis (with, other than Belgium, Luxembourg: see our special "European Council" edition of last Sunday), Poeterring welcomed it but only if it does not develop in opposition to the United States.
Furthermore, Poeterring regrets that the Council's conclusions does not come up with any solution to the problem between Parliament and Council over the inclusion in the Act of Accession of the finance earmarked for the future member States. We are not placing enlargement into question, but the unilateral setting of these amounts by the Council breaches the inter-institutional agreement with Parliament, Poeterring insists, repeating: Parliament thus considers this agreement as non-existent, and in future will have more room for manoeuvre regarding the financing of Union policies. He then went on: if we do not reach agreement, an appeal to the court of Justice is not to be ruled out. (You may recall that this affair will be discussed in Brussels in plenary on Wednesday, and that Parliament should adopt a resolution tabled by its Committees on Foreign Affairs and the Budget).