Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-236"
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"Mr President, thank you for having given me the floor for a few moments at this point in the debate during which I have been able to listen closely to the rapporteurs whom I had already heard, but also to the representatives and the speakers of the different groups that sit in Parliament, that is to say, many of you. I hope that the speakers I will not be able to hear due to the way this debate has been re-organised as well as to the constraints of my own schedule, will forgive me. I can only promise them that I shall remain attentive to what is said throughout the debate today and of course later.
And then there are the other institutions. With enlargement, we will have to define the number of elected representatives from each State within your Parliament. The Commission, with its power to issue guidelines, the new authority conferred on its President, will have to preserve – I hope you do not mind if I say that it will not be easy, now that I am a Member of the Commission – its collegial character, its efficiency, and its decision-making process which requires a simple majority of its Members. The Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors will have to adapt to enlargement.
By mentioning all of these institutions, I am attempting to show that there are many answers to the fundamental question that I raised just now, that is, how we will work when there are 27 of us, and these are answers that must be looked into at this Intergovernmental Conference. The functioning of the institutions does not necessarily imply a revision of the Treaties. In their daily work, there are important reforms of internal structures for the European Parliament, for the Commission and especially for the Council, which must be implemented before enlargement.
The second major issue, Mr President, is to prevent the risk of dilution; the risk of dispersion that enlargement entails for us all. I repeat that when a risk presents itself, it can either be overcome, accepted as if it were inevitable, or prevented. We hope to prevent this risk of dispersion. The Treaty of Amsterdam has established the legitimacy of certain forms of cooperation between Member States within the Union’s institutional framework in order to move beyond the level of integration that has already been achieved.
On behalf of the Commission, I shall say quite clearly that the acquis must, under no circumstances, be considered to be a form of strengthened cooperation between the Fifteen Member States. The objective is really to improve the current conditions of strengthened cooperation and to make them easier. If we do not achieve this at this Conference, the current right of veto would only encourage the States that would like to achieve a deeper level of cooperation between themselves not to do it within the Community framework but to do it more and more outside this framework. In order to strengthen the Union’s coherence, the Commission, like your Parliament, hopes that the question of the Union’s external representation will also be raised.
The third issue is that of continuing the political construction of Europe and, when the moment comes, we will then have to accept the consequences for the institutions of the work in progress on the Common Security and Defence Policy. We are not forgetting that there is also the question of the way the Charter of Fundamental Rights relates to the Treaty.
I would like to bring this intervention to a close by thanking you for your attention and by mentioning the preparations for the negotiations. Our objective is to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion and to achieve this before the end of the year 2000 with significant results. Our objective is not to delay enlargement but to accomplish it successfully. This is why we hope that the procedure laid down by the Treaty, in Article 48, is implemented as soon as possible after Helsinki.
I would also like to express our agreement to the involvement of the European Parliament taking place in the best possible conditions, with greater participation than there was, as I can testify, when we were preparing for Amsterdam.
I would finally like to say that this reform throughout the year 2000 must provide the opportunity for genuine public debate between us, the institutions, but also with national parliaments and with our citizens. It is our place, and indeed my own, to see to it that we take part in this public debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is convinced that powerful institutional reform, adapted to the requirements of enlargement, can be achieved before the end of 2000. We know that the Union will emerge from this enlargement completely transformed. It must not emerge from it weakened. But we will only succeed if this reform is achieved with sufficient ambition and political will, which means that many of us will have to give priority to the long-term vision over caution or national interests.
Honourable Members, Mr President, institutional reform is not a political project. It is a tool. Our project, as many of you have said, and it underlies our thoughts today, is the uniting of the peoples of European States in a political, economic, social and cultural Community. The great political project for the very start of the next century is therefore the welcoming of many new Members. This is why the distinction made in Amsterdam between limited adjustment, minor enlargement and a broader reform is already an outdated distinction.
You are already aware of the Commission’s contribution to the preparation for this Conference. I am delighted today, as was President Prodi, to see the contribution your Parliament has made and to note, and I would like to thank your two rapporteurs, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen most sincerely for this, a broad convergence of views, at this stage, between our two institutions. And I think that this convergence of views is a major trump card that we should hold on to both in terms of the issues at stake in the reform and of the working method that we should adopt.
I would like to say a few words about the issues involved in this reform. As your two rapporteurs so aptly emphasised, this forthcoming Conference must concentrate on institutional issues, on all institutional issues with the notable and politically necessary exception of the discussions currently taking place on a European security and defence policy. I think that if institutional reforms are to succeed, they must be placed, and I say this to you, bearing in mind my experience of the last negotiations, in a broader political perspective, and they must together attempt to provide an answer to the fundamental question, “How should we speak to each other? How should we work? How should we move forward and take decisions in a Union which will contain 27 countries?” Because that is what there will be around the table. And that is the only question that we should be asking as we seek answers, all the answers, whichever institutions and processes are affected by seeking this answer.
The first issue that we have identified together is that of functioning well when there is a large number of states. Just now, I heard the President-in-Office of the Council mention enlargement which, he said, means “change”. And, in direct response, I shall reply to him that what we are dealing with is a major enlargement, not a minor adjustment. And we must respond to this major enlargement with real reform which must first, therefore, address the decision-making process. This is why I believe that the majority of us will agree on making it clear that qualified majority voting within the Council should become the rule, with exceptions limited to a few fundamental and very sensitive issues.
As many of you wanted us to, we have also put it in writing that where an issue of a legislative nature is concerned, the qualified majority must be linked to a codecision procedure between the Council and the European Parliament.
The second issue is that of developing the Treaties. I mentioned this idea during my hearing in your Parliament. It has been taken up and stressed in the report by Jean-Luc Dehaene, President von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon and it merits being dealt with in more depth. It consists in fact of reorganising the Treaties by separating the basic texts on the one hand and the implementing provisions on the other. This reorganisation would allow the Treaties to continue to develop because the implementing provisions could, if necessary, one day be amended by a simplified procedure.
I think that this new revision procedure could contribute towards linking the European Parliament more closely with the revision of the Treaties. I would like to say however that I do not think that this reorganisation should lead to a change in the Union’s or the Community’s current competences.
Another point is the representation of the States in the Council. The decisions of the Council should be more representative of the relative weight that the Union’s different Member States carry. Whilst respecting the spirit and the balance of the Treaty of Rome, decision making itself should also be made easier."@en1
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