Brussels, 19/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - The initial reactions of the members of the European Parliament to the results of the European Council on the financial perspectives were mixed: some are relieved at having reached a compromise, even if it is imperfect, others are divided (depending largely on nationality), and two groups- Greens/European Free Alliance and United European Left/Nordic Green Left- are already saying that this compromise must be rejected. The MEPs will have the opportunity to speak out this Tuesday, at the special session of the extended Conference of the Presidents, to be attended by Tony Blair.
President Borrell's gut reaction was somewhat critical. In a press release, Josep Borrell warns: the agreement of the summit "is not the end of the process. It marks the beginning of the last phase of negotiations with the European Parliament and the Commission (...). Without wanting to prejudge the positions which will be taken by the European Parliament, I note that the position of the Council is still very far from that of the Parliament". On Monday, during a debate on Vienna between the Presidents of the political groups of the EP and young people from five Austrian schools, to which we will return, President Borrell said that the first thing the Austrian Presidency would have to do would be to reach an agreement on the financial perspectives which, in order to be adopted, will also have to be approved by the European Parliament. Pointing out that the EU is based on the double legitimacy of States and populations, Joseph Borrell added: Austria must play the role of an arbitrator, "I do not believe this agreement will be as easy and automatic as some people think" (for more on the Austrian Presidency, see other article).
Opinion is divided within the political groups. Within the EPP-ED group, praise was lavished upon the role played by Angela Merkel at her first European Council. The President Hans-Gert Pöttering commented that the Chancellor had managed "not only to act as a broker between the larger Member States, France and the United Kingdom, but also to include the interests of the smaller Member States (...), seamlessly following on with the best traditions of a Christian Democrat European policy". The results of the summit could have been obtained "earlier, and more easily", in the view of another CDU MEP, Reimer Böge, rapporteur on the financial perspectives. On the substance, Mr Böge notes: we will examine the compromise most attentively and "start consultations with the Austrian Presidency at the beginning of next year, and check whether the position of the Council may be a starting point for negotiations with Parliament". The Socialist group appears considerably more divided. Its vice-presidents Jan Marinus Wiersma (Netherlands) and Hannes Swoboda (Austria) state that the agreement "is not ambitious enough for our group's liking, but it is better than no result at all", particularly as "under the political circumstances in the United Kingdom, Tony Blair did the best he could". French members Bernard Poignant and Catherine Guy-Quint, on the other hand, are not at all satisfied. "The more countries there are in the Union, the less money the Union will have", said Mr Poignant, and Ms Guy-Quint spoke out against what she described as a "bad inter-governmental approach to the benefit of a destructured project, which sets the territories in competition with each other and runs counter to the idea of European solidarity". Similar differences were noted within the ALDE group. Its president, Scottish member Graham Watson, believes that the results leave much to be desired, but, in a press release, welcomes the fact that "the threshold of 1% put forward by the group of six, almost 2 years ago to the day, was never a realistic figure for a Union which has just welcomed 10 new Member States". More generally, Mr Watson believes that "at some point in the future, we will have to revise the way we pay for the EU. Our leaders must behave less like accountants and more like a board of directors". During the meeting with the Austrian schoolchildren, Mr Watson also highlighted (in German) Angela Merkel's mediation work of the European Council, noting: "she was the one who got Blair and Chirac to agree, telling them: dear children, an agreement must be reached" (at the same occasion, in Vienna, the President of the Socialist group, Martin Schulz took exception to this version of the events, stating: "this agreement is a bad one, and when she was the leader of the opposition, Angela Merkel was also highly critical"). French member Marielle de Sarnez, on the other hand, said that "this agreement leaves a bitter taste in my mouth", it is the result "of pressure brought to bear on the new Member States, who have been called upon to accept second-rate solidarity".
Two political groups have already announced that they feel that this compromise is unacceptable. The co-presidents of the Greens/EFA group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni, stated that they will call for the proposal of the European Counsel to be rejected, and the President of the GUE/NGL group, Francis Wurtz, commented: "it is successes like this that have sent Europe into crisis!". Pointing out that all the political groups of the EP had stated that they would refuse to accept a budget lower than that proposed by the Luxembourg Presidency last June, Mr Wurtz warned: "if it wants its formal stances to remain credible (...), the European Parliament must reject these financial perspectives".