Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-02-Speech-3-072"
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"en.20000202.6.3-072"2
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"Mr President, the Group of the European People’s Party was not satisfied with the conclusions of the European Council in Helsinki. It seemed to us that the agenda lacked content, because our group was thinking in terms of the Treaty and, specifically, the protocol on the Union’s institutions. In Helsinki, the governments approved the idea that, as long as the European Union consists of fewer than 21 States, a minimal reform would be sufficient. With more than 21, a deeper reform would become necessary.
The European Council in Helsinki itself approved enlargement involving 13 new Member States. It is therefore inconsistent to open accession negotiations with 13 countries while contemplating a minimal reform. We are therefore thinking in terms of the Treaty and we want the agenda of the next Intergovernmental Conference to allow for a deeper reform of the Union.
Having said this, Mr President, this Parliament is holding this debate today because we did not want to delay the start of the Conference. In theory, we could have done so. We could have voted on the 17th of this month and the Conference would not have been able to start on the 14th. However, we did not want to do this because we wish to send a clear political signal to the governments and the candidate countries that we want this reform to take place, precisely in order to facilitate enlargement.
Mr President, I am very happy to be able to say this to the Portuguese Presidency because it has earned great respect in this Assembly. The Portuguese Presidency shares many of this Parliament’s aspirations and has committed itself to doing everything it can to ensure that the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference is widened to include other essential issues.
Mr President, I would like to point out that this aspiration on the part of the European Parliament is not an aspiration to gain benefits for the European Parliament itself. However, the European Parliament will be reinforced politically by the Treaty resulting from this Intergovernmental Conference. This is for one very simple reason: according to the agreements made in Helsinki, this Intergovernmental Conference will lead to issues, which are currently decided unanimously, being decided by a qualified majority. Therefore, the number of issues decided by a qualified majority will increase. It is already established within the Community acquis that those legislative issues which are decided by a qualified majority are also subject to codecision with Parliament. Therefore, since the qualified majority will be extended, there will also be more codecision with Parliament.
However, this Parliament would not be fulfilling its role as a supranational European institution if it did not consider the political design of the Union. That it is what we are doing. We believe that, in the political design of the Union, other issues need to be dealt with. These include, amongst others, the incorporation into the Treaty of security and defence issues, which have made much progress recently, but which must be incorporated into the Treaty. Of course there is also the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and work began on its wording yesterday, which I believe has started very positively. We are going to work seriously to ensure that the Europeans come to see being European as an advantage and that European citizens have certain fundamental rights which are connected to the Union’s institutions.
Therefore, Mr President, our proposals, which we will specify in another report, together with the proposals of the Commission, which has produced an excellent document – and I am happy to be able to say this here to Mr Barnier – are going to be used as conference documents. We will talk about this on another day. Today we must give the green light to this conference, and, for its part, the Group of the European People’s Party, Mr President, is ready to give that green light."@en1
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