Strasbourg, 13/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - Addressing an almost empty hemicycle, the president of the Council of the EU, Nicolas Schmit, last Wednesday confirmed the great importance the Council attaches to the reform of the United Nations, which is one of the subjects to be dealt with by the June European summit. The Council supports the overall concept of collective security proposed by Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Mr Schmit stressed the agreement in principle of the Council to the package of proposals and the Union's intentions of playing a leading role in the process, leading up to the summit to be held in New York this September. The creation of a peace consolidation committee is a priority for the Council of the EU, and it may also give its agreement to the creation of a permanent Council for human rights. Commissioner Joe Borg also welcomed the Commission's proposals for peace consolidation (in which the EU would also have its own seat) and the Council for human rights, particularly welcoming the fact that members of this Council will be required to prove their concrete commitment in favour of standards on the respect for human rights. Mr Borg also pleaded in favour of better integration of the "environmental" factor into the UN's work.
Rapporteur Armin Laschet (CDU) said that Europe should try to obtain a single seat within the Security Council, adding: single seat or not, I want more Europe and not less, including at the UN. German social Democrat Jo Leinen is in favour of a long-term single seat: in the meantime, we must find ways for the EU to make its voice heard. Luisa Morgantini (GUE, Italy), who pleaded in favour of a genuine re-foundation of the United Nations, agreed with this position. Others, such as Jas Gawronski (Forza Italia), said that a common foreign policy, which is not yet up and running, should correspond to a single seat.
Mr Gawronski is opposed in principle to allocating a permanent seat to any one of the Member States of the Union (and therefore poses the German candidacy). All countries have the right to be represented within the Security Council, and a reform which would set its composition in stone would end up weakening it, he stressed. Agreeing with him, Franciso Millan Mon (EPP-ED, Spain) said that if that if a permanent seat was going to be added to the Security Council, it has to go to the EU. Alexander Graf Lambsdorf (FDP, Germany) disagreed: the French and Dutch no votes to the European Constitution make it less and less likely that a seat will be allocated to the Union, and the solution which would give the EU more weight within the Security Council should therefore be defended, that of calling for a German seat. Germany would work with a European mindset, in close consultation with the European institutions, the German Liberal said. His Green countryman Frithjof Schmidt, on the other hand, pleaded in favour of a Union seat (and called for the UN environment programme to be made into a United Nations body in its own right). The UN should go back to its roots, the Assembly should become more active once again, said British Conservative Nirj Deva, but in the view of Hélène Flautre, French Green, efforts should be concentrated on the reform of the protection of human rights. Hélène Goudin (Independence And Democracy) asked what would become of the smaller countries in all these reforms: would the concerns of a country such as mine, Sweden, really be taken on board? The Union as the Union has nothing to say about this reform, shot back French member of the same group, Paul-Marie Couteaux, who feels that this is the business of the States: he feels that this is confirmed by the fact that a majority of French and Dutch people rejected the Constitution. This comment met with anger from French Socialist Michel Rocard: the death of the constitutional project in no way spells the end of all the efforts which bring us together, he exclaimed, speaking out also against the fact that there were only some 20 MEPs taking part in this important debate. On the single EU seat at the Security Council, the former French Prime Minister said yes, there are reasons to call for this seat, yes the time is not ripe. Conclusion: don't let's worry about it too much, let us try to work hard towards what we can reasonably expect to achieve.
In its long resolution (which we will publish in full), the Parliament calls upon the Council unreservedly to approve Kofi Annan's plans, subscribing in particular to the idea that security, economic and social development, environmental protection and the respect for human rights are inextricably linked, and stressing the need for the Millennium Objectives to be achieved. The Parliament, which stresses the fact that the main thrust of the reform of the Security Council must be for its authority, its genuine representativeness in all areas of the world and its legitimacy in the primacy in peacekeeping and security to be reinforced, states also that be allocation of a seat on the Security Council to the EU "remains the objective pursued by the Union once the necessary political, constitutional and legal conditions are met".
According to the Parliament, furthermore, giving the EU an extra permanent seat would be consistent with the European Constitution. The Parliament also called for the establishment of a United Nations parliamentary assembly, a reinforcement of the Economic and Social Committee (which, for economic, financial, environmental and development issues, should be put on the same footing as the Security Council), and the extension of the role of the International atomic energy agency.