Mr President, I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency of the Council, together with Mr Sasi, for the commitment with which they are approaching this difficult task of establishing a mandate and also say thank you to the rapporteurs for the really excellent work which is being done. I should also like, however, at the same time, to point out to Mrs Kaufmann, who has just quoted the class enemy’s newspaper, “Die Welt”, that the party to which she has belonged was the only German party following the Second World War to issue the order for a war of aggression, namely against Czechoslovakia, and so one might do well to refrain from making remarks such as she has made. This Intergovernmental Conference has a very difficult timetable to comply with, for the Conference must be completed within the period prescribed, so ensuring that enlargement of the European Union is not delayed. At the same time, it must equip the European Union for the enlargement. In other words, it is subject to strict time limits and is faced with a great challenge. Equipping the Union in this way means tackling not only the Amsterdam left-overs but also many questions concerned with foreign and security policy, a lot of issues which my colleague Karl von Wogau may have addressed in relation to monetary union, and much more besides. The question of majority voting is the key issue for the success of this Conference if our European Union is to be in shape for enlargement and if our European Parliament is also to agree to enlargement. There must therefore be clear definitions in a range of areas as to where majority voting is necessary. There must be majority voting in the field of tax policy, but not where all taxes are concerned. There must be majority voting in the field of social policy, but not for social policy in its entirety. This must be clearly laid down, just as it must be made clear that, when it comes to the European Parliament’s participating in decision making on agricultural policy, not all agricultural policy really constitutes legislation in any material sense, but only a small proportion – perhaps 20 or 30 – of the 3,000 legal documents. In those areas, however, Parliament must obtain the right to participate in decision making and, in addition, the right to full decision-making powers where the agricultural budget is concerned. In the field of structural policy, it is, for example, becoming clear that the more Member States there are, the less likely it is that we shall make sensible decisions on the basis of the principle of unanimity and so ensure that scarce funds and resources are invested in such a way that they benefit the really poor regions and poor groups of this European Union. In the area of foreign and security policy, too, we need rights of supervision, but we must find out – in the framework of implementing the Cologne decisions – which areas may still lead to changes to the Treaty. Here, I should like to mention in particular that incorporation of the WEU into the European Union cannot be agreed before Article 5 has also been put in order. Out of consideration for our neutral Members, Article 5 may only, however, be regularised in the framework of a protocol to the Treaty so that each country can decide for itself whether or not it wants to accede to this part. I do not believe that the European Union essentially needs new powers but, in connection with the powers it has, it needs the tools really to avail itself of these. Only then would we be in a position to combine transparency, efficiency and democracy, for these three things combined are the conditions of acceptance by the population of Europe. As proposed in the Dehaene report, the Council of Ministers would be divided, as part of this process, into an Executive Council of Ministers, which could meet behind closed doors, and a Legislative Council of Ministers, which would have to meet in public. For it is not acceptable in a democratic community that a legislative body should shut itself away from the population. This is a unique situation in the world and it is no longer acceptable. I therefore think that the proposal to divide up the Treaties, as presented by Mr Dehaene, is important. In the spirit of transparency and efficiency, we ought to combine the constitutional parts of the Treaty, including the regulations relating to the powers which can be exercised, and combine the remaining parts in another Treaty of lower status. This too is important so that citizens can see how this Europe of ours is organised. Here, there may perhaps in the longer term be a point of contact with the convention which is to draw up the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and this convention might perhaps develop into a constituent assembly, for a constitutional Treaty must be the goal for which we are striving in the longer term.

Political group: PPE-DE