Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-24-Speech-3-116"
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"en.20011024.5.3-116"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are debating today is an intelligent and creditable attempt by Mr Poos to reform the Council without changing the Treaties. I congratulate the rapporteur on his efforts although I cannot share his optimism. I do not believe that this mini-reform can solve the problems of the Council nor do I see the political will to carry it out, unfortunately. I hope that I am wrong and Mr Poos is right.
Mr President, the golden age of the General Affairs Council has passed and it seems unrealistic to believe that the European Council is prepared to reinstate the powers which it has taken away from it. European policies are not external policies but internal policies of the Member States and the important decisions must not be reserved for the Foreign Affairs Ministers. They already have enough to do with the common foreign and security policy.
The institutional triangle is still essential to the good functioning of the Union, provided that each of its elements continues to adapt to the new requirements. In the case of the Council, we are facing a quagmire whose deficiencies can only be remedied: a) by recognising the decisive role of the European Council; b) by giving the General Affairs Council the task of effectively preparing its decisions so that they are not relegated to national bureaucracies; and c) by organising all the specialised Councils into an efficiently-structured system.
This efficiency will not be achieved without abandoning the now obsolete system of a rotating six-monthly Presidency, replacing it with a longer-lasting Presidency. Effective political action cannot change its priorities every six months. My group raised this issue in the debate of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, although, out of respect for the focus of the report, we do not insist on this point. The Poos report has the merit of proposing to the Council some minimal reforms, which are likely to lead to a process of self-reform which is becoming increasingly essential.
I would be pleased if it achieved that objective at least. We would all gain from this, even those of us who believe that Council reforms can only be achieved by the Convention because they need to be far more in-depth."@en1
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