Brussels, 12/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament and the national parliaments of the 27 member countries of the European Union joined voices in Brussels, on Tuesday, to call for the heads of state and government to safeguard the substance of the Constitutional Treaty during the negotiations of the European Council on 21-22 June on the future treaty of the EU. At the third EP/national parliaments joint parliamentary conference, entitled “The Future of Europe: Together ... but how?”, national MPs also placed emphasis on respecting subsidiarity and proportionality. They also pressed for national parliaments to play a more important role when it comes to control over the Community legislative process without, however, demanding more than what is already foreseen in the draft Constitutional Treaty. The idea to grant national parliaments the right of legislative initiative was also raised during the debates (mainly within a working group co-chaired by Inigo Mendez de Vigo, MEP Spain, and José Honorio Novo, a member of the Portuguese parliament), but positions “differ greatly” over this tricky issue, acknowledged Michael Roth (Bundestag, Germany), the group's rapporteur. The spectre of a multi-speed Europe, with the creation of a “vanguard” of member nations, was also evoked on several occasions during debates on Tuesday. This solution is envisaged in earnest by several (mainly national) representatives but also as a solution to fall back on if it is not possible to draft a treaty that is satisfactory and acceptable to all 27 member states.
“Remain inflexible, defend the Constitutional Treaty. You have the support of 18 member states that have already ratified the text, four others that support the text, the European Parliament and all the national parliaments of the 27 member countries”, Jo Leinen of Germany (who chairs the EP constitutional affairs committee) told Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, who represented the German EU presidency at the conference. “Do not give in to blackmail” from Britain or other countries that unceasingly use the threat of a (negative) referendum to gain concessions and back-pedalling on a text that they themselves signed in 2004, Mr Leinen went on. “Simplify the Constitutional Treaty maybe, but do not change its substance”, took up the former Italian foreign minister, Lamberto Dini, who today chairs the European affairs committee of the Italian Senate. This implies that one must not touch a number of key elements, mainly the whole of the institutional package, the Union's legal personality, the primacy of European law, the Charter on Fundamental Rights and its legally binding nature, and the abolition of the pillar structure. “The Constitutional Ttreaty must form the basis of the negotiations”, stressed former Luxembourg MEP Ben Fayot, who now chairs the European affairs committee of the Luxembourg parliament. “The Luxembourg parliament will give this negotiating brief to Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker for the European summit next week”, he said. Andrius Kubilius, deputy speaker of the parliament of Lithuania, the first country to have ratified the Constitutional Treaty, also defended the Constitutional Treaty, saying that citizens would fail to understand if a text that has already been ratified were replaced by a new text that is far less substantial and less ambitious.
A number of changes are perhaps required to take the no-vote by France and the Netherlands into account, but these must be “good changes”, said José Honorio Novo, from Portugal. Acceptable changes include the symbols and certain titles used in the Constitutional Treaty. “The Union is not a State. So why insist on the name constitution, why insist on the titles of Union president or European minister”, he asked. Several speakers contradicted Mr Novo. “We must not underestimate the importance of symbols” for bringing citizens closer to the European project, said Michael Roth of Germany, for example, like his compatriot, Rainder Steenblock (also German Bundestag), who recalls the value of symbols (flag, anthem) and who fears that doing away with them in the future treaty would strengthen the citizens' feeling of uncertainty.
More than institutional mechanisms and symbols, what is truly important for the European citizens is to see that Europe is acting in their favour, said Alena Gajduskova, a member of the Czech Republic's Senate foreign affairs committee. “Citizens do not ask how the Union decides but ask it to decide”. Jaroslaw Kalinowski, the vice president of the Polish Sejm, said a compromise will be found on the future EU treaty. He takes the view that “this compromise will lie somewhere between the Constitutional Treaty and the Nice Treaty”.
Multi-speed Europe. If negotiations on the treaty end in failure, one must not rule out a two-speed Europe, said Ben Fayot of Luxembourg. “I hope we shall not have to resort to this but having two-speed progress in European integration is always better than not having any progress at all”. George Vella of Malta was of the same opinion. The creation of a core group would be the only solution if negotiations on the treaty stall - leaving more time” for the other countries to catch up with the more advanced countries.
He explained that in European policy there is no status quo, “we move forward or we move back”. Sandro Gozi from Italy and a member of the Chamber's European affairs committee also said that, “the Union cannot go forward at the pace of the slowest”. He asserted that if the slowcoaches did not advance they would need to create an avant-guard but all doors should remain open.
Subsidiarity/Proportionality. Edmund Wittbrodt, the president of the European affairs committee at the Polish Senate said that the future EU treaty had to strengthen the role of national parliaments in the control of subsidiarity and proportionality in the Community legislative process and that this was “fundamental”. However, he did say that they should not compete with Community institutions and that the EU institutional balance had to be safeguarded. Wittbrodt said that national parliaments should not be able to block the European legislative process and that giving them the chance to give the “red card” to EU institutions would be too much but that they should be able to maintain a “yellow card” system (early warning system included in the constitutional treaty). Harm Evert Waalkens, the president of the European affairs committee at the Dutch House of Representatives said that there was no intention to add a “third chamber” to the legislative process or create a new “bureaucratic institution”. Waalkens did, however, call for subsidiarity to be strengthened. José Manuel Barroso said that provisions (protocol) in the constitutional treaty on the role of national parliaments had to be maintained. Barroso also affirmed that in respect of the “spirit” of the constitutional treaty, the Commission has been sending all legislative proposals to the national parliaments automatically and directly since September 2006. He also said that this worked perfectly well and drew on a number of figures in support: the Commission now receives 95 opinions from the 23 national parliaments out of 52 legislative proposals that had been made so far.
In his “Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality”, the constitutional treaty stipulates that the Commission sends its legislative proposals to the national parliaments at the same time as it does to the Council and EP. Draft legislative acts must take account of the principles of subsidiarity and conditionality. It is also provided for that all national parliaments (or all chambers of one of these parliaments) can, within a period of six weeks from the date the draft European legislative act is sent, submit a reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission, setting out the reasons which lead it to believe the draft does not comply with the subsidiarity principle. If a sufficiently high number of parliaments challenge a legislative proposal, it will be re-examined.
Preparations for the European Council. Frank Walter Steinmeier took part in the meeting all morning, but gave parliamentarians very little information on the state of the consultations which Chancellor Angela Merkel is holding with her European partners in preparation for next week's Summit (provoking the anger of the deputy leader of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, Monika Frassoni, who said that this lack of transparency was an indication of the “insignificant” role played by parliaments in the negotiation of the treaty). However, as he had done last week in the European Parliament, Mr Steinmeier said he was optimistic. “I feel that everyone is ready to move” in order to find a compromise, there was a “new dynamic” in the talks, he said. There was a “very clear majority” in favour of retaining the institutional package of the constitutional treaty as it stands; the same majority wanted to maintain the progress made in the constitutional treaty with regard to the various policies (JHA, immigration, etc.); an equally large majority of member states wanted new provisions added to the treaty, including on the issues of energy solidarity and climate change; a “very large majority” of member states wanted the Charter of Fundamental Rights to remain legally binding (although there were differences of opinion on the form the Charter should take in the treaty - full text or simple reference to it; member states were fully prepared to strengthen subsidiarity “without, however, adding any further vetoes”, Mr Steinmeier said; there was a willingness among member states to give up certain names and symbols which featured in the constitutional treaty. (hb)