Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-205"
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"en.20030212.6.3-205"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reason I am taking the floor in this debate is that I would like to make two basic observations on how this House cooperates. Mr von Boetticher, in the few parts of his speech that were any good, pointed out that we will, in future, have to do more legislative work if we are to achieve what we want, that being the bringing within the Community sphere of more aspects of the European Union currently covered by policy on the area of freedom, security and justice. In this sector, too, majority decision-making and the codecision procedure would have to be normative, with the Commission, rather than the Member States, having the right to initiate legislation. Very good! That is something I can only endorse.
If, however, that is how he thinks, then what is needed today is a sober inventory of the present situation, so that, if we want to overcome the challenges of the future, we are equipped to do so and able to fashion a policy that makes sense and will work.
So what is the situation today? Commissioner Vitorino is thinking up something good. By making proposals, he is discharging the obligations laid on him by the scoreboard that he announced after Tampere. What he proposes goes too far for the Council, on the assumption that they actually read the stuff. The proposals then end up in Parliament, and Parliament adds to them and forwards them to the Council. What does the Council do? It throws them in the waste-paper basket. Such is the reality of the situation today. Now, I do not want to tread on the Council's toes. I am quite convinced that the Greek Presidency of the Council will read everything. Do not take what I say too personally.
What we need in future, though, is a different way of making laws, one in which the balance between the three institutions involved is safeguarded. This will involve all three bodies being willing to compromise. The Commission must be willing to compromise, as indeed it is, as all of us who know Commissioner Vitorino can tell you, even if he has to put up with being given an unjustified battering in the German press by young and rather immature MEPs. The Council's willingness to compromise is a matter of doubt, as the Council's policy is not – primarily, at any rate – guided by European standards, but by the demands of every single Member State's domestic policies. That is wrong. And thirdly, it is one of our institution's failings.
It is at this point that Members of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats should prick up their ears and listen. I am now making them an offer, and this is the first time – but not, I hope, the last – that they will receive such an offer in this form. Let us talk together, so that we are not always coming up with the minimum of consensus, but can get the legislative work done. What are your demands, and what are ours? Where are you prepared to give some ground on your position, and where are we prepared to give some ground on our own? Where, then, can we achieve real compromises that make real law-making possible?
Business in this place has hitherto been conducted on the basis that anyone who is not on my side is against me, and that I will not vote with anyone who does not back up my position 100%, so this House ends up passing fortuitous texts by fortuitous majorities. If we want to do real legislative work, then I invite you to discuss compromise, but you will then have to demonstrate your capacity for it. This will involve you putting some of the hardliners in your ranks on the lead. But, Mr von Boetticher and Mr Pirker, being made of the stuff you are, I am sure you will manage that."@en1
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