Mr President, as always, every time Mr Bourlanges puts forward proposals, he rouses the entire European Parliament and all those who follow these types of issues to extremely interesting and stimulating intellectual effort. I would sincerely like to thank him for this, not least in that his proposals contain a number of points which my group considers to be important and positive. I cannot say the same for all his proposals, however, so I will focus on those which we feel to be most problematic. The Convention is faced with the issue which the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice Intergovernmental Conferences before it were unable to resolve, in other words the question of the hierarchy of acts and the distinction between the legislative and the implementing regulatory functions, which needs to be expressed more clearly. This is, as it was intended to be, the scope of the Bourlanges report, but we feel that the report has exceeded its mandate in including more problematic issues which, in our opinion, should have been discussed in more depth by Parliament and which we certainly cannot accept as the last word on the matter. I would mention, in particular, the proposals Mr Bourlanges makes regarding the constitutional revision procedure, which we as a group cannot endorse. Indeed, we advocate the subdivision – described by the rapporteur – of the European Union’s normative system into three parts: the constitutional, the legislative and the regulatory. However, we feel that we cannot support the proposals he makes regarding the constitutional revision procedure because they are contradictory. We feel that it is not acceptable to stipulate the need for unanimous agreement by the Council and the representatives of the Member States and then say: ‘Oh alright then, not everyone has to sign’. We cannot have it both ways: either we accept the principle that it is possible to revise the Treaties even without the unanimous support of all the Member States or we do not. Clearly, we or, at least, the majority of the group, are firmly in favour of the former. Another position which I feel it is important to stress concerns the legislative bloc. We feel that Article 308 should be amended because, as it stands – with adoption by a unanimous decision of the Council alone – it cannot possibly meet the need for flexibility in the definition of the competences of a 25-Member State Union. Furthermore, as regards the more specifically executive elements, we are opposed to the idea of a special organ or of specialised agencies with the task of monitoring the technical implementation of Community law. Our experience in this area has almost always been negative. Lastly, as regards the specific issue of comitology, I would just like to stress one point, namely the fact that the European Parliament and the Council are given a deadline of three months within which to make a decision. We feel that this is too long and that it would extend the implementing procedure unnecessarily. In any case, it has proved difficult to apply effectively. This is a question which we need to highlight and explore further, and I hope that this will not be Parliament’s final word on the matter.

Political group: Verts-ALE