Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-16-Speech-1-052"
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"en.20021216.5.1-052"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is intended to define Parliament's position and, as such, to help with the work of the Convention, which is already concerning itself in very great depth with the simplification of European lawmaking, especially in its Working Group IX. There is no doubt that this is a matter of great urgency, as, at the end of the day, the public want to understand Europe, and it is intended that Europe should become more readily understood. I am sure that, in the course of its discussions on shaping the actual content of the Constitutional Treaty, the Convention will give a great deal of attention to the issue of the typology and hierarchy of acts.
As regards this report, there are just three critical observations that I want to make. The report describes a hierarchy of five types of act in the European Union: constitution, organic laws, agreements in international law, laws, framework laws and their implementing regulations. Paragraph 1 sets out this five-type hierarchy in terms of three principles, something that I find rather confusing and hardly likely to simplify matters, but the public will perhaps forgive us for it.
They will be less inclined to forgive us if we put before them what are manifestly tax-raising powers for the European Union without actually calling them that. In paragraph 6, the own resources decision is described as being an organic law. The procedure for enacting organic laws is set out in paragraph 9, according to which it is envisaged that the own resources decision would no longer need to be ratified by the national parliaments.
We could have a tremendous argument about the introduction of tax-raising powers for the European Union, but I do not believe that it is acceptable, even with the best will in the world, for it to be simply decided on, along with much else, under the heading of ‘typology and hierarchy of acts’. That proposals to fundamentally change the European Union's confederal nature should be put forward under this heading and in this report, is something I regard as highly dubious.
Paragraph 5 abandons the hitherto valid principle that the Member States are masters of the Treaties, the objective behind this being that their consent should no longer be required when powers are transferred in future. Instead, a qualified majority of Member States is to be sufficient. By its very nature, though, such a thing would be an empowerment to seize power at the European level, and I have serious doubts as to whether that is what is intended. I want to make it abundantly clear that German constitutional law would prevent consent being given to such a treaty."@en1
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