Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-05-Speech-4-030"
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"en.20021205.2.4-030"2
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"Mr President, the draft institutional reform that the Commission is today presenting to the Convention and to Parliament, and the essence of which at least was communicated to the press two days ago, is clearly breaking new ground in its proposals on the responsibility of the Commission before the Council. This ‘innovation’, however, serves as a pretext in all areas to increase the powers of the body, previously considered to be the sole guardian of Europe’s general interest. That, however, is a biased approach.
Let us take the case of the monopoly of initiative that the Commission is proposing to consolidate and to extend to the whole of what it calls the legislative domain. Why should 20 commissioners have a better understanding of Europe’s general interest than all of the governments within the Council? Admittedly, it is said that each government protects its national interest, but their debate makes it possible to go beyond that. The same applies to the market: each consumer protects his own selfish interest, but nevertheless, all their transactions set prices which provide the best general approach. The Commission, with its monopoly of initiative, therefore finds itself in the position of a planner who claims to know prices better than the market. In a world of openness, freedom and democracy, this is unacceptable.
The monopoly of initiative, strengthened by the requirement for unanimity within the Council in order to dismiss the Commission’s proposals and by extending the majority needed to accept them, distorts the entire European decision-making process and certainly contributes to the rift perceived between the Union and the citizens. In our opinion, we must reform it by taking an overview of the institutions. Either we open up the monopoly of initiative to other players such as the European Parliament and the national parliaments, which possess an undeniable democratic legitimacy, or we maintain it, but then, in return, we are making
a right of veto official for each national parliament. In any case, it seemed that the recent debate within the Convention on the Commission’s monopoly of initiative was drawn to a close even before it had started. Let us hope, Mr President, that the Commission’s new document will have the unforeseen effect of re-launching the debate."@en1
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