Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-22-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20031022.2.3-019"2
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"Mr President, the Brussels Summit brought the common border police force that much closer. Soon, we shall have common monitoring of the EU’s external borders, just as we had in the old days around our own country. The EU state proceeds according to plan. So does the EU Constitution. Work is now being done on the basis of the draft produced by the Convention. There will, however, be a Commissioner from each country, because a number of countries cannot get the Constitution accepted without national Commissioners.
We also want the countries themselves to choose the Commissioners and for there to be complete equality between the countries in the chairing of Council of Ministers meetings. There is now a danger of there being group presidencies, with three or four countries leading the EU for 18 to 24 months and, in practice, the possibility of the largest country in the group taking charge of the most important tasks. It would be wiser to continue with the current rotation scheme in which countries can concentrate for six months on delivering a proper presidency. To limit the burden of work, the individual Council formations and, in particular, the 297 working parties in the Council might be given the option of selecting their own chairman from among themselves on the basis of a combination of fair rotation and the chairman’s personal qualifications for presiding over the meetings. Allow me especially to warn against what are known as the passerelles – or one-way motorways – in which the prime ministers are themselves left to define the borders between the EU and the nation states and are able to extend the scope of EU cooperation by means of the flexibility clause in Article 17. They are able to introduce the ordinary legislative procedure and move from unanimity to decisions by qualified majority through Article 24(4) and, for example, with reference to Article 39(8) in the case of foreign policy. If the three methods are combined, almost all issues may fall within EU competence. Instead, for example, of the Danish Prime Minister’s desire for a catalogue of competences with a clear division of power between the EU and the Member States, we get unrestricted prime ministerial government and much more centralisation of legislative power in Brussels. We must now hope that all the EU countries will hold referendums on the draft Constitution. It is absurd that Mr Blair should have held referendums on regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales and on the municipal government in London but will not allow a referendum on Great Britain’s first written Constitution. Take courage, Mr Blair, it is not enough to hold a referendum on a new constitution in Iraq."@en1
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