Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-10-07-Speech-3-066"
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"en.20091007.17.3-066"2
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"− Mr President, I will just make some comments on the comments made by the group leaders, and I thank all of them for their contributions. These institutional issues of transitions between two treaties are very difficult from a legal and political point of view, and they require wisdom from all institutions. Of course, we would like to have the new Treaty approved as soon as possible. The majority of Members of this Parliament want it, all the governments want it, and the Commission certainly wants it.
The point is, as the Prime Minister has just pointed out, that the Treaty will not be approved before the end of the mandate of this Commission. The Commission’s mandate lasts until the end of this month, so we will inevitably have a period where the Commission is a ‘caretaker’ Commission. That is why I think Parliament took the right decision some time ago in already deciding on the President of the Commission, because that gives the President of the Commission the authority, the political authority, to represent the Commission in very important international obligations. That was a wise decision of the European Parliament.
The important point now is to see how to deal with this transition. Today we have discussed this in the Commission, and our opinion in the College is that we should, if possible, already bring in the new Commission under the Lisbon Treaty. That is our opinion because this is the Treaty we want; this is the Treaty which gives you, Parliament, more rights in terms of the formation of the Commission itself. For instance, the High Representative will be Vice-President of the Commission, and so you will vote on the High Representative. That will not happen if we implement the Nice Treaty, and so it is our opinion that we should, if possible, bring in the new Commission under the Lisbon rules. But that, of course, is a question of wisdom and of timing as well. We have, in the past, namely in the first Commission that I took part in, also started with a prolongation of the previous Commission for three weeks.
So the question is: how long does it take? And that is why I stated very quickly – and Prime Minister Reinfeldt knows what I think about it – that it is one thing to wait for some weeks and another thing to be waiting we do not know until when. That is a question of judgment, political judgment, and I hope the European Council will take the right decisions based on the information we get from our Czech partners. This is the question which has to be decided in the European Council at the end of this month.
Certainly we do not want – I think it is in nobody’s interests – to have a Commission that is without full legal competences. It is not in the interests of the Commission and I am sure it is also not in the interests of the European Parliament. That is why I have said I am ready: I am ready to start the formation of the new Commission as soon as we have the legal clarity and the European Council starts the process. For that, I need the Council to take some decisions. I need the European Council to propose a High Representative because the High Representative, according to the Lisbon Treaty, has to be approved by the President of the Commission as Vice-President of the Commission.
Regarding some comments, I want to underline certain points, and to reassure some Members of Parliament. Some of you said that there will be a ‘President of Europe’. I am sorry: there will not be a ‘President of Europe’. If we have the Lisbon Treaty, there will be a President of the European Council: it is different. There is a President of Parliament, there is a President of the Commission, and there will be a President of the European Council. It is important to underline that point because sometimes, I think there are ideas about certain
and I will not accept, and the European Commission will not accept, the idea that the President of the European Council is the President of Europe, because it is not in the Treaties.
It is not in the Treaties and we will have to respect the Treaties. We have to respect the institutions. There is a President of the European Parliament; there is President of the Commission. If we have Lisbon, there will be a President of the European Council.
It is very important to understand that all our decisions have to be taken in the framework of the current treaties. That is why I now believe that, as soon as the Czechs verify their situation, we should move forward. That is why I think we should work on those points I made before, from the Citizens’ Initiative to the External Services, with that spirit of cooperation between all institutions so that, when the decisions are formally taken, we can implement with determination everything that the Lisbon Treaty brings, which I believe is more accountability, more democracy and more efficiency for our Union."@en1
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