Strasbourg, 24/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference on the sideline of the plenary session in Strasbourg, the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering (EPP- ED, Germany) and the German Social Democrat Dagmar Roth-Behrendt presented, on Thursday 23 April, the final report of the working group on Parliamentary reform. The working group chaired by Ms Roth-Behrendt was tasked with examining the work in plenary, legislative activities and internal structures of the Parliament. Over nearly 2 years, the group has held 37 meetings, including three "reflection seminars". As Dagmar Roth-Behrendt stressed, of more than a hundred proposed reforms, around 80% have been adopted and executed or are being carried out. Work on the rest may be continued immediately after the forthcoming elections, to be adopted early in 2010.
The main reforms concerned: - the agenda of the plenary session: organisation of a current affairs debate on the Wednesday afternoon; rolling planning to allow the reports to be brought together under a single theme for a number of committees; - the plenary debates: introduction and conclusion of the debate by the rapporteur; seeking better interactivity by the "catch-the-eye" method, which allows the President to give the floor to MEPs wishing to react to the contributions of their colleagues, the Council or Commission; the group also suggested introducing a "Questions Hour", which would be based on spontaneous dialogue between the MEPs and the Commission, the Presidency of the Council and the High Representative; - the Parliamentary committees: the strict application of the principle of proportional representation; reinforcing the position of the committees for their opinions in comparison to the principal committee; close cooperation between the petitions committee and the other committees in question; the introduction of joint meetings and votes of the Parliamentary committees on important legislative dossiers which are difficult to allocate to just one committee; - relations with the other institutions: the next Parliament could call for the new Commission to enter with the Parliament into a "legislature contract" (which should both respond to the expectations of the Parliament and constitute a kind of code of conduct); the next Parliament should seek to enter into negotiations with the Council in order to obtain access to information and meetings of the Council, including its working groups and Coreper; - activities of the MEPs: make accession to the multilateral assemblies conditional upon joining the bilateral delegations coming under the same heading as these assemblies; better coordination with the European Commission in the field of electoral observation; organisation of a timetable in order to allow the committees to meet during weeks previously reserved exclusively for the political groups; introduction of seven turquoise weeks for "external activities", including presence in the constituencies and taking part in delegations. This division would help to improve the organisation of the attendance of the MEPs at, or indeed outside of, the workplaces of the institution. (O.J./trans.fl)