Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-15-Speech-3-156"
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"en.20020515.8.3-156"2
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".
Mr President, we are now dealing with a completely different issue and we will have to adapt our mental ‘chips’ to the new topic. I would very briefly like to talk to you about two issues.
I honestly believe that, as the number of countries increases and international life becomes more and more complicated, it is going to be more difficult to maintain the six-month rotating Presidency. In the early days of the European Union, when we essentially dealt with internal problems exclusively affecting the countries of the European Union, we were able to do so with the six-monthly rotating system. As the Union takes on many more responsibilities, which do not relate to us – to our countries – but also to third countries, I believe that speed, the maintenance of certain common positions and the tenacious defence of certain elements of our policy, make it difficult, unless we adapt the model for the Presidency, to achieve all the results which the honourable Members frequently say in Parliament can be achieved.
I know this is a very difficult issue and that there are countries for whom it is essential or very important to their conception of being a Member of the Union that they hold the six-month Presidency on a regular basis. I understand this, but all countries should consider that when the day comes that we are twenty-something countries, they will have to wait a long time for the Presidency to come round again. So perhaps the value of holding the six-month Presidency on a regular basis will be reduced when the interval between one Presidency and another becomes many years.
However, my comments on this issue are of a purely personal nature, because it is clearly something which the Convention will have to deal with, just like the other issues, and which ultimately the Intergovernmental Conference will have to decide on.
The fourth issue which I believe we should devote some time to – and that is why I put it in writing, so that it might be discussed – is the issue of the transparency of the Council in general, but, in particular, when it is acting as legislator. I believe we must think about a way to involve public opinion more closely at times when the Council is acting as legislator; this is another issue which must only be dealt with in the Convention and subsequently in the Intergovernmental Conference, but I do think it is important for us to start creating a certain environment or culture in which, sooner or later, and the sooner the better, this type of consideration takes place throughout the collective life of the European Union.
But to return to the two fundamental issues, which do not require either the Convention, in principle, nor the Intergovernmental Conference, but simply political will, the will to get things done, I believe that achieving a more effective preparation and management of the European Council, ensuring that it focuses more on the fundamental issues, that it carry out more rigorous analysis, with more solid, serious and effective preparation, is something which can be done without waiting for tomorrow. If there were currently the political will, it could be implemented today, because there is nothing to prevent it – the Treaties do not prevent it – and it would in no way alter the fundamental operation of the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, this is the kind of work we are immersed in at the moment. As I have said, in Barcelona I presented an initial brief report indicating these kinds of issues almost in note form. Today, the Presidency – together with the team of the Secretariat – is making contact with the different capitals to see whether there is any possibility, between now and the end of June, when the Seville European Council takes place, of reaching a consensus on some of these issues which strictly require the political will of the fifteen leaders, and the Commission, to sit around the table.
This is very briefly what we are working on at the moment, ladies and gentlemen. There are many other things to do in relation to the reform of the Council, which will no doubt be on the agenda of the Convention and the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference. We will have time to discuss them and, if possible, to reach agreements that favour a more efficient institution which can deal with issues in a more rational and effective manner in a Europe which, fortunately, is new, because the world is new; a better Europe because the world is better.
The first relates to a report which I had the honour of producing at the request of the Council with a view to studying whether, before the end of the whole process of reforming the European Union – in particular institutional reforms – the Council could operate more efficiently, naturally within the existing legal framework and in accordance with what the Convention and, later on, the Intergovernmental Conference, may decide.
The proposals which have been presented and which are being analysed at the moment, so that some of them can be approved at the Seville European Council, are very simple and easy. The first would involve a change in the operation of the European Council. The Council, as you know, does not operate as it should, at least in my opinion. The European Council was conceived as the motor for the European Union’s great political strategies and it should therefore have a speedier and simpler working mechanism which is more suited to that objective.
The European Council currently has far too packed an agenda, which the Heads of Government do not have time to prepare. Those Heads of Government spend a very large amount of their time approving conclusions on a huge number of dossiers – sometimes more than 60 – which means a tremendous amount of writing, and the effort required to produce them does not correspond to the number of people who read them. We therefore have to do everything we can to ensure that the European Council operates in a speedier and more rational way, just as the cabinets in the majority or all of the countries of the European Union operate, with well prepared agendas which focus on decision making in those Councils which require it. This does not require great institutional changes: all it requires is the political will to achieve it.
We should also try – and this is my suggestion – to hold European Councils of at least three different types: a European Council intended to take well-prepared decisions, with a clear agenda in which decisions could be taken, in my opinion, also by a qualified majority in the future; a second Council which would be of a more monographic nature, that is to say that the Heads of Government would concentrate on one part or element of Europe’s great political life and in which they do not only try to give instructions but also, if possible, offer practical solutions which could aid the functioning of the European Union; and thirdly, European Councils of a more informal nature, in which the European Union leaders could sit around the fireplace – although it would be a huge table rather than a fireplace – and discuss issues which are of importance in terms of the present, the near future and the long-term future of the European Union. I feel there is a lack of in-depth consideration of very important issues which perhaps relate more to the future than to current times.
Having said this about the European Council, I would now like to discuss its preparation. This includes deciding what Council to prepare and what form it should take. Until now, as you know, the tradition has been for the General Affairs Council, which is made up of Foreign Ministers of the various European Union countries, to be responsible for preparing it. However, these Ministers have an increasingly busy and packed agenda, on issues which strictly relate to the European Union’s foreign and security policy. If you see the agendas, you will realise that they are increasingly full and this raises the question of whether it is possible for the General Affairs Council, with its current structure and form, to devote sufficient time to horizontal issues which are ultimately issues dealt with by the European Council.
There are many formulae for solutions. I am not going to point out any particular one: I suggested three or four which are now being discussed, but I do believe that in one way or another, we should opt either for separating the Councils or for dividing into separate sessions – which cannot be the same Council with different sessions – issues strictly relating to foreign and security policy, of which there are many, from those issues which relate to the preparation of the agenda of the European Council. In the end, what happens is that those issues are not prepared thoroughly enough for the European Council to be the effective organ we all want to see.
Therefore, there may be two or three models for Councils: one in which there is a separation of the General Affairs Council with the essential role of preparing the European Council, which will imply an increasing amount of work; another possibility is that the General Affairs Council could consist of general affairs in a stricter sense, where each government could send somebody to contribute more effectively to the preparation of the European Council, in accordance with the issues, and another formula which would mean that it devotes itself strictly to foreign and security policy issues.
The third issue raised in the report is an issue whose solution will fall to the Convention and ultimately to the Intergovernmental Conference. However, I believe, Mr President, that it is an issue which we will have to start thinking about. It is undoubtedly a difficult issue which changes certain fundamental elements of our European Union tradition, and that is the notion of the rotating six-month Presidency. During my long political life, which is becoming too long, within the European Union, I have been a Minister in the Presidency of the European Union twice and now I see that Presidency from a different point of view."@en1
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