Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-19-Speech-4-164"
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"en.20060119.20.4-164"2
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". Let the people decide
We, the minority in the European Parliaments Constitutional committee and the SOS Democracy inter group in the European Parliament, hope and believe that the peoples of most states will see no need for a constitution beyond their own national constitutions. We expect supporters of the constitution to show the same respect for democracy.
Our alternative may be based on seven broad proposals
The constitution is dead. Instead of a complicated constitution and the Nice Treaty with priority over national constitutions, we want a cooperation agreement with no more than 50 articles. Countries that don't wish to join the cooperation agreement can choose a free trade agreement instead.
The European Council should establish a working group with equal numbers of supporters and opponents of the Constitution in order to present a proposal of rules which is flexible enough to let them unite instead of divide Europe, as we have seen the Constitution do.
Openness and full access to documents will be the main rule. Any exceptions shall be approved with 75 % support. The Ombudsman, the Court of Auditors and the EU-Parliament shall be able to control all expenditures.
Decision makers shall be directly accountable through the ballot box to those who must abide by their decisions in each country.
The treaties can be amended only by unanimity. The proposed Constitution has been rejected by 55 % of the voters in France and 62 % in the Netherlands. Their verdict must be respected. Therefore the proposed Constitution IS dead according to the rules adopted unanimously among the Member States of the EU.
Laws should be adopted with unanimity or by a 75 % majority among member states and simple majority in the EU-Parliament. There should be the opportunity for veto, when a national Parliament votes against a proposal for EU-law and requests the prime minister to bring up the case at the next summit.
The subsidiarity principle should be controlled by the national parliaments. The existing 100,000 pages of legislation must be revised critically, and the main part must be eliminated or sent back to the member states.
Laws should be approved as a common set of minimum standards which gives the member states more flexibility and possibility to have a higher level of protection of security, health, environment, working conditions, social conditions and consumer protection. We should prefer mutual recognition to total harmonisation.
Foreign and security policy, the euro cooperation and legal cooperation should not be an obligatory part of the cooperation but can be transferred to an enhanced cooperation if desired by the individual countries. Defence should be completely separated from the Union.
The next meeting in the European Council must accordingly declare the draft text dead; reflect on the No votes; re-read the questions from the Laeken declaration and go back to first principles.
The
is to decide whether treaties require popular approval. We believe that treaties have to be adopted by referendum in all member States where it is legally possible. The referendums should if possible be held on the same date.
Supporters and opponents of the constitution should be asked to produce a joint text for debate about our possible futures. It can include joint amendments on transparency and democratic procedures where the working group may agree. It will certainly include different proposals for catalogues of competences where members will disagree.
After a year of debate, two alternatives should be placed before the national electorates: On the one hand a renewed constitution; on the other a Co-operation Agreement among European democracies.
The new directly elected Convention must work in public in working groups and plenary meetings for a year. Each chapter of the existing treaties will have to have a special working group to allow drastic simplification of the existing complicated texts.
Finally, the plenary of the Convention may adopt two different proposals, a draft Constitution and a draft Cooperation agreement and then ask the voters what they prefer.
When we have the peoples' verdict the Member States can then meet in a formal intergovernmental conference and take the necessary decisions to be adopted formally according to the demands in the national constitutions. If one or two Member States reject the drafts, a unanimous solution will have to be found in respect of the agreed playing rules for treaty changes."@en1
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"1) Cooperation agreement instead of constitution"1
"2) Openness and transparency"1
"3) Direct elections"1
"4) 75 % majority in the Council with the right to veto"1
"5) Bottom-up subsidiarity"1
"6) Greater flexibility and minimum conditions"1
"7) Enhanced cooperation instead of compulsory union"1
"James Hugh Allister, Adam Jerzy Bielan, Jens-Peter Bonde, Mogens N.J. Camre, Ryszard Czarnecki, Hélène Goudin, Daniel Hannan, Michał Tomasz Kamiński, Nils Lundgren, Ashley Mote, Carl Schlyter, Esko Seppänen, Kathy Sinnott and Lars Wohlin (IND/DEM ),"1
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