Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-15-Speech-3-116"
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"en.19990915.9.3-116"2
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"It is not on the basis of individual Commissioners’ ability to carry out their official tasks that a position for or against the European Commission is to be adopted. For example, the Commissioners from Scandinavia, Mr Nielson and Ms Wallström, came out well from the hearings. If we had been able to vote for individual Commissioners, we should have given them our support, but the EU’s treaty does not permit this.
The attitude we adopt towards the Commission depends mainly upon three questions:
Democratic procedure
Here, we cannot accept the threats which have come from Mr Prodi as President of the Commission. His threats include that of withdrawing the whole of the Commission if Parliament does not approve the whole College. He has also, through telephone conversations with the leader of the Conservatives/Christian Democrats, Mr Poettering, reached an agreement to the effect that no unduly indiscreet and controversial questions should be asked at the hearings. In this way, the French candidate Pascal Lamy, for example, got off all too lightly. As head of Delors’ cabinet, Lamy was responsible for ensuring that the Commission developed its own security department to the point that it became a “state within a state”, as is also maintained in the report by the Experts’ Committee. He was also responsible for the security services’ choosing to recruit leading personnel from right-wing extremist backgrounds.
The political content
This can best be discovered from Mr Prodi’s various speeches, through which his neo-liberal ideas shine clearly. The labour market is to be deregulated and social insurances and taxes should be harmonised. It is remarkable that the governments within the EU, which are to a large extent dominated by Social Democrats, have been able to agree upon a President of the Commission who so obviously does not represent the values of the labour movement. The idea that the EU should be developed as a military power is another of Mr Prodi’s hobbyhorses. It has not been possible in the course of the hearings to discern any understanding of the Swedish policy of non-alignment or of Danish exemption from military co-operation. What has also prevailed during the hearings of the Commissioners-designate is remarkable unity as to the need to abolish the right of veto almost across the board. The direction is clear: that of a European state, a federation.
Future aims
On 14 September, Mr Prodi spoke in the European Parliament about the need to introduce
but he said nothing about introducing a measure whereby employees of the Commission would be free to provide information. He was also rather vague when it came to concrete reforms. He did not want to comment on the report by the experts’ group but asked if he could return to it on a later occasion. Mr Prodi wants a strengthened Commission which will take on an ever-increasing number of tasks. The intention, moreover, is that it should unconditionally retain its stagnant monopoly on initiatives concerning legislation.
Taken together, these are the reasons why we have chosen to vote “no” to the Commission."@en1
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