Mr President, this is indeed an important issue. What is at stake, after all, is the stability and development of our single currency, the euro. At present, the voting modalities in the European Central Bank are as follows: we have twelve central bank presidents – or governors, if you will – plus six central bank directors, making a total of 18 votes. That is a relatively small and manageable body. Every member has full and unrestricted speaking and voting rights. We can assume that sooner or later, other countries will join as well. I hope that Great Britain will be one of them, but some countries from the Central and Eastern European accession candidates will undoubtedly join too, which means that it is essential to consider how these voting modalities can be amended and adjusted to the new dimension, given that in future, some 15, 20 or 25 countries may be part of the euro-zone. The Council has now asked the ECB to draw up its own proposal on this issue. Under pressure of time, a proposal has been drafted which really is not acceptable. Let me cite just a few examples: it proposes forming three groups of countries, although it is very difficult to explain why any country is in a specific group. I could do so, but it would take about ten minutes. Of course, this system is not remotely transparent, especially since a rotation system would then be introduced. This means that the first group comprising the ‘biggest’ countries would not take part in 20% of the votes, but would take part in 80% of votes. In the other groups, it is entirely possible that a country, that is to say, a central bank governor, would not participate in as many as 40% of votes. In practice, this could mean that a large country belonging to the first group would look precisely at when it is not entitled to vote, in a bid to influence the agenda and ensure that important items are excluded from the agenda when it has no right to vote. This will mean that there will be massive debates about the agenda. What is more, the details of this rotation system still have to be hammered out by the Central Bank's Governing Council. As we can imagine, it is quite likely that a country which is not entitled to vote will make even greater efforts to influence the voting behaviour by delivering lengthy speeches during the debate. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs – quite rightly, in my view – has now said that this model is not functional, transparent or efficient for such an important body as the Governing Council. We have also taken the trouble to speak with academics from France, Germany and Great Britain because we believe that the academic sector should have an input here as well. Last Monday, at 7.15 p.m., the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs accepted my proposal which – without any prior discussion on our part – is also endorsed by many other bodies and parties in this House. We say this: we are not under any real pressure of time! We say this: Let the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference, put forward a new and better proposal. It will be 2006 at the earliest, and most probably 2008 – in other words, four years – before any of the new Member States joins the euro. So take time to work out a new, transparent and viable proposal! We have presented two options in this context. We have said that even if weighting is needed, there should be no rotation system. Give us a ‘one country, one vote’ system every time, but with a weighting system based on population size, GDP and the relative size of the financial services sector – we were thinking to some extent of Luxembourg here. We have also said that in the long term, you really do need to get down to brass tacks. If confidence in the euro has increased to an adequate extent in a few years' time, the academics' proposal could be adopted. This entails differentiating between short-term operational decisions and long-term institutional/strategic decisions. The short-term decisions could then be taken by the board of central bank directors – currently six, but in future perhaps nine people – while the strategic decisions, such as the overall monetary strategy and monetary policy instruments, could remain the responsibility of the Governing Council as a whole. For this reason – and let me cite the relevant passage in English to conclude my brief speech – we are asking for ‘calls for proposals to be made by the Convention in view of its adoption’. I just want to say that the ideas I have put forward here have been drawn together in writing as a compromise amendment, for we anticipate that a new proposal – if these principles are accepted – will produce a better voting procedure than the untenable solution which has been put forward at short notice by the Governing Council, and which is not acceptable to anyone.

Political group: PPE-DE