Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-035"

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". Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I have questions to ask on three points: do you not think that the huge crises which we have seen in Macedonia are, in the final analysis, a consequence of our failure to coordinate our policies in Kosovo? Should we not put them down to the fact that we were not really able to do our job there, that we failed to disarm the UCK, that the fragmentation of responsibilities between numerous international organisations and within the European Union itself is a fact of life and that the crisis has again taken hold because we failed in our duty? I have a second question. Mr President-in-Office. I know it is not your sole responsibility as a result of this summit, but how, in your view, will future European Councils operate once the number of seats rises and there are 27 participants, if the European Council is to discuss every detail? The European Council was founded so that the Heads of State or Government could discuss fundamental questions. Now there are sometimes 30, 40 or 50 items on the agenda. Do you not think that the heads of government are trying – and more’s the pity – to assume responsibility for every detail, undermining the authority of their own work and the work of the European Council in the process? The third point that I wish to address concerns the Council itself. I think that, if we want to implement a reform process, the Council of Ministers must become more transparent, more efficient and more open. Everything gets passed to the European Council because of the inefficiency and inability to take decisions of the weakest institution which we have in the European Union, namely the Council of Ministers. That is not your personal responsibility; it is a structural question which we urgently need to address. I think that, for this reason, now that we are heading for a Union of 27 members, the question of legislating in public needs to be raised. This applies to the Council, when it acts as legislator, and should demonstrate that we have an interaction in political debate in Europe. Responsibilities must be clearly outlined and we must make clear that we need decision-making mechanisms here which bring about results. We cannot offload everything on to the Heads of State or Government, on to you, only to find that we are unable to reach a solution."@en1
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