Brussels, 29/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 28 February, speaking before the committee on constitutional affairs, Dagmar Roth-Behrendt (SPD), who chairs the working group on reform of the European Parliament, took stock of the main ideas discussed by his group, which is to present its final report this summer. Proposals discussed include those on reducing the number and size of parliamentary committees, reorganising EP delegations for relations with third countries, reducing the number of own-initiative reports (given that the EP's legislative burden will increase considerably with the Lisbon Treaty due to codecision extension), and making informal contacts between rapporteurs and the Council and Commission more transparent when it is a matter of finding an agreement at first reading. The constitutional affairs committee entrusted Richard Corbett (Labour, UK) with the task of drafting a report on review of the EP's internal rules of procedure, in the light of proposals to be made by the working group under Ms Roth-Behrendt.
One of the most controversial aspects of Mr Corbett's report is the suggestion that the number of written parliamentary questions put to the European Commission by MEPs should be limited to three - per month. The Commission has in fact told the EP that the growing number of written questions (6,790 in 2007, i.e. 11% more than in 2006 and 30% more than in 2005) was a considerable workload, requiring time and effort from too many officials at the cost of European taxpayers. The Commission also complained that a very large number of these questions are quite “irrelevant” as they deal with subjects that do not come under the scope of the Commission's competence or that have nothing to do with the EU. Some eurosceptic MEPs in fact make abusive use of the written questions to express their own personal views, to saturate European bureaucracy (each question and response is translated into 23 EU languages and published in the Official Journal) and even to insult commissioners. Robert Kilroy-Silk (NA, UK) has reportedly already submitted over 1,000 written questions “although he is practically never seen in Brussels or Strasbourg”, Mr Corbett said. The Commission does not necessarily ask the EP to impose a quantitative limit to questions. It might be sufficient to have stricter qualitative control on the kind of questions submitted, Margot Wallström, Commission Vice-President, explained. The Greens Group agrees to enhance efficiency and to increase the quality of work of the EP, including when it comes to written questions put to the Commission, but, at the end of the day, it will be necessary to avoid the only result being further growth in the power of the main political groups to the detriment of the smaller groups, said Johannes Voggenhuber (Greens/EFA, Austria). Other MEPs, like Brian Crowley (UEN, Ireland) or Andrew Duff (ALDE, UK) are against any restriction being placed on the number of written questions but believe the rules and qualitative criteria should be stricter. (H.B.)