Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-065"
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"en.20071010.16.3-065"2
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"Mr President, thank you for this interesting debate. You always learn a lot of new things and I can, of course, promise that I will report back to the Commission. I have taken careful notes so that we can follow up also at the meeting that will take place in Luxembourg next Monday.
I have heard three direct questions that I would like to respond to as well as I can. The first one alludes to Parliament’s involvement in the procedure of appointing the first High Representative. The Treaty here reproduces the 2004 text. I am sure that everybody will want to find a pragmatic political solution that can satisfy all sides when this moment comes. You may remember, of course, the precedent of Commissioners appointed after recent enlargements. There, too, Parliament got satisfaction in practice, although the legal texts were not clear. I think it is in our interest to make sure that there is a satisfactory role for Parliament in this whole procedure.
The second question had to do with Article 24 of the Treaty, on protection of personal data in the field of security. Here, at least, I can respond for the Commission, which understands Parliament’s concerns on provisions relating to the transmission of confidential data by the Member States. As it stands now, Article 24 of the EU Treaty allows the Council alone to define the rules in this field, with no possibility of involvement of the European Parliament. This new provision, of course, stems from the IGC mandate. It applies to Member States only, whilst the European institutions remain subject to the general regime, and the foreseen procedure complies with the very specific regime that exists on the common foreign and security policy. Here, it means that the competence of the Court is restricted. I am afraid that there is little margin to change the substance agreed in the mandate, but, in any event, I want to reassure you that we do not read this article as covering, for example, the EU agreement with the United States on passenger name records. That agreement currently has a third-pillar legal base and, therefore, in the Commission’s view, it will therefore be covered by the normal competence of the EP and the Court in the future. So this is how the Commission sees those issues.
I am seated so that I can actually watch all our visitors. I am not sure that we can always explain very clearly what we are discussing here, but I am sure that the visitors have felt the type of frustration that comes from this debate and the fact that some are very happy with this, they say it is a good compromise; others are not pleased at all and say that this is not good enough; others say that we are going too far. Of course, it reflects the political situation and the difficult political game that comes after a long period of actually having discussed how we can adapt our decision-making procedures to enlarge the European Union of 27 Member States; how we can actually incorporate also the new issues that have emerged lately, like climate change and energy; how we can be more open and effective.
All the visitors also remind me that, whatever the outcome – and we think and hope, with the help of the Portuguese Presidency, that we will have a good outcome, that we will be able to agree a new Reform Treaty – we will have to communicate; we will have to engage with citizens to try to do our best to explain. I hope that the Commission and the European Parliament will be able to plan also the communication activities together by making sure that we also provide a text which is as accessible and readable as possible; that we can create a debate which is European, so that you can, hopefully, follow the debate in other Member States as well – and with a political commitment from all of us, all the institutions, to engage with citizens: to explain, to advocate and also to listen. This is our role from now on.
This is only the beginning. We also have the ratification and the implementation awaiting us. But, for me and the Commission, we believe that this is a good Reform Treaty – not a perfect one: it is, of course, a compromise; we would have wanted no opt-outs but really good support for what is in there on the Charter of Fundamental Rights especially, but we have a compromise, we have an agreement between all the Member States – and now we will make the best of it."@en1
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