Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite its scope the contents of the White Paper presented by Mr Kinnock do not directly raise any institutional topics. It does, however, constitute the first stage of a wider discussion launched by Commission President Prodi himself, concerning what is called the governance of the Union. A further document on the subject is being prepared by the Commission. It is in that spirit, in order to start the debate immediately, that our Committee on Constitutional Affairs, following the other three committees consulted, looked at the question of the Commission's political effectiveness. Is the Commission able today to carry out the tasks and, in addition, the political role which fall to it under the Treaties? Indeed, in a Europe which will have 30 Member States tomorrow, with a bloated Council and a 700-member, 20-language Parliament, the Commission will have a more important role than ever to play in defining and upholding the common European interest. Accordingly, our committee repeats its attachment to a strong, independent, effective, transparent and politically answerable Commission. To guarantee that it has these qualities, we insist on five points. One: the spirit of good governance must not be confined to the Commission's management tasks. It must also underpin its function of proposing legislation, for instance by devising an internal procedure which will ensure that the subsidiarity principle is respected and by keeping a chronological record of procedures in order to reduce excessive delays in the preparation of documents. Second important point: the Commission is the only institution that can coordinate all the activities relating to the preparation and follow-up of European decisions. Where it does not do so, the results are felt, as we have seen, especially in the second and third pillars. So we call on the Member States to give the Commission the main role in the preparation for and follow-up to meetings of the European Council and of the Council of Ministers in all its forms, which can be done without formally modifying the institutions. On the other hand, it is not up to the Commission itself to manage the implementation of the European policies or of the corresponding appropriations. The White Paper points out that at present about half the Commission staff is assigned to management tasks. That is too few if we consider that the Commission should manage itself. It is far too many if we think it should offload most of these management tasks, which is our view. Decentralisation must be the rule, in favour of the national administrations or external agencies. Regarding these agencies, the three institutions should take the deliberations on governance as an opportunity to establish a common doctrine on what is called externalisation. The establishment of independent agencies is justified whenever a scientific or technical opinion is required or decentralised management seems better. That was the case, for example, with the European Drugs Monitoring Centre. It will be the case tomorrow for food security or air safety, but provided we avoid any dismembering of the Commission's political responsibility and ensure that the latter has the legal means to account to Parliament and the Council for the way in which the agencies perform their tasks. Lastly, it is also time to look at the Union's external representation. We discussed that during this afternoon's debate on the common foreign policy. Here too we have reached the borderline between what aspects come under good governance and what may justify measures of institutional reform, questions that were raised by Commissioner Patten. The Committee on Constitutional Affairs calls for an overall study into the problem of the Union's external representation both in dealing with third countries in international negotiations and in international bodies, and to consider the establishment of a common diplomatic service. The debate on governance is thus launched. We will continue it in spring on the basis of the Nice conclusions and the new Commission proposals.

Political group: PPE-DE