Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-008"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr de Miguel for his comments, with which I entirely agree. I would also like to thank him for his digression into foreign policy with particular reference to the extremely disturbing situation of India and Pakistan, which warrants very close attention on our part. To end this digression into foreign policy, on which, I repeat, I am in complete agreement with Mr de Miguel, I would like to call upon you to pay attention to potential conflicts too, to growing tensions such as the situation following the elections on the island of Madagascar, which is becoming increasingly perilous and which warrants our close attention precisely because we have greater influence and greater capacity for action before conflict breaks out.
Good Community regulation also means acting in full accordance with the original spirit of the Treaties. This means, in particular, making use of framework directives, which are one of the most effective instruments for increasing compliance with the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity.
It is also time to review the implementation of our policies, because implementation is the stage that affects the citizens most directly. Transparency and democratic accountability demand that each of the institutions refocus its efforts on its core tasks. In this way, we can start right now to see how the Community method can be revamped in practical terms.
I must stress once again that all this does not just apply to the Commission. All the institutions must be involved if we really want to get useful results: the institutions have no option but to work together. Lastly, the institutions themselves must return to their core tasks. Each must therefore take on clear responsibilities so that we can complete an interinstitutional agreement by the end of the year.
With the Solana report, the Council has also launched a new debate on similar issues and tabled practical proposals for internal organisational reform which do not involve amending the Treaties. The Commission wholeheartedly supports the Council's reform efforts. I can only welcome the fact that the Council is looking to draw a distinction in its internal organisation between the procedures applicable to its legislative function and those applicable to its purely administrative functions. I also support the points contained in the proposal on continuity of work, the need to improve internal coordination and the possibility of reducing the number of Council configurations.
These are all recommendations which simplify their and our work. These efforts will help us to tackle the problems that the forthcoming enlargement will bring for the working of our institutions. In my view, an objective of such importance can only be addressed through a coordinated approach involving the Commission, Parliament and the Council. We must act together, calmly but resolutely, to move beyond ‘better regulation’ to achieve ‘better organisation’ of all the institutions. The Commission is ready to play its part in this joint endeavour. Better organisation means more speed, more coordination and less red tape. It means giving up long-established but outdated positions in the interests of working faster and better than before, despite the increased complexity of the system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I said at the beginning of my speech, the most burning issue to be dealt with by the European Council is immigration. It is worth repeating that there is no question of proposing solutions that are incompatible with the fundamental values of our Union. Instead, we must promote a model of integration that can combine freedom with our citizens' legitimate demands for security.
I have already expressed my support for the Presidency's decision to put the issue of immigration high on the Seville agenda. In the eyes of most of our citizens, immigration is becoming increasingly linked with requirements for their protection in the area of freedom, security and justice that we are trying to build together. There are a variety of reasons for this and they have been somewhat accentuated by the events of September 11 too. We must address these issues without demonising them.
Our discussions now under way on legal immigration and the right of asylum could break down if we do not take on board our fellow citizens' concerns about illegal immigration. At Tampere, we agreed on a number of objectives that are still valid today. We even have before us suitable proposals for achieving those objectives such as those set out in the Commission communication on illegal immigration, which formed the basis for the Council's Action Plan.
Others concern the management of our external borders and readmission policies. The political signals we have received recently are quite clear. We cannot put the issue of security on the back burner, and we cannot let people think that a return to nationalistic solutions can provide a valid answer to transnational phenomena that overwhelm the capacity and scope for action of individual States and can therefore be tackled and managed only at EU level. The problem is not just combating illegal trafficking: we must also lay the foundations for the full integration of lawful immigrants into our societies and regulate the flow of the immigrants we need.
Even enlargement is presented as a threat by some because of the issue of immigration. But why – I ask myself, ladies and gentlemen – would the citizens of the candidate countries leave their countries and turn their lives upside down just when membership of the European Union is offering them brighter prospects of prosperity? Was the same thing not said when Spain and Portugal joined and was the same thing not said about Italy when the European Community was first created?
Turning to today’s subject, I will just go briefly through the matters which will be debated at the Seville European Conference. I have to say that my task has been made much easier by the first-rate work of the current Council Presidency. I am extremely grateful to the Spanish Presidency, for we have worked both well and hard.
We have to act quickly on various fronts. Most importantly, we must tighten controls on the Union’s external borders in accordance with the recent proposals put forward by the Commission and the Italian Government. I trust that the European Council will decide to bring together border police representatives to work out what measures and instruments are needed in the immediate term to launch these initiatives. External border controls must also be linked to our good-neighbour policy. This seeks to develop special relations and mutual trust between the Union and all countries on its borders, especially following enlargement, with a view, not least, to undertaking joint measures to combat illegal immigration. In the Euro-Mediterranean context, we have already launched initiatives together with Morocco to devise an overall approach to the issue of immigration.
In addition, we must step up the adoption and implementation of measures on asylum, not least in order to give practical substance to the concept of European citizenship and certain principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
All this, ladies and gentlemen, will not suffice unless it goes hand in hand with a proper cooperation and development policy and the systematic use of all the instruments available to us: a policy to tackle the causes of migration, bilateral agreements and readmission agreements. We will soon be putting forward practical proposals on these points.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will ask the Seville Council to take appropriate decisions on these points quickly, with the common sense and responsibility that we demonstrated at Brussels and Ghent last autumn. The two topics I have concentrated on today are of crucial importance for us at this time. Making our institutions more democratic, transparent and accountable is a response to our fellow citizens' demand for a more effective Europe that is more in touch with their everyday concerns. The issue of immigration highlights the very reason for European integration: to build a Europe that is prosperous, just and secure.
This is a critical time for the future of the institutions: the Convention is working on a new political and institutional framework for the Union and enlargement is approaching.
At Seville we shall report on the candidate countries' progress in implementing the acquis. They have come a long way and we are continuing to work with them under the special programme for them. Our final opinion on each candidate country will be issued before the October European Council in Brussels. The roadmap we drew up has been adhered to and everything is in place for the final decision. There are real grounds for optimism and I continue to hope that the EU will have up to ten new members in 2004.
There are many issues to be discussed at Seville, but today, before you, the Members of the European Parliament, I want to concentrate on two in particular: how the EU is run and immigration.
The Convention is up and running, the debate is lively and there are plenty of ideas and proposals. That was to be expected, given that we are adopting an innovative approach rather than working through the usual diplomatic channels. President Giscard d'Estaing will be reporting on the first stage of the Convention's work at Seville and we shall pay careful attention to what he has to say. At Seville, however – and this is the main point of my speech – we will not just be talking about how to govern the Union in future: we will be discussing – and deciding – how we can improve the running of the Union now. We cannot sit still and wait for the reform of the Treaties: we must take advantage right now of all the possibilities the existing Treaties offer to improve our running of the Union and our organisational model. The Convention is working on policies for the future but we must also use the – albeit limited – instruments we have to hand to tackle today's problems.
This is what links the proposals on Council reform made by Mr Solana in his report and the proposals of the Commission on better regulation. Mr Corbett's proposals on the reform of Parliament that you are discussing in this part-session are also similar in this regard. These proposals involve all the institutions in different ways, and all the institutions will therefore have to work together to achieve the objective.
Let us start with what is known as ‘better regulation’. This was the idea behind the White Paper on European Governance: to exploit all the opportunities available in the present legal framework in order to improve the legislative and decision-making process. The enormous participation in the debate on the White Paper and your own contributions – especially the report by Mrs Kaufmann – show that this was the right strategy. The system must therefore be leaner, more transparent and more efficient. We must show that we are able to satisfy the demand for greater accountability and for more proportionality in the exercise of the powers conferred on the Council, Parliament and the Commission by the Treaties. Moreover, we must gear our action to a new goal: the goal of giving more substance to the concept of citizenship and making our fellow citizens' relationship with the Union more transparent, more direct and more tangible.
Last week I presented our project to the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament, but I would like to go over certain crucial points again now. Firstly, we are proposing to improve and simplify European legislation by reviewing the whole cycle of the legislative process, beginning with the exercise of the right of initiative. There are three prongs to this project: laying down clear rules on consultation, assessing the impact of decisions and improving legislative technique. Our drafting of legislative proposals must be based on wider consultation of all parties concerned and more exhaustive analysis of the economic, social and environmental impact, in accordance with the decisions of the Gothenburg European Council, and this must be done without introducing unnecessary red tape."@en1
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