Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-255"
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"en.20050511.20.3-255"2
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".
Mr President, I have just come from a public meeting in Lorraine on the European Constitution, at which the majority of people were in favour of our having a European foreign minister and him having an External Action Service under him. I am confident that people throughout Europe take the same view of things: Eurobarometer, for example, constantly echoes the popular desire that Europe should speak to the world with a single voice. It is for that reason that provision is made for this in the European Constitution.
A foreign minister would give European values a face and speak up for European interests in the world. If he is to perform these tasks, he will, of course, need the External Action Service of which we have spoken. His dual role makes the construction rather complex, and it is to this that we must find a solution. I believe that we must do so in the spirit of the Constitution – and what is the spirit of the Constitution? It is that the former second pillar, with its rather intergovernmental approach, be integrated into the Community method. The whole point of the debates in the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference was to integrate what was the second pillar into a European Union possessing legal personality and intended to act, both internally and externally, as a single entity.
Article 296 of the Constitution states that the foreign service shall be established through a resolution of the Council, following consultation with Parliament, and with the Commission’s consent. That is the point we are addressing today. The Commission has a part in shaping the foreign service. We, in this House, were concerned that the Council had moved on much further with its work, had started driving in fenceposts and already had definite plans in mind, while the Commission was being too hesitant and taking too reserved an approach to this issue. It is for that reason that we have, today, raised the question of how the Commission intends to ensure that the Community method is further developed and guaranteed in the foreign relations sphere, of how – in administrative and financial terms – the service is to be organised, and how Parliament will be able to monitor what it does.
We should use all available means to prevent a third bureaucracy coming into being alongside the administration of the Commission and the Council; that would be the worst possible thing to happen. The question then, of course, arises of whether the foreign service is part of the Council or of the Commission, and this is where we have to consider the existence, even now, in many countries, of delegations that could become EU embassies. I think it would be right and proper to make this service – where its organisation and budget are concerned – part of the Commission rather than of the Council.
That the Council would have a full part to play would nonetheless be guaranteed, for it is quite clear that the service would exist to implement the decisions taken by the Council as a political entity. Examples of this kind of duality exist in many countries, including in Germany, where, at certain administrative levels, offices serve both the local authorities and the State. Far from being unheard-of, it could work in this case too.
We also have to decide what the External Action Service is meant to do or refrain from doing. I do not believe it would make sense to create a mammoth authority with responsibility for every portfolio from Commissioner Mandelson’s trade to Commissioner Michel’s development policy. These must be parcelled out between a traditional foreign service, for which the foreign minister has responsibility, and other Directorates-General and Commissioners with their own remits. Having the foreign minister also as a vice-president of the Commission would, of course, allow powers and responsibilities to be concentrated in one pair of hands, and consistency to be established in this area.
We look forward with eager anticipation to what the Commission has to say to us, hoping that what is done about this important issue will be faithful to the spirit of the Constitution and will make it manifest."@en1
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