Brussels, 07/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted (by 459 votes to 141 and 32 abstentions) the report by Elmar Brok (EPP-ED) and Enrique Baron Crespo (PES) on continuing the EU constitutional process. This corresponds to the EP's contribution to the European Council on 21-22 June.
The main message set out in the report is that the EP will be opposed to any new draft treaty that does not improve democracy, transparency and citizens' rights. MEPs restate their support for the content and the substance of the Constitutional Treaty that they wish to safeguard. The EP thus stresses that all the basic principles contained in Part I should be kept, including the Union's double nature - Union of States and of citizens -, the primacy of European law, the new typology of acts and procedures, the hierarchy of standards and the EU's legal personality. MEPs also call for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be included and for its legally binding nature to be maintained (Part II of the Constitutional Treaty). They call for the future treaty to take into account “essential questions” raised during the reflection period and for it to clarify other questions already tackled in the Constitutional Treaty.
Such questions include: sustainable development (mainly the fight against climate change), European solidarity in energy, a coherent migration policy, the European social model in the context of demographic change and globalisation, terrorism, dialogue between civilisations, efficient common mechanisms for coordinating economic policy zones in the eurozone (while preserving the role of the European Central Bank in monetary policy, in compliance with the Treaties), eligibility criteria and Union accession procedures. MEPs also pointed out that the European Parliament “is the only institution of the European Union elected by universal suffrage” and should be directly involved in the work of the IGC at all levels “and more so than in the 2003 and 2004 IGCs”.
During the debate on Wednesday afternoon, Enrique Báron Crespo highlighted the need for the June European Council to arrange an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) that had a “clear and exact mandate” and which could still finish its work under the Portuguese presidency. Elmar Brok called for the “EU to show that it did not want to become a state…and that it should promote the identity of peoples”. At an institutional level he underscored the importance of extending qualified majority voting, notably in the legal area and reaffirmed that the Charter of Fundamental Rights was “indispensable”, as was the pillar structure which demonstrated that “intergovernmentalism is a failure”.
Speaking on behalf of the Council, Secretary of State for European Affairs Günter Gloser explained, after recalling the importance of full EP participation in the process, that this “was not about ignoring the 'no' vote but keeping to the spirit of what the majority of member states want to preserve as the essence of the Constitutional Treaty”. The minister then declared that the German presidency's proposal would only be made public on the eve of the European Council, with a precise timetable that would allow for ratification by 2009. To this end, “the EP has to give its opinion before summer”, he said. Commissioner Margot Wallström referred to the convergence of views between the Commission and European Parliament on the important aspects of the report. The Commission called on member states to “not undo a compromise that had been difficult to obtain and which will not be easy to improve”. She said that if a new IGC is decided on, the Commission would be ready to present its opinion at the beginning of July.
Iñigo Méndez de Vigo (EPP-ED, Spain) stressed that “Parliament does not want just any old agreement” and pointed to the main elements the EP held dear: part I of the Constitutional Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the taking into account of citizens' demands on climate change, energy solidarity and the fight against terrorism. Jo Leinen from the PES said he was opposed to a “mini-treaty or a simple institutional treaty” and explained that citizens, including those from France and the Netherlands, supported a more comprehensive treaty and that it was therefore “incomprehensible that member states now wanted to get rid of some of the elements”. The Liberal group is clearly in favour of the Brok/Caron Crespo report, Andrew Duff pointed out. The co-president of the UEN group, Brian Crowley, speaking on the behalf of his group said that all citizens were concerned by this constitution. He said that they were now at a critical time, before the European Council, because Council members want to go in the opposite direction to the EP. He hoped that the “Europe of Donald Rumsfeld”, namely, a divided Europe, never happened and that the heart of the text was preserved with the necessary modifications. He thought that what counted was the “balance between nations being preserved”. Speaking for the Greens/EFA, Joannes Voggenhuber underlined the importance of the message “from Parliament being understood by member states”, namely, that of MEPs support for qualified majority, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and getting rid of the pillar structure. He then denounced the constitutional process that excluded parliaments and peoples behind closed doors, and which was far removed from the aspirations of the different peoples. Voggenhuber said that “governments were abusing the French and Dutch referendums to brandish their intergovernmental vision of Europe”. Francis Wurtz (GUE/NGL) said that his group disagreed with the text of the report and that it “denied the increasing problems that a fundamental part of the 'community acquis' raised among our citizens” resulting from “the open market economy where competition is free”. Bruno Gollnisch (ITS) said that this was clearly a matter of, “creating a super European state” with an international legal nature, whose presidency would no longer be rotating and which would take decisions by qualified majority. He also said that there would be a minister for European affairs and a single currency when “what is needed is the honesty to tell this to our compatriots”. Jim Allister (non-attached), said that France and the Netherlands “had not expressed their concerns, they had instead rejected the Treaty”. He said that the refusal to consider the “no” vote as a rejection of the Constitutional Treaty was the equivalent of “refusing to accept reality”. (hb)