Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-16-Speech-1-054"
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"en.20021216.5.1-054"2
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"Mr President, the Bourlanges report is both outstanding and technical, two qualities which are, more often than not, virtually impossible to combine in a single document. This is the first achievement on which the rapporteur is to be congratulated. Mr Bourlanges then pulls off a second achievement – but for this, he receives less hearty congratulations – which is to mislead us by skimming over the main points of his intentions. Ultimately, this report is based entirely on an implicit presupposition, namely the vision of a pyramid structure for Europe where the nations make up the pyramid’s base. It is the same pyramid structure for Europe which is condemned so vigorously by the Napolitano report, where there is a risk that the model will be applied to the regions and to the local authorities.
The top of the pyramid consists of a European Constitution, the report on which, shrewdly, does not say in so many words that nations would be subordinate. Quite the opposite in fact. Paragraph 4 even specifies that this would be an act governed by international law signed by the Member States, but it does not clarify the key point: the States would thus essentially be consenting to giving up their sovereignty, since the European Constitution would dominate the national constitutions and since, for example, it would impose decisions adopted by majority for all the so-called legislative acts.
This development favoured by the report points to a crucial problem. What happens when a decision adopted by majority at European level contradicts a national constitution or a fundamental principle to which a nation is particularly attached? The report says nothing about this, because, if it mentioned this subject, it would be obliged to acknowledge that it is now proposing that sovereignty be relinquished without any safety net.
We find this model of Europe unacceptable; and furthermore, in an enlarged and ever more diverse Europe, it would simply not be able to operate. In this sort of Europe, extending majority decisions could only work if, in return, the national parliaments’ right of veto were clearly recognised, as I explain in the minority opinion that I have annexed to the Bourlanges report.
More broadly speaking, the report uses simplification as a pretext for making proposals in favour of supranational unification. This is also the tried and tested method used within the Convention, which constantly tells us that unifying the treaties is more simple, the single legal personality is more simple, merging the pillars is more simple, extending the use of the codecision procedure is more simple, abolishing unanimity, including for the revision of the treaties, is more simple. It could all be summed up in a single slogan, which is itself unique: the super-State is more simple.
This solution does indeed seem more simple, but its major drawback must not be disguised either: it weakens democracy considerably. Admittedly, paragraph 1 of the Bourlanges report affirms that its proposals are based on a principle of ‘democratisation’. On reading the description provided however, one realises that this is what, in his speeches and in his draft constitution, President Prodi calls supranational democracy. To sum up, this means taking away powers from the national parliaments and giving them to the European Parliament, which forms the heart of the codecision procedure with majority decisions in the Council. Unfortunately, however, Mr President, this supranational democracy seems highly artificial, as the nations currently grant principle legitimacy to their national democracy. It is therefore nothing more than a trick which makes it possible to take the power away from the nations in order to harness more of it.
Ultimately, our response to the Bourlanges report and to the Convention is that it is unacceptable to put forward technical considerations for simplification in order to dodge the debate on essential political questions. The current essential political question is that the nations are basically calling for a closer Europe, but we will not bring Europe closer by somewhat simplifying procedures that are by nature far removed from the nations and which deprive them of their powers. We will bring Europe closer quite simply by giving national parliaments the right to intervene directly in the European decision-making process. The rest is mere detail."@en1
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