Mr President, the point of this report is to allow the situation which prevailed before 1 July 1999 to be reinstated with regard to a provision which has been in force since 1 July 1999. The reasons given by the Commission are as follows: the Member States have failed to honour their undertaking to implement a control system and we therefore need to reinstate temporarily the situation which prevailed previously. We support the Commission in its implied criticism of the Member States which have failed to do their homework but deeply regret that we are again in a situation in which we are unable to implement amendments and improvements to a control system which has been accepted and entered into force because the Member States have failed to carry out their duties. Nonetheless, we support the Commission’s proposal because we consider that the old rules provide a sufficient degree of safety, especially as the Commission is only asking for one year’s delay. The Commission has, however, left itself with an escape clause by asking for a further transitional period of three years under the provisions of the agreement with the Council in the Council decision on comitology of 28 June 1999 and we in Parliament consider that somewhat unusual. What you should have done, Commissioner Byrne, was to apply directly for four years, if it was going to take four years, especially as this would have given a sign to the Member States. If the Commission is leaving itself an escape clause in the form of a three-year postponement, why should we keep to our side of the bargain? However, here too we said that we wanted to help out. We tabled a proposed amendment seeking to reduce this period to two years and it became clear during discussions with the Commission that it too was willing to go along with this proposed amendment. Then we noticed an unusual feature; we noticed that you had presented us with the statements of this decision on comitology in long prose texts, despite the fact that you agreed with the Council a long time ago that references to the article would be succinct. Hence, we have complied with the requirement and the practice which you have cultivated with the Council and, for our part, have now called in a proposed amendment tabled in my name for the new regulation to be adopted, still with the unusual feature that, because the legal basis was Article 37 and Article 152, you had submitted both Article 17 and Article 17a to us on the grounds that this was both a consultation and a codecision procedure. In the codecision procedure, Article 8 applies under the decision on comitology but not under Article 37. We take the view that these two separate submissions are unnecessary and we have tabled a single proposed amendment which I shall read to you. We are calling for Article 17a to be deleted. The proposed amendment should read as follows: “Where reference is made to this Article, the management procedure under Article 5 in conjunction with Article 7 of Decision 99/468/EC shall apply and, in the case of a codecision procedure based on Article 251 of the Treaty, Article 8 thereof”. I hope that the Commission is able to accept this amendment. This is a codecision process. If the Commission and the Council are able to adopt our amendments, we can shorten the procedure which, given that we have been in a legal grey area since 1 July 1999, is a reasonable step. We have already had intensive discussions. I am curious to see what the outcome of your position will be. I hope that you will go along with our considerations, as tabled during the discussions, especially as we do not disagree in principle.

Political group: Verts-ALE