Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-049"
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"Mr President, my reply will be brief, since I believe you now have other questions on the agenda. Do not therefore accuse me subsequently of not expanding upon matters sufficiently. Consider, rather, that it is a gesture of courtesy in view of the work done by your House.
I would cite the case of taxation. Six states participating in the Convention were making taxation an insurmountable obstacle. We debated with them. I visited London twice in order to see the British Prime Minister. We talked about the matter with our other colleagues, since, as you know, other Member States had major reservations about the tax issue. I hoped right until the end that we might introduce qualified majority voting for market taxation, since the latter is very much linked to the operation of the single market. In the end, we were able to make a certain degree of progress, since we provided for qualified majority voting in the cases of administrative cooperation and the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion. We were not able to go any further on the basis of consensus.
Mr President of the Commission, we shall see if any further progress is made on the basis of unanimity. I should like to remind you of a central innovation that has been little talked about: the content of our article on the transition from unanimity to qualified majority voting. This point is very important because we have put in place an arrangement that, over time, will permit the transition to qualified majority voting. I would refer you to Article 24(3), enabling us to do in the future – and I also say this with Mr Barón Crespo in mind – what we have tried to do as much as possible in the Constitution: the European Council will be able to decide unanimously, as specified by the Treaty, to transfer a certain number of framework or European laws to the sphere of qualified majority voting.
In other words, what you are seeking to obtain by negotiation, the European Council will be able to achieve through the exercise of its powers in application of Article 24, paragraphs 4 and 5. I am not talking about the composition of the Commission. I would simply say to you, Mr Prodi, that I have here the amendments that have been lodged. The Convention is familiar with the proposals you have made just now. They were the subject of debates within the Convention. Moreover, the new Member States that, at the beginning, were understandably very keen that there should be as many Commissioners as Member States – leading to figures bearing no relation to the number of responsibilities to be exercised by the Commission – have accepted, as we proposed, that the reform should only apply as from 2009.
In other words, all the new countries will have Commissioners for the period 2005-2009. They will be equally well placed when it comes to constituting a genuine European college whose composition will reflect the number of tasks to be exercised by the Commission and the number that, as President Jacques Delors said, will enable it to retain its collegiate character.
Finally, you talked about natural disasters. On the initiative of a working party chaired by Commissioner Barnier, Article 42 introduces into the Constitution the opportunity of exercising European solidarity in relation to natural disasters.
Just a word on the problem of the revision procedure, taken up by other speakers. A number of members of the Convention – even a large number of them – would have liked it to have been possible to deal with this subject, because the revision procedure is going to remain that laid down by the treaties. Now, it is obvious that, within the framework of a Constitution, there is some sort of internal revision procedure that bypasses the general circuit of treaties and of the twenty-five or twenty-seven ratifications.
We had no mandate for dealing with this subject, but the problem remains unresolved, and I have a sense that, in the years to come – perhaps not within the next 30 years, but certainly in the years to come – the question of a possible future constitutional revision procedure will have to be addressed. In Europe’s current political state, I believe it would be unrealistic to imagine that the views of the Member States might be ignored. A time will come, however, when, just as the transition has been made from unanimity to qualified majority voting, a new procedure will be required in this regard.
I now turn to MEPs’ speeches. I would thank Mr Méndez de Vigo both for his work within the Convention and for his vision of the role he wishes to see the European Parliament play, a role indeed that the Convention will not be able to perform but that Parliament is in a position to assume.
I shall turn to you, Mr Hänsch, last. I would say to Mr Poettering that he is from a country that has contributed a lot to music. Whenever there is a concert – I had the opportunity in Brussels, during the Convention, of hearing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – the conductor of the orchestra asks for applause for the musicians. He asks the musicians to stand so that the audience might applaud them. That is why I would thank you for the compliments you have paid me, but I should like to share them with the members of the Convention. The document with which I am presenting you today is a collective, rather than individual, work. It is the fruit of a joint effort.
We have been diligent, Mr Poettering, in dealing with the issues of competences, of the stability of competences and of the monitoring of subsidiarity. The request that this issue be dealt with was particularly strong in those EU countries that have federal structures. It was therefore given particular prominence by the German members of the Convention and also by our Spanish partners.
Mr Fini, I should like to thank you for two things: first of all, your contribution to the work of the Convention, because you have been very much involved. You are Vice-President of your government, you came to all the sessions, you remained in your seat, you listened, you took your turn to speak and you were – together with others, of course – a model participant in the Convention. I would also thank you for having given your approval – on behalf, of course, of the Italian Presidency – to the project as a whole and for having emphasised that it was indeed a coherent project. That is a crucial point.
Mr Barón Crespo, who speaks all the languages of the EU – a factor that obviously simplifies the debates – was right in saying that ours is a first attempt at democratic construction going beyond the nation state. It is therefore an original structure, and those who say it would be enough to copy the institutions of the nation state are mistaken because the nation state model would not enable us to deal with the problem of the double legitimacy of the Member States and of the populations.
You wanted to see an open IGC, or Intergovernmental Conference. I believe that everyone here, particularly the representatives of the Presidency, concur in wishing to respond favourably to your wish.
By a twist of fate, Mr Watson is seated beside Mr Poettering. My experience enables me to share both their cultures, and I thank Mr Watson for the contribution of his group, which included several influential members of the Convention, among them, incidentally, Mr Duff who has been one of the people most active in carrying our work forward.
Mr Wurtz, your quotations from our document were chosen specifically in order to show that, as you said, the document in a way constitutionalises the liberal economic system in Europe. Now, if you take Article 3 on the objectives of the EU, which we have debated at length, what do we read? We read first of all that the EU is an area of freedom for people, an area of freedom in the economic sense of the term with, indeed, the four freedoms laid down by the basic treaties. We would, however, add to the objectives of the EU a social market economy, highly competitive and aiming at full employment and social progress. We foresee the EU combating social exclusion and discrimination, promoting equality between women and men – which is a crucial point in our documents – and protecting the rights of children. Alongside economic freedom, which is a spatial freedom, the Constitution therefore carefully describes social objectives.
You talk about articles on EU policy and say that some of these are secret. They are not secret, but they have to be translated. At the end of the month, we shall present all of our documents translated into the EU’s future 22 languages. That is the explanation for the fact that we have not been able to forward them very quickly. Whatever the case, the articles in question have not been modified. These are the articles from the treaties, since we had no mandate to modify them other than to take account of the changes: a new institutional system, changes of name, European laws, framework laws, voting procedures and the legal base for policies. The actual description of the policies is, however, unchanged except where four of them are concerned: policy relating to economic and social governance, on which considerable progress has been made, even if more might have been wished for; common external policy; common defence policy; and policy relating to security and justice.
Mrs Frassoni, whom I had met in the course of our debates in the Convention, talks about intergovernmental methods. We have done away with this term, which goes back to the beginning of the Convention. On the contrary, we wanted to revive the institutional triangle. There is no intergovernmental element. There are three institutions at work: Parliament, which expresses its opinion; the Commission, which proposes legislation and engages in administration; and the Council of Ministers, which takes the decisions entrusted to it by the Constitution. That is not an intergovernmental procedure. It is a case of Community decisions being taken by one of the bodies of the EU. You talk about having the President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament. You will see that, next time, matters will still take place in accordance with the Treaty of Nice, that is to say that you will do nothing other than give your approval. Your sole power will be that of giving your approval. With the Constitution, you would be able to vote in an election, and you could refuse the option proposed to you.
Mr Pasqua was wondering about the progression from technocratic structure to political body. We have tried to progress down that road as far as we could. He was wondering about our constituent power. Where, however, are the constituents? Mr Pasqua, how was the constitutional committee composed that, during the summer of 1958, drafted the constitution of the Fifth Republic? It was composed of named people. What is important in the constituent procedure is ratification. The constituent is whoever ratifies. In the event, the constituents will be, successively, the European Parliament, the referendums in all those countries able to have recourse to this procedure – as I hope France will – and the national parliaments in cases where this is required by constitutional procedure.
I shall finish, then, by turning to Mr Abitbol, who expressed himself fully within the Convention. He was, therefore, able to observe that it was a place of free expression. He was in favour of the congress. So was I, so we have both failed. That being said, I believe that the question will arise again. The absence of a ‘European political constituency’ is a mistake. There needs to be an arena in which European politicians, both at European and national levels, can meet on an organised basis. President Barón Crespo must remember the conference that he organised in Rome and that was very fruitful for having been constructed on that model.
Mr Abitbol is a revolutionary of the kind that every assembly needs. He reproaches us for having devised the Constitution before having carried out the revolution. Certainly, the two methods exist, but we ourselves prefer to carry out a revolution under the law. Many of you will, I hope, take your places in the next European Parliament. If things happen the way we want them to, your debates will be with a stable President of the European Council who will have to come and provide you with an account of the activities of the EU following each European Council. You will have an EU Minister of Foreign Affairs to question and, when situations arise such as you have already experienced, there will be someone to whom you can put your questions about why one particular argument is to be defended and not another, or one action participated in and not another. It will therefore be a revolution under the law and, to use Mr Barón Crespo’s analogy, it will be a revolution à la Montesquieu, but on a continental scale.
My last reply is to Mr Hänsch. I much appreciated your contributions during the Convention because you defended neither particular interests nor lobbies. Rather, you were inspired by the common European good; and, although, on certain points, we did not always follow up your proposals because we were seeking balanced, compromise solutions, you have nonetheless inspired many of our advances, particularly in the area of social governance. You drew attention to the fact that, if the debates we have already had were re-opened, there would be no chance at all of reaching a balanced compromise. What would be the point of re-opening the debate in the case of each amendment already lodged and discussed, and either adopted in one form or another by the Convention or else ruled out by it?
In fact, we have just heard – and I shall return to this matter – proposals for partial changes. The disadvantage of these partial changes, however, is that they disturb a balance that we have meticulously constructed together, with a view to ensuring that the project has a cohesion – to use your own expression – that must not be distorted. Hence, balance must remain the reference point.
You made this point in no uncertain terms, and I hope your voice will be heard because – and these are my final words, Mr President – in the present situation, which is one of knowing whether, in a few months’ time, Europe will or will not have a Constitution, there are in fact two approaches: either Europe does not provide itself with a Constitution and goes on forever re-opening the same debates, or else it does provide itself with a Constitution, aware that it will be necessary to live with it. That is why I do not want to see revolutionary fervour bursting forth from your Assembly but, rather, the momentum of a strong desire and a very great aspiration on the part of the peoples of Europe to make progress along the EU road.
You have approved the idea – taken up by a number of members of the Convention, notably by your compatriot – of work that is open and transparent. I hope that, in regard to the press and public opinion – and I am replying here to Mr Pasqua – this constitutional debate will indeed be an open one. What I would ask you is, not to dismantle things, not to disappoint and, at the same time, not to be content to adopt a negative attitude, because that is naturally not enough. Rather, it is necessary to take the lead.
The great moments of political excitement are those of progress rather than of disintegration. At the last session of our Convention, moreover – rather curiously, because no explosion of political emotion was expected – those from a variety of political backgrounds present on all the benches had come together because of the feeling there was that perhaps the new unified Europe had an opportunity to move forward.
Mr Frattini, you will of course have a lot of technical work to do at this Intergovernmental Conference. I believe that your three principles are sound. Stick, therefore, to your three principles: respect for the timetable and respect for what you have very properly called the store of wisdom accumulated by the Convention, namely the major legacy of our 1 800 speeches. It is necessary to make use of these, and the task is therefore one of improving and supplementing. Improving, yes; supplementing, yes; putting a question mark over, emphatically no.
Mr President of the Commission, we have had debates. I came to visit you, on my own initiative moreover, in Brussels when our work was almost complete in order to take note of your personal reactions to what our document contained. You stated that this compromise was incomplete. We shall see what will be added because, if it is cut drastically, this compromise will be still more incomplete. You are yourselves parliamentarians from all the Member States, old and new. Now, it has to be emphasised that the fact that the Convention reached a compromise, with just six dissenters, signified that the compromise was almost complete.
You raised the issue of qualified majority voting. First of all, whenever, throughout the work of the Convention, qualified majority voting was demanded, I would ask what type of qualified majority was meant. This point has not been raised. Now, there are in fact two systems of qualified majority voting. There is the Nice system, based on a scale, and there is the draft Constitution system, based on a double majority: a majority of the Member States and a majority of the represented population, which we have set at 60%. It has to be specified, therefore, what type of qualified majority is being talked about.
We are told we should have gone further in the difficult debate on the number of questions that are to be subject to qualified majority voting. In fact, we have doubled the number, and we have not in fact been able to adopt the universal rule because of obstacles that were insurmountable for one group or another."@en1
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