Taking part in the work of the European Parliament committee looking at the financial perspectives for the Union for the period 2007-2013 (see our bulletin 8936), the President of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned the MEPs: this time, I have nothing to tell you, I'm just going to listen. But this wasn't the first time I'd seen him do this: even when he says he has nothing to say, there's still a lot more substance in his words than entire conferences from other speakers.
He started on Tuesday with four words of warning to the Member States: 1) those who feel that the Commission's financial proposals can be accepted in full are seriously mistaken; 2) those who imagine that an agreement may be possible on limiting expenditure to 1% of Union GDP are just as seriously mistaken. If they won't budge, it'll spell failure; 3) the negotiators must brace themselves for a long period of reflection on the “revenue” side of the new perspectives. It'll never be done if they focus solely on expenditure; 4) all members of the Council should read paragraph 6 of article 272 of the current treaty very carefully, which in effect gives the Parliament the ability to put a spoke in the wheels itself if the Council doesn't agree to its amendments. Certain Member States have yet to grasp the fact that the Union is in a Council/Parliament codecision regime. The calculations made allow the Parliament to approve a budget corresponding to 1.06% of Union GDP; this means that a ceiling of 1% is below what the EP already has the right to decide on at this moment in time.
Disappointing negotiations. In the light of these considerations, Mr Juncker pulled no punches on the state of play with negotiations within the Council. Almost all delegations rejected the guidelines presented by the Presidency, homing in on their own “specific natures”. Unfortunately, these “specific natures” are almost never the same from one State to the next, so that “confusion replaced the clarity which seemed to be dawning”. Mr Juncker added: “this is not a time of tranquil debate; we will have to wait for a certain tranquillity to return” (a reference to the referendums in France and the Netherlands and the elections in the UK). The first important meeting will be that of the economy and finance ministers, who will meet without a chaperone (under his chairmanship, because Mr Juncker chairs the Ecofin Council and, for two years, the euro group), before the conclave on 22 May between the foreign ministers.
Inevitable cuts and the British rebate. The MEPs asked him a lot of questions (see the aforementioned bulletin 8936), but Mr Juncker did not, with a few exceptions, give individual answers, choosing instead to give “horizontal” answers, in which he said or confirmed that:
a) If there is agreement, it will be somewhere between the 1% of GDP certain Member States want as an upper limit, and the 1.14% proposed by the Commission;
b) The result of this will be that compared to the Commission's proposals, cuts will have to be brought in “in all headings, not just the solidarity/cohesion one. We can't rule this or that out because each Member State is calling for something else to be left out”. However, the Council needs to be “consistent” with itself; if it decides on a specific action, it must then approve funding for it, which is not always the case. And this goes for Parliament too.
c) As for the specific requests from the MEPs, Mr Juncker's tongue was firmly in his cheek: “Even without looking at the room, I'll have no problems working out which country the speaker is from based on the content of the requests. The Parliament criticises the fact that each minister defends the specific interests of his or her country; well then, it should set the example, instead of doing just the same”. These words met with enthusiastic applause from some MEPs, but most fell silent, visibly embarrassed;
d) The “British rebate” will certainly be raised by the Council, and Mr Juncker hopes for a “calm and rational debate” taking account of developments since it was granted. He warned: “this rebate won't be withdrawn overnight”, but added that it would be withdrawn one day.
Mr Juncker said that in principle, he agreed with Alain Lamassoure's suggestion to tackle the hypothetical breakdown in the negotiations underway by providing for a transition period to extend the “perspectives” in force and organising an inter-parliamentary conference on Union resources. Whilst keeping up his hopes of an agreement before 30 June, Mr Juncker said that it would be appropriate to involve the national parliaments in defining resources, because “what's revenue for the Union is expenditure for the Member States, and subject to national parliamentary controls”.
(F.R.)