Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-126"
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"en.20001025.6.3-126"2
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"Mr President, during yesterday’s debate the Council pointed out that in Biarritz the governments’ positions had begun to converge on the principle of extending qualified majority voting.
We find that statement rather disturbing and at this point I would like to refer, among other things, to two matters that cause us serious concern. Firstly, the Commission has proposed communitising – i.e. introducing by means of qualified majority voting in the Council without ratification by the national parliaments – international trade negotiations on services and intellectual property, a possibility indeed already opened by Article 132(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam. But we regard this transfer as very dangerous, for it would deprive the national parliaments of any right of inspection in regard to future WTO negotiations on these areas that are vital to the life of our societies.
But there is worse to come. The Commission added negotiations on investments to the list of subjects to be communitised. If that proposal were accepted, we may be sure that in the coming six months the Commission would impose another version of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment on us, the infamous MAI which it was possible to reject, two years ago, only because it came under strictly intergovernmental procedures. So, once again, the Commission is behaving shamefully in trying to strip the national democracies of their powers, without at the same time making us stronger, contrary to what it says.
The second category of decisions that would cause us concern if they were to be decided by qualified majority voting relates to immigration and the international movement of persons, which, under Article 67 of the EC Treaty, require unanimity for at least five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam but can then be decided by a majority. The Commission is calling for this changeover as of now. We energetically reject it. In this field, we have learned from experience that any transfer of power to the Commission encourages a lax attitude, while any maintenance of Member State power encourages attitudes that promote security, relatively speaking. We opt for security."@en1
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