Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-04-11-Speech-1-046-000"
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"en.20160411.16.1-046-000"2
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"Mr President, a colleague with a very good sense of humour said to me earlier today: ‘I so much look forward to your annual proposals for reform for subsidiarity, proportionality and better law-making’, and I did smile at him. It really has been a tremendous honour for me, over many years now, to be able to play my part in helping to develop the way in which we carry out our legislation-making processes. Of course, I cannot do it alone, and I must acknowledge and thank all of my shadow rapporteurs who have helped me for many years now: Tadeusz Zwiefka, Mady Delvaux, Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, António Marinho e Pinto and, of course, colleagues like Angelika Niebler, who is currently leaving the Chamber as I am addressing you all.
Colleagues, this is really a pivotal point for the European Union and, indeed, for my country – the United Kingdom – as well. I firmly believe that Britain and the European Union are stronger together, and I hope that, through our proposals, we can cement the relationship between this Parliament and our national parliaments. Britain’s input in the European Union, I believe, benefits the entirety of Europe. But this may be one of the last occasions that I, as an MEP, am actually able to put forward proposals of this sort, because we are about to undergo a referendum in the UK that, at this stage, remains far too close to call.
What concerns do our constituents, our citizens, actually have on this particular topic? Well, they may not recognise the details that we attach and the names we attach, but they quite frequently say to all of us that the European Union is too distant, that it is doing far too much, and that what it does applies to far too many people unnecessarily. And we, as a Parliament, must address these pivotal issues. It is important for our own democratic accountability. In particular, if these reforms are rejected, we play into the hands of those who ultimately want to break the European Union and weaken all of our citizens. We must not allow that to happen. It is in that spirit that our national leaders came to an agreement and have put that forward for us to consider, in accordance with how we wish to proceed.
Is the European Union’s law-making too distant? Well the role of national parliaments, and coupled with that, their responsibility and rights: we must bring national parliaments much closer to our EU decision-making processes. It is only by doing that that we strengthen them and we strengthen ourselves. Indeed, I have to confess that my own House of Commons EU Scrutiny Committee is not the best example of how EU legislation should be scrutinised, and I certainly do not recommend that as a way forward. Is the European Union doing too much? Well, we must have Europe only where necessary. Subsidiarity – reasoned opinions from national parliaments – has increased, but not all of our parliaments are fully engaged. The Impact Assessment Board itself has said that subsidiarity is not adequately addressed in our impact assessments.
In my report, I also encourage more participation of national parliaments in the preparation of EU legislation, such as green papers or white papers. This could also include annual debates for each national parliament with the European Commission. The yellow card procedure in the Treaties should be easily implementable for national parliaments, since there are several circumstances in which difficulties have been reported. An extension to the eight-week time period for consultation with national parliaments under the subsidiarity check should be furthered.
I have a number of other proposals which I will go into, but I will save those for when I come back at the end of the debate. But my final plea to colleagues is this: we have nothing to be frightened of when we say we want to empower ourselves and national parliaments to work much more closely to ensure that we, ultimately, are delivering legislation which is seen as relevant and proper by our citizens."@en1
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