Brussels, 11/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 11 May, when speaking before the Bundestag, German Chancellor Angela Merkel restated her government's support for the European Constitution but gave no precise indication as to how the German EU Council Presidency plans to tackle the matter during the first half of 2007. “I want this constitutional Treaty, and the government wants this constitutional Treaty” as this text is the best way to have a “Europe capable of action”, Ms Merkel said in her first government statement on European policy.
The EU needs this Constitution to be able to face up to the many challenges awaiting it, the German Chancellor said. She above all stressed how important it is to have a clear division of powers - as provided for in the Constitution - between the Community institutions, the Member States and the regional powers. When competence is mixed, there is always a democratic deficit, she pointed out. Sounding a note of caution, she said one must avoid taking “hasty snapshots” in order to be able to safeguard the draft Constitution,. This was a reference to the requests made by those, especially France, who hope to remove certain elements from the text in order to implement them as soon as possible. “We must reflect how we can bring the Constitution project to a successful conclusion”, Ms Merkel stressed, simply saying that the future EU Council Presidency would naturally “deal” with this dossier. Other priorities include research and development (R&D) as well as legislative simplification and reduction of red tape in the EU.
The Chancellor also called for a “recasting” of the European Union which, she said, should remain able to promote democratic values, which are its heritage, throughout the world. “A new EU casting is more necessary than ever”; Europe must show the world that it can defend a “policy in line with its own concepts”, she hammered home. However, before all else, the EU must place the citizen at the centre of its concerns and win back the peoples' trust, she warned.
On the subject of enlargement, Ms Merkel stressed that “promises made to candidates must be kept”, but that “the deficits of acceding countries must not be swept under the carpet”. EU membership cannot take place “at any price”, she asserted, stressing the importance that an entity like the European Union should reflect upon its external borders.
Speaking in Brussels, German MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin (ALDE), FDP member within the opposition in Germany, congratulated “Ms Merkel's intention to place citizens at the centre of European policy”. “I urge Angela Merkel to make concrete proposals on this so that the intentions she has expressed do not remain empty statements”, Ms Koch-Mehrin states in a press release. When it comes to the European Constitution, the FDP is in favour of holding a referendum in all EU Member States on the day of European elections in 2009, she said.
Still in the European Parliament, the judgement given by German Green member Rebecca Harms is still more severe. In a press release, she reproaches the chancellor with hiding the question of how Europe should move forward in “fog and rhetoric” (although her analysis is quite correct, the MEP concedes). Ms Harms considers Ms Merkel's reference to anchoring the “Christian roots of Europe” in the European Constitution as “totally useless” and considers “worrying” the fact that the chancellor asserts this is necessary in the interest of dialogue with other cultures and religions. CDU elected member Elmar Brok, Chair of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs, was more positive, saying: “Angela Merkel is bringing Europe closer to its people”.