PRESS RELEASE - Strasbourg, 16 January 2003

Monica Frassoni and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Co-Presidents of the Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament, on the German-French proposals for the reform of the European institutions:

"Schröder and Chirac's proposal is just one of many contributions to the debate on a reform of the European institutions. The proposal will be discussed in the only legitimate body to do this, which is the Convention.

We particularly regret that the proposal of a longer-term Presidency of the European Council as well as of the General Affairs, External relations, ECOFIN and Internal Affairs Councils goes together with an openly declared intention of strengthening the operational and executive role of the Council. This will inevitably weaken the European Commission. The roles of the Commission and Council Presidents would inevitably clash and be confused, and similar problems would occur between the various presidents of the Council of Ministers and individual Commissioners.

We welcome Chirac and Schröder's agreement that the President of the European Commission should be elected by the European Parliament, and approved by the European Council. But there will be a serious problem if a similar "double" legitimacy is not given to the proposed President of the European Council. There is a risk of further shifting the institutional balance in favour of national governments, should this plan go ahead.

We firmly believe that reform should rather aim to better define the system. The democratically elected European Parliament, together with the Council of Ministers, should take the legislative decisions. The European Council should set general political guidelines and the European Commission fulfil its role as executive.

Some of the French and German Presidents' proposals are out of line with consensual decisions reached in the Convention. For instance, if the Council would strengthen its executive role in internal and external affairs policies, the elimination of the pillars structure already agreed in the Convention would only be on paper. Furthermore, the idea of a Congress has already been rejected by an overwhelming majority of Convention members.

We welcome the idea of a European Foreign Minister, but he or she must be integrated as much into the European Commission as into the Council. It is important the appointment be approved by the European Parliament. Similarly, we believe it is inappropriate to prevent the Commission from taking decisions on foreign affairs and security matters.

However, the French-German paper also contains some important ideas, that we urge the Convention to accept. In particular, support for the Convention as the best way to go about reforming the Constitution, incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into any future Constitution, radical changes in the budget procedure and co-decision for the European Parliament in all areas where qualified majority voting is used in the Council.

Press Service of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament
Helmut Weixler - Head of Press Office

EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF GREEN PARTIES
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