Brussels, 20/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - A few days after the collapse of the European Council of 16/17 June in terms of the Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013, the European institutions are deciding how to react.
The President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, has convened a conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament's political groups in the evening of 21 June (see other article) and points out in a press release that the European Parliament must take an active part in this period of reflection and explanation of the Summit's decision to change the ratification process for the Constitution - noting that it is imperative to get people dreaming about Europe again - and drawing conclusions from the failure to agree on the Financial Perspectives (Borrell says he greatly hopes agreement will be reached by November 2006 at the latest). At the European Parliament, the President of the Constitutional Committee, Jo Leinen, suggests that: 1) the European Parliament and national parliaments convene a European Congress to start dialogue with civil society in cooperation with the European institutions, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee. Such European forums should be organised, he argued, at national, regional and local level too; 2) such a European Congress would look at how to overcome economic crisis and unemployment; how to react to globalisation; how to continue with enlargement; how to solve democracy and transparency problems; and what does European integration means in terms of the identity and sovereignty of Member States and their regions; such a European Congress would start with an intensive phase of listening to citizens; it would then move on to a second phase of making recommendations to be implemented by the institutions and made concrete at all levels.
The outcome of the European Council will be the main subject of debate at the European Commission's meeting on 22 June. Later, President Barroso will follow Jean-Claude Juncker in addressing the European Parliament. (On 23 June, the EP plenary will be addressed by Tony Blair on the priorities of the British Presidency which starts next month.) Following the collapse of negotiations over the Financial Perspectives, Regional Policy Commissioner, Danuta Hubner, has suggested a special summit be held later this month. In an article in Monday's Guardian newspaper, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson (very close to Tony Blair) says 'this spells more than an unseemly squabble over money. It goes to the heart of the EU's purpose and direction, because rethinking the budget has to be a part of a much wider debate about what Europe is for and where it is going… Europe is a political as well as an economic project. The issue for Europe's modernisers is to get the politics right.' Economic 'reform is for a purpose: not to Americanise Europe but to make out European model of society sustainable for generations to come.' 'I have always believed in a social dimension to Europe,' writes Mandelson, continuing: 'My preoccupation has been that the 'social' Europe we build should be forward-looking, rather than stuck in the past, defensive and protectionist.' He concludes: 'A new consensus can be found in Europe. You don't have to know much bout the political situation in France and Germany to realise that. The time is ripe for the British government to go out on the front foot, using the summit debacle to cathartic effect.' Talking to a handful of reporters about the European Council's decision to put the Constitution on hold, European Taxation and Customs Union Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs said urgent decisions had to be taken about organisational matters (a stable Presidency of the Council, a European Foreign Minister, citizens being granted the right to ask the Commission to propose new legislation and an early warning system for national parliaments). He said it would have been better to have sent a positive message about the Financial Perspectives by actually adopting them. Kovacs recalled that when he was Hungary's foreign minister with responsibility for negotiating Hungary's accession to the EU, he had suggested that the 15 Member States of the time 'differentiate' between candidate countries in terms of the extent to which they had prepared for joining the EU, but the EU15 had not had the political courage to do so.