Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-28-Speech-3-076"
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"en.20011128.4.3-076"2
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".
Madam President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I too would like to thank you for the weight and quality of the speeches you have made throughout this debate on the two major subjects on the agenda: governance and Laeken. Please excuse President Prodi, who had to leave us a few moments ago for an essential engagement with the Economic and Social Committee. With regard to governance, allow me to highlight the very first words of Mrs Kaufmann, who, like Mr Prodi, I would like to thank most sincerely for her availability and for the quality of the work that she has done on your behalf on this both important and difficult subject. You put it very well, Mrs Kaufmann: the debate on governance is part of the great debate on the future of the Union.
The Commission will not be a spectator throughout that period. It will have its special place within this Convention, as it will subsequently take part in the Intergovernmental Conference and as the President of the Commission will ultimately take an active part in the European Council of the very last Intergovernmental Conference, scheduled to take place at the latest at the beginning of 2004, before the European elections.
Next week, we are going to decide on a communication, on which I am working with President Prodi, on Laeken, on the situation before Laeken and on the likely scenario after the Laeken decisions have been implemented. Trust us, trust me; the Commission will make regular proposals and will put forward contributions and communications on each of the subjects. I have heard a group Chairman requesting this. I can assure you, Chairman Poettering, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Cox, that, not only, Mr Barón Crespo, on the issues of simplification or competences but on all the other subjects as well, although first of all on the issue of competences, which directly concerns us, the Commission will put contributions and suggestions on the Convention table in order to express a vision. However, I must make it quite clear that that vision, and we will confirm this next week in our communication, will, in all probability, be the preservation of the model of the community method and also, once its preservation is assured, its reinvigoration and legitimisation.
It is not only our reason for being, our raison d’être, that is in question, and I will come back to that in a moment, it is also our way of being, our way of acting. The Commission, particularly in the White Paper on governance, is going to promote the co-legislation function of the European Parliament. Through this White Paper, we are offering Parliament the opportunity to be in a better situation to exert its prerogatives, including better checking of the quality of the choice of legislative instruments, better monitoring of the quality of the use of expertise – is it pluralist? – and the quality of the use of consultation – is it fair? To be quite frank, there remains a point of debate between us which Mr Swoboda stressed in his speech just now, you pointed it out: we are not convinced of the benefits of a mechanism that would allow legislative acts to be suspended at any time, this famous call-back mechanism, when the Commission’s responsibility in the current comitological framework is not itself certain. We proposed looking, together with Parliament and the Council, at other mechanisms that will allow, the European Parliament to exert its responsibility for monitoring in a proportional, that is to say, a balanced manner in the matters currently covered by codecision.
However, ladies and gentlemen, beyond that point of debate on which we need to do more work together, I would like to say that we consider the debate that you have just had on the whole subject of governance to be the means of forging ahead after today’s sitting.
I would also like to say a few words about the Laeken Summit, on which we, like President Prodi, have worked very hard. We still have a great deal of work to do on Laeken and on the situation post-Laeken. But I, too, must praise the quality of the work of your two rapporteurs, Mrs Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo, as I have already done before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. One of you, with their usual frankness, had very harsh words to say about the Commission, which is at the heart of the Community model and method, and which intends to remain at the heart with the threefold role of proposing, monitoring and implementing which was conferred on it by the Treaties. With the reunification of the European continent, as the disparities increase and the centrifugal forces become more numerous, that role of the Commission, at the heart of the Community model, is going to become even more necessary than it has been in the past 50 years.
Mr Voggenhuber accused the Commission of having no vision. I do not think that he is here to listen to my reply, but I am nevertheless going to give it. Everyone is free to interpret the word ‘vision’ as they choose. Personally, I tend rather to practise the pessimism of reason and the optimism of will, and the reason I quote this fine phrase from Jean Monnet is just to echo what Mr Michel was saying just now, as he confessed that, in a way, he had come here to find some optimism therapy that was not forthcoming elsewhere. So I just wanted to refer you to that fine phrase from Jean Monnet.
With regard to political will, which has been a common feature of many of your speeches, President Prodi announced four strategic objectives in this House. We want to pursue them, and he will have the opportunity in his State-of-the-Union speech to the plenary on 11 December to prove that he is serious about them.
What would Parliament have said if, even before the start of the Convention for which we fought together, the Commission had produced its final vision of our Constitutional Treaty or of our Constitution, ignoring or pre-empting the democratic debate that is going to take place, for the first time, on such broad subjects. I am well aware of this, and I say so under the supervision of my colleague and friend, Mr Vitorino, who worked a great deal with you on the previous Convention on fundamental rights: here we are dealing with subjects that are more politically open and probably more problematic. The debate needs to take place. We are going to take part in it but there was no question of us pre-empting it or acting as though it did not count. Let us not underestimate the approach of governance and the White Paper. The intensity of your debate, today, proves that they are not trivial matters. Before concluding, as I promised to be brief on the issue of the Laeken Convention and especially on the situation post-Laeken, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the Belgian Presidency, Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Michel, in particular, for the political will and courage that they have shown and which they are going to have to show in the few remaining days before Laeken in order to convince the Member States that the draft declaration on which they have worked and which they are proposing to the Member States will be well respected and not diminished.
I, too, heard Mr Michel using familiar words just now. I feel that, taking into account the Convention and the fact this is the first occasion on which an institutional debate has had to allow time to accommodate the work of a Convention, we do have enough time: two years, and we have an open method which, as it concerns a reform of the Treaty on the institutions themselves, consists of more than just dialogue between the government ministers in the secrecy and comfort of the intergovernmental method alone, of which we have all seen the limitations, both at Amsterdam and at Nice. Let us use this opportunity and make this Convention serve its purpose as a tool for projecting ideas upwards, to the institutions, to the governments who will ultimately have to decide, and to the people that you represent. This Convention, let us say it again so that it is clear, will not take any decision. And once that point has been made quite clear, we need to agree, and I was very pleased to hear Mr Michel’s words on this point, not to be overcautious or too closed in our reading of the four Nice points. On the contrary, we need to look at them openly and constructively, to take the four points together and deal with them ambitiously. It is clear that this leads to a Constitutional process. Let us not be afraid of words. And let us be ambitious as we look at these four points, particularly the point on the use of powers, good tools for exercising current powers and the clarification of competences, which, of course, leads us to ask questions about the European plan. What do we want to do together? Do we want to stay where we are? Do some want to go backwards and unravel the
? Do we want to go further in integration, in the general interest of the citizens, on the third pillar, on foreign policy, on defence? These are the demands and requests from the people. If we want to go further, do we want to go all together or do just a few of us want to go? And how? All these questions are both central to and pervade the matter, together with the four points, and the Convention, which will not take any decision but needs to make strong proposals, will have a lot of work to do.
This is what I wanted to say and, finally, I, too, think that those of us who are going to take part in this convention need to be open and to listen to what is said outside the debating chamber during that time. Among the citizens, in each of our countries, in each of our regions, and I am very aware of the forum that the regional framework provides for public debate, for debate among the people, where many useful things can be said and passed on. We should be open to the debate that will take place during that time in civil society."@en1
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