Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-059"
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"en.20000412.2.3-059"2
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"Mr President, if the changes to the Treaty proposed in the resolution we are debating are implemented, the European Union will take an absolutely crucial step on the way to becoming a federal state and one, moreover, in which the national parliaments will lose control over almost all crucial areas of policy. In addition to the massive increase in supranational forms of decision-making, the proposal contains quite a few qualitative changes in the direction of federalism, among these the proposal to remove the national right of veto in the course of changes to large parts of the current Treaty and, also, the demands for a single EU constituency in the elections for the European Parliament.
I am convinced that this transformation of the EU into a federal state is a blind alley in every way. The EU’s major problem today is not a lack of centralised power but a shortage of real democracy. What the Union needs in place of more supranationalism is democratic reform leading to a dramatic reduction in the Commission’s political power, to the legislative process in the Council’s being made public and to the national parliaments’ being given decisive influence.
Through the Treaty changes proposed in the resolution, the EU would become a Union wholly dominated by the big Member States. The power wielded by the major countries would be increased dramatically through the introduction of a system of “double simple majority” voting in the Council of Ministers. Their power would also be increased through the increase in their representation in the European Parliament.
In an EU which has been enlarged by a further twelve States and in which seven hundred seats in Parliament have been distributed as proposed in the resolution, Sweden would have thirteen seats, Finland seven and Ireland five. This would mean that, in many Member States, important political powers would not be represented at EU level. This also shows how weak the democratic basis of such a Parliament would be.
Compared with other federal states, the “EU state” would, on this model, be unusually centralised and offer little protection to small constituent States. A comparison might be made with the United States in which the one chamber in a two-chamber system has proportional representation, while representation in the second chamber is the same for all constituent States. In the EU, the big countries would instead dominate both chambers on the basis of the proposal we are now debating.
For anyone who wants to change anything regarding monetary union or EMU, it is now, when the Treaty is being changed, that the opportunity exists. Many adherents of EMU on the Left have, of course, argued in favour of altering the nature of monetary union in such a way that the Central Bank is placed under democratic control and that the goals of economic policy are not merely monetary. It is noticeable that they are now completely silent and that it is now only the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left which is demanding the democratisation of monetary union. As you have perhaps noted, I am going to vote against the present resolution."@en1
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