Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-15-Speech-1-087"
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"en.20060515.15.1-087"2
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".
Mr President, that is one reputation that I will have to live up to, or should I say live down!
My group, too, welcomes the report by Mrs Kaufmann. We believe it is an excellent report, which has got the balance just about right.
The original logic of the Treaties, in giving the right of initiative to the Commission – in those days the Commission proposed and the Council disposed – was entirely right for that time. We wanted the Council to work not on the basis of competing drafts put forward by different Member States, but on a common proposal drawn up by an institution that belongs to all of us – the Commission – and that is duty bound to serve the interests of all Member States in the proposals that it brings forward. It was then up to the Council alone to look at that proposal, modify it if necessary, accept it or otherwise. There was a certain balance.
Since the original Treaties, though, we have seen the emergence of this Parliament, which was first directly elected in 1979 and more recently has acquired co-legislative powers.
Because of their national experience, people in most of our Member States expect that a parliament will have the right of initiative, that its members can propose legislation and that when they stand for election they say they will propose this or that. That is lacking in the European Parliament. It is true that it is lacking in some national parliaments as well and many parliaments have that right in theory, but it is not exercised in practice. Nonetheless it is something our citizens expect.
So how have we tried to resolve that at European level? The Maastricht Treaty gave this Parliament the right – and the Council already had the same right – to ask the Commission to bring forward a legislative proposal. In practice that has usually worked quite well. Now the Commission has told us that it will also listen very carefully to Parliament and consult us before it withdraws proposals. I welcome that sort of not quite sharing but working closely together on the right of initiative, as regards both proposing and withdrawing. I believe the Commission listened to us quite carefully on this recent package, although not, I regret to say, on the proposals regarding mutuals and the European Statute for Associations. There I believe the Commission should review its position. But on the whole I believe the system has worked quite well.
If the Commission is going to be able to defend its monopoly on the right of initiative, it must continue to exercise it in that responsible way, to maintain a dialogue with Parliament and take up the legitimate concerns expressed in this Parliament. The Commission must also accept that its right to withdraw should not be a right of veto at the last stage of the legislative procedure. The right to withdraw should exist right up to the end of the first reading in each body, Parliament and then the Council. Once the Council has reached a common position and it comes back to Parliament, it is no longer the property of the Commission. It is a Council common position that we will be dealing with, and so on through the rest of the legislative procedure. The Commission will still play a role, but should not at that stage have the right of withdrawal, which would unbalance the system. It should have it in the first stages, as it does.
I welcome what has been put forward by our committee. It is a good balance in that it proposes that there be due justification, due dialogue, proper consultation and advance notice. If we can work together on that basis, I believe that is a reasonably correct balance in the context of the current Treaties."@en1
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