Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-037"
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell the House about the Presidency’s preparations for the Nice European Council. There are some very important items on the agenda but even so they far from reflect all the work that has been done and all the results that have already been obtained during the last six months.
On the Commission, two options were on the table at Biarritz: capping the number of Commissioners, or a Commission made up of one representative from each Member State. But a third solution has emerged from the negotiations which might allow everyone’s concerns to be taken into account. This would involve setting a ceiling on the Commission, to come into play once enlargement reaches a certain numerical level. That ceiling would be linked to a system of equal rotation. This at least provides a serious avenue to be explored in Nice, one that still remains to be defined and clarified but on which a clear majority of the delegations is ready to work. Progress has also been made on increasing the powers of the President of the Commission and a possible increase in the number of Vice-Presidents.
Finally on the weighting of votes in the Council, there are also two main options on the table since the Biarritz declaration: either a double majority or a simple reweighting. There is perceptible movement – I say that with caution because several Member States may not yet have determined their final position – but support has begun to emerge for a simple reweighting whose exact scope and conditions remain to be defined, of course. Several scenarios have been considered and studies carried out. It will be up to the European Council to decide.
Let me add that we have not yet reached agreement on the distribution of seats in the European Parliament. Your own proposal has obviously been submitted by the Presidency and is one of the two options on the table. There too, a solution will have to be found at Nice.
To end this brief report on the negotiations, we have also made good progress on strengthening Article 7 of the Treaty which should in future provide for an early warning system in the event of a threatened violation of the European Union’s fundamental principles. On the other hand, the idea of a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Article 6, championed by the European Parliament in its recommendation of 14 November, and placed on the table at the IGC by the French Presidency, was vigorously rejected by several Member States. Some even asserted that such a reference would jeopardise the Charter’s proclamation. It may be regrettable, but I have to recognise the position.
Finally, a word on the Court of Justice. The work is almost complete. All the delegations agree on giving the European Parliament the possibility of seeking the Court’s opinion on a draft international agreement. On the other hand, even though the Presidency has also proposed extending to Parliament the right of appeal to the Court under Article 230, several delegations are against that at this stage. I want to be as objective as possible about the situation before this very important Council. In Nice, as you know, our aim is to achieve a good agreement, which naturally means compromise, but compromise that is constructive, not regressive. At Nice, the Heads of State and Government and the ministers will devote all the time that is necessary to that discussion. They have even arranged for the Council to continue through Sunday if that is absolutely essential.
Finding an agreement which will enable the Union to operate after the new accessions currently in active preparation is vital for the future of the European Union and indeed the enlarged Union.
The Nice European Council will also be tackling other major issues on which the French Presidency has worked with a great deal of determination.
First, the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I am glad the European Parliament approved the Convention’s draft by a large majority. It was also accepted by the Heads of State and Government in Biarritz. The conditions are now in place for the proclamation of this Charter by the three institutions at Nice. We will therefore have fulfilled the mandate laid down by the Cologne European Council and the European Union will have at its disposal a very strong benchmark, clearly setting out the rights and values in which it believes. The discussion on a possible legal status for this Charter will be pursued after Nice and could form part of a broader, longer term debate on the future of the European Union.
The European Council will also discuss the state of progress of the accession negotiations and hence of the enlargement. You yourselves debated this on 3 October. As you know, back in July, the French Presidency asked the Commission to step up the accession negotiations and move forward to the crucial issues, the heart of the matter, the problem areas, and prepare a detailed assessment of each candidate’s state of preparedness, the progress of all the negotiations and problems still to be resolved by and for each country. Our objective was to prepare an overview of the process and decide how to take it forward from this point.
At the General Affairs Council of 20 November we had a very good debate based on the excellent documents the Commission had forwarded to the Council. I think the stepping up of the negotiations has been widely welcomed and at the next General Affairs Council, and then at the European Council, we will be able to adopt a clear and ambitious line for the continuation of the discussions on the basis of the principles set in Helsinki, which should lead directly to the desired outcome.
The European Council will, naturally, only be asked to deal with issues which cannot be dealt with at any other level, primarily institutional reform, and to provide the general political guidelines and impetus. The President of the Republic himself is coming here on 12 December to present a report on the Presidency. The major issue facing the members of the European Council at Nice will clearly be the reform of the institutions and the finalisation of what we all hope will become the Treaty of Nice.
At Nice, the European Council will be preceded by a summit meeting of the European Conference. A meeting of that conference has just taken place at ministerial level, at Sochaux. At the Nice meeting there will be an exchange of views with all the candidate countries on the reform of the European Union’s institutions, and more generally on the outlook for the future of Europe. Your President is invited, of course.
By bringing the existing Member States of the European Union and the countries which will eventually belong to it together around one table, I believe the European Conference plays a unique and valuable role. I hope we can profit from it even more in the future, notably by opening it up to other European countries.
A brief mention of the European defence system: some important decisions will be submitted to the European Council, but I will come back to that later, in the debate on Mrs Lalumière’s report.
Finally, the Nice European Council will reflect the priority the French Presidency accords to economic and social issues and all the issues where the European Union can really respond to the concerns of Europeans. The many statements the Presidency has presented before Parliament have clearly demonstrated this priority. Several goals had in fact already been set under the Portuguese Presidency, in Lisbon and Feira. They should be fulfilled, in economic terms, by building on the efforts to make the European Union give greater priority to growth and employment. The Lisbon European Council approved guidelines designed to promote an innovative and competitive European economy.
The aim was, in particular, to enrich the broad economic policy guidelines and ensure better coordination with the employment guidelines. So a report will be passed to the European Council which will finalise the definition of performance indicators in spheres such as employment, innovation, economic reform and social cohesion. Similarly, employment guidelines are to be forwarded to the European Council together with an Autumn 2000 employment package.
As you know, last Monday the Ecofin Council reached a decisive agreement on fiscal harmonisation. These matters had been under discussion for several months, not to say several years, arousing strong reservations on the part of some Member States. So this is a very important step forward by the whole Fifteen, and the European Council will certainly take formal note of it.
The development of Europe’s social dimension is a vital complement to the considerable advances on the economic front. In this sphere, following on from Lisbon, the French Presidency made the adoption of the social agenda one of its priorities. The Presidency invited all the institutions concerned – this Parliament, but equally the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, European social partners and the intergovernmental organisations – to contribute to drawing up this agenda. This social agenda, largely inspired by a Commission communication, was approved yesterday by the Employment and Social Affairs Council. This has been a good week for working conditions in Europe. The social agenda draws together the objectives and initiatives which need to be taken over the next five to ten years, particularly in the areas of labour law, social protection, social mobility, lifelong training, and the fight against discrimination and exclusion. It will be forwarded to Nice, where we naturally hope it will be endorsed.
The protection of employees’ rights and improvement of their working conditions have also been high on the French Presidency’s agenda. The European Council will thus be informed of the state of progress of the negotiations on the directive on the information and consultation of workers, and on the European company project, assuming these issues have not already been settled by then, as unfortunately they are running into persistent opposition.
Following on from Lisbon, the French Presidency had also set itself the objective of strengthening Europe’s knowledge-based society. Here the Council has approved a plan of action to remove obstacles to the mobility of students, teachers and researchers. This action plan will also be forwarded to the Nice European Council. So you can see that I am certainly not exaggerating when I say we have an important agenda and a very full agenda for the Nice Council.
Before the European Council, Pierre Moscovici and I will still be holding a Ministerial Conclave, next Sunday, to which I have invited Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos, as well as a session of the IGC, on Monday at the General Affairs Council. We will then get a more precise picture of how the negotiations are progressing in their final phase, on the eve of Nice. I hope we will have a full exchange of views with the President of Parliament at that time.
So today I will just be bringing you up to date on the main issues under discussion.
Real progress on qualified majority and enhanced cooperation was made at the informal European Council of Biarritz. There was also a beneficial clarification of the issues around the Commission and the weighting of votes, allowing each Member State to get a better idea of the objectives and difficulties of the others. Pierre Moscovici reported to you on that on 24 October. We have been building on that foundation over the last few weeks taking all the points of view into account with a view to arriving at a compromise, but keeping our sights set on an ambitious agreement at Nice. We sometimes hear the Presidency accused of lacking ambition; there are no grounds for saying that today. That is clearly demonstrated by the texts submitted to the IGC, despite the extreme difficulty of the subject matter, and I really do sense a genuine determination to succeed on the part of the Fifteen.
Good progress has been made on qualified majority voting, which could be extended to another thirty areas, if some Member States make the effort to confirm this. Some countries still have major problems regarding the coordination of social security systems, tax, asylum, visa and immigration matters and trade negotiations on services – a very important issue. But we will approach Nice with a positive attitude, determined to make progress as many aspects of these sensitive issues as possible.
The role of the European Parliament is naturally one of the important elements in the debate. In many areas where qualified majority voting would be introduced the move to codecision already has majority support, and that goes a long way towards meeting your expectations.
The Fifteen are now close to agreement on making enhanced cooperation more flexible. You discussed this on 24 October, and on several points the Intergovernmental Conference is reaching solutions close to those advocated by Parliament. The minimum number of participating Member States should be set at eight while the clause allowing appeal to the European Council, which currently constitutes a real right of veto, would be replaced by a power of retrieval. Parliament has made proposals on its role in triggering enhanced cooperation in the Community sphere. These will be discussed.
As regards the CFSP, several Member States have emphasised its specific nature which, in their view, warrants special mechanisms, and they have been stressing that particularly in the last few days. We will be discussing this at next Sunday’s conclave."@en1
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