Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-15-Speech-3-307"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall try to make use of these few minutes of ‘time out’ in this very late debate, which, incidentally, coincide, as I said to Mr Mendez de Vigo, with the last two minutes of time out in the famous football match that he mentioned. According to my information, Real Madrid are still leading two – one, and their second goal was scored by Zidane. This information that I am giving you has not, however, prevented me from attentively following the whole of this debate, which has been of very high quality, on the issue of competences, an issue which lies at the heart of the Nice and Laeken declarations.
Finally, this report contains a third major idea: we must invent new ways of ensuring that the subsidiarity and proportionality requirements are respected. The question of strengthening controls to ensure that the division of competences between the Union and the Member States is respected forms a part of the most complex problems that we shall have to tackle. The lively discussions which you have had, or so I am told, at the committee stage, demonstrate that there is no ideal political or jurisdictional solution which everyone agrees is needed at present.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to these comments, which I was bound to give you, I should like to express my satisfaction, as usual, with the quality of the work carried out between our two institutions, and praise the contribution made by Parliament. It comes a week before the Commission itself submits a major contribution of the European draft, in which you will find some of your ideas expressed. It also comes, as you have pointed out, on the eve of a highly sensitive meeting of the Convention, at a time when we have spent a lot of time on useful discussions in debates of a general nature about the tasks of the Union, and are on the point of getting down to the heart of the matter, and when we are perhaps approaching a moment of truth.
That is why I believe that at this point, one week before the next meeting of the Convention, this contribution from Parliament is extremely important, and will provide crucial indications on the issue of the competences of the European Union. Once again, it is absolutely crucial, even vital, that Parliament and the Commission should sketch out together the broad outlines of a common vision, in the service of their shared interests, of the revised Community model on which we are all working, and I will even say all working together.
The resolution that you are about to adopt will in effect constitute a central element in the debate which has started on the future of the Union. This is a central theme, because it raises fundamental political questions. At the same time, however, as your rapporteur is well aware, it also raises far-reaching technical problems. The debates at the last meeting of the Convention, like the contributions that have already been submitted for the next meeting and the numerous expert opinions, bear witness to this complex situation.
I should like, first of all, to offer my thanks, first to Parliament which, at the beginning of 2001, took the initiative and launched a sort of premonitory reflection session on this difficult issue. I should then like to thank the various parliamentary committees, in particular the Committee on Constitutional Affairs for the quality of its work. The resulting resolution retains a high degree of clarity in spite of the density and complexity of the subject. May I thank, in particular, Mr Lamassoure, who had no hesitation in carrying out very wide-ranging consultations in order to complete his report, even though the time limits imposed on him were extremely strict. He did this with his usual spirit of openness, and very high level of expertise. Like him, I believe that this version will be the authoritative one.
The result of this collective step forward is undeniably constructive, because it leads to three important ideas, and I can tell you, on behalf of the Commission, that this is how we regard them, and I shall now comment briefly on each one.
The first idea is the clarification of the whole of the legal framework of the European Union. This clarification is inseparable from any ambitious institutional reform. It is therefore proposed that we should adopt a true Constitution of the Union, bring the second and third pillars within the Community sphere, make a clearer distinction between legislative work and executive work, establish a hierarchy of standards and define the relevant instruments better.
From this vast programme of re-establishing legal equilibrium, I have naturally picked out the key aspect, the provision of a Constitution for the Union. The Commission would like the European Union, having integrated the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to have a text of a constitutional nature.
The second important idea in this report is the classification of competences into three categories: competences exercised as a matter of principle by the Member States, the Union’s own competences, and shared competences. Of course I understand this interesting and useful attempt to describe the current organisation of competences. It seems to me, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lamassoure, that we now need to calculate three risks. The risk of the rigidity of watertight classifications, subject by subject, which several Members have already mentioned, could perhaps freeze the division of competences more than is required for the sake of clarity. In future, the Union will have to have the means to respond to new challenges if necessary. In this respect I would point out the attention which the resolution gives to maintaining the flexibility of the system by proposing a review clause as laid down in the Treaty.
A second risk seems to me to be the risk of abolishing certain legal bases, the so-called functional bases, if we make it obligatory to link competences to subjects. For example, do we really want to abolish Article 13 of the Treaty, which makes it possible to combat all kinds of discrimination, whether on grounds of sex, race, religion, age etc.? I do not think so, and that is surely not the intention implied in this report. A third possible risk would be the risk of ignoring negative competences, those rules which directly impose restrictions on the exercise of the competences of the Member States, for example the prohibition of measures restricting the fundamental freedoms of movement. This is not merely a detail; it is something whereby citizens acquire some of their essential rights in the European Union.
Overall, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a balance needs to be struck between, on the one hand, the necessary rationalisation of competences, and, on the other hand, the
nature of the system of the Union, which we do not wish to attack."@en1
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