A4-0179/97

Resolution on the relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments

The European Parliament,

- having regard to its resolutions of 17 June 1988 on the democratic deficit in the European Community ((OJ C 187, 18.7.1988, p. 229.)), 16 February 1989 on the conciliation procedure ((OJ C 69, 20.3.1989, p. 151.)), 12 July 1990 on the preparation of the meeting with the national parliaments to discuss the future of the Community (the 'Assizes') ((OJ C 231, 17.9.1990, p. 165.)), and 10 October 1991 on relations between the European Parliament and the national parliaments after the Conference of Parliaments of the European Community ((OJ C 280, 28.10.1991, p. 144.)),

- having regard to the various proposals put forward by EU national parliaments for reinforcing their role on EU matters,

- having regard to the conclusions adopted by the Conference of European Affairs Committees (COSAC) in Dublin on 16 October 1996,

- having regard to the Protocol suggested by the Irish Presidency in their Outline for a Draft Treaty,

- having regard to the Round Table meeting with members from national parliaments on 16-17 April 1997,

- having regard to Rule 148 of its Rules of Procedure;

- having regard to the report of its Committee on Institutional Affairs (A4- 0179/97),

A. whereas there is reinforced public demand for decision-making within the European Union to take place as close as possible to the citizen and for the European Union to become more open and democratically accountable in its decision-making process and administrative culture,

B. whereas while the competences of the EU have grown in recent years, this has not been matched by a corresponding increase in the powers of parliaments within the EU,

C. having regard, therefore, to the need to strengthen parliamentary control over EU legislative and other activities if the future development of the EU is to be in line with the aspirations of its citizens,

D. having regard to the distinctive and complementary roles to be played by the European Parliament and by national parliaments in this key task of strengthening democratic accountability over EU matters, the European Parliament in controlling the actions of the other EU institutions and bodies, and the national parliaments in controlling their own national governments when the latter act in their EU capacity,

E. whereas national parliaments and the European Parliament share the objective of close cooperation to enable them to carry out optimally the duties of political representation entrusted to them by the citizens of Europe,

F. having regard to the need not to complicate further the institutional structure of the EU, and also to maintain the existing variety of parliamentary cultures within the Member States of the EU,

G. considering that a number of measures now need to be taken at the IGC and elsewhere in order to reinforce the roles of the parliaments of the Union, and to maximize their collective impact, with due respect for the single institutional framework, without creating new formal structures nor undercutting national constitutional provisions or parliamentary traditions,

1. Considers that democratic accountability on EU matters can best be achieved by a combination of the following actions:

(i) more systematic identification of where there is currently inadequate scope for democratic control of EU matters by national parliaments and by the European Parliament;

(ii) achieving a more open and transparent European Union;

(iii) strengthening the powers of the European Parliament;

(iv) reinforcing national parliamentary scrutiny of EU issues;

(v) reinforcing cooperation between the parliaments of the Union;

The continuing 'democratic deficit¨

2. Notes that there are still severe problems of democratic deficit at EU level, and that these are most acute in those cases where proper control cannot be ensured either at national or at European Parliament level;

3. Considers that there are some general problems that are at the heart of the current democratic deficit at EU level:

(i) qualified majority voting has been introduced in the Council in a considerable number of legislative areas, where individual national parliaments are sidelined in the decision-making process and yet where the European Parliament does not have powers of co-decision;

(ii) neither the Council nor the European Council , which are major EU institutions , can incur any ultimate political censure, since no vote of confidence in them is possible either in the national parliaments or in the European Parliament;

(iii) democratic control over bodies (such as Council working groups, comitology committees and decentralized EU agencies) taking, advising upon, or implementing a large number of highly technical EU decisions, is often only indirect or even non-existent;

(iv) EU decision-making processes remain far too secretive and non-transparent, which is particularly harmful when the Council is acting in its legislative capacity;

4. Considers, moreover, that there are a number of specific policy areas where the democratic deficit is particularly obvious:

- common foreign and security policy;

- home affairs and justice;

- economic and monetary policies in the context of EMU;

- agricultural policy;

- international commercial agreements;

- the procedure for amending the Treaties (Article N of the EU Treaty);

5. Points out that further problems are caused by insufficient coordination between the European Parliament and national parliaments such as over the transposition of EU directives and over the control of fraud and maladministration;

6. Considers that there is a risk of these various problems of democratic accountability becoming more rather than less serious as a result of the Intergovernmental Conference;

7. Believes, in this context, that the likely multiplication of examples of 'flexibility¨ or 'reinforced cooperation¨ not involving all the Member States will pose major new problems for parliamentary control;

A more open and transparent European Union

8. Considers that it is of central importance that the general principle of openness and transparency be introduced into the Treaty, along with the requirement for public access to documents, and that there then be adequate implementing rules to ensure, as a minimum, that the Council act in public in its legislative capacity;

9. Welcomes the fact that all those who spoke at the Round Table with national parliaments on 16-17 April 1997 strongly supported these demands, and calls on the individual national parliaments of the Union to urge their governments to adopt them at the IGC and to follow them up afterwards;

10. Believes that democratic control by the parliaments of the Union would be facilitated if the IGC were to lead to improvement in the structures and decision-making processes of the Union, such as a reduction in the number of and simplification of EU legislative procedures, and the unification of the Community budget;

Strengthening democratic control through the European Parliament

11. Believes that the distinctive role of the European Parliament in democratic control of EU institutions would be greatly reinforced if a number of key reforms were adopted, in particular:

- extending co-decision so that it becomes the normal procedure for EU legislation, and so that true budgetary codecision, doing away with the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, is also introduced;

- extending the scope of the assent procedure to any amendment of the Treaty, decisions based on Article 235 and any other decisions of an organic, quasi-constitutional character and to all international agreements, and strengthening the role of the European Parliament in the appointment of the President of the Commission, the Commission as a whole, and other major EU appointments;

- an increased say for the European Parliament on second and third pillar matters, on the preparation of international trade agreements, on EMU and in other fields such as agriculture;

recalls its proposals on the above points in its resolutions of 17 May 1995 on the functioning of the Treaty on European Union with a view to the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference - Implementation and development of the Union ((OJ C 151, 19.6.1995, p. 56.)), 13 March 1996 embodying (i) the opinion of the European Parliament on the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference, and (ii) an evaluation of the work of the Reflection Group and definition of the political priorities of the European Parliament with a view to the Intergovernmental Conference ((OJ C 96, 1.4.1996, p. 77.)) and 16 January 1997 on the general outline for a draft revision of the Treaties ((OJ C 33, 3.2.1997, p. 66.));

Reinforced national parliamentary scrutiny of EU issues

12. Notes that techniques of national parliamentary scrutiny of EU matters are entirely a matter of national responsibility, and encourages continued exchange of national experiences on these questions, so that parliaments are familiar with what is going on elsewhere in the EU, and so that 'best practices¨ can be adopted on a wider basis;

13. Believes, however, that a number of measures should be taken at European level to facilitate the tasks of national parliamentary scrutiny;

14. Strongly supports the idea of minimum time limits for consideration of EU legislative documents, as proposed at the COSAC meeting in Dublin in October 1996 and in the Irish Presidency draft Treaty, as well as by a considerable number of individual national parliaments;

15. Further supports the proposals that a minimum period of notice of four weeks should be incorporated within a revised version of the existing Declaration 13, and that this non-binding declaration be given Treaty force by making it into a protocol;

16. Considers, however, that there are some additional practical problems that need to be resolved if any new minimum notice system is to work properly:

- the four-week notice period should also apply to pre-legislative documents such as Green and White Papers and any other Commission consultation documents;

- the definition of what is 'legislative¨ for the purpose of any protocol should not be established unilaterally in the Council's own Rules of Procedure, but should be laid down by joint agreement between the European Parliament, Commission and Council, with national parliaments being given the opportunity to convey their views;

- the notice period should begin when the Council transmits the last language version of a document to the government of the Member State concerned;

- the conditions for urgency exceptions should be clearly set out in the implementing rules, and any specific urgency requests properly justified;

- national parliaments should be kept fully informed, and be given an opportunity to express their views, when substantial changes are made to a text in the course of a legislative procedure. The European Parliament should seek to promote the utmost openness as regards progress in conciliations under the co-decision procedure;

17. Calls for fuller use to be made of electronic transmission of Commission and other EU documents;

18. Suggests, moreover , that there be two-way electronic transmission of documents, in order to promote exchange of views and information between the parliaments of the Union and the EU institutions;

19. Calls for national parliaments to be given the annual legislative programme at the earliest possible date after it has been drawn up by the Commission, in order to give them the opportunity to consider its contents and to transmit their views; further calls for them to be regularly informed on the implementation of the programme;

20. Considers that this would provide an effective means of informal involvement of national parliaments at an early stage of legislative planning, and would also help national parliaments to examine whether projected legislative proposals are compatible with the principle of subsidiarity;

21. Notes that a further proposal has been put forward for national parliaments to be given a right to go to the European Court of Justice on grounds of 'ultra vires¨ or of non-conformity with the Treaty, but considers that the constitutional objections to such a proposal, as pointed out by those national parliamentarians who spoke on this issue at the Round Table of 16-17 April 1997, outweigh its possible advantages;

Reinforced cooperation between the parliaments of the Union

22. Supports the conclusions of the Dublin COSAC meeting of October 1996 as regards improving the workings of the COSAC, such as through better forward planning and preparation of its meetings;

23. Further supports the idea of COSAC putting forward suggestions on matters of common concern, such as on subsidiarity or on second and third pillar items; believes that they should be addressed to the European Parliament, Council and Commission and that this would not interfere with national constitutional traditions or pose problems about the representative nature of COSAC;

24. Recognizes that there is no present demand for the convening of a Conference of the Parliaments of the Union ('Assizes¨), but recommends maintaining Declaration 14 in its present form as it may prove useful in the future;

25. Calls for reinforced cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments on a variety of levels, such as by joint meetings of national and European Parliament committees in the same field, bilateral committee meetings, and meetings between respective rapporteurs and between representatives of corresponding political groups;

26. Considers that reciprocal facilities between the national parliaments and the European Parliament have developed somewhat in recent years, but remain very variable from country to country and are still inadequate; notes that, unlike the existing Declaration 13, the need for such reciprocal facilities is not mentioned in the Dublin COSAC conclusions or in the draft protocol put forward by the Irish Presidency, and calls for it to be reproduced in any new protocol;

27. Stresses the European Parliament's undertaking not to deliver a favourable opinion on the reform of the Treaties unless they meet the requirements to render the Union more efficient, democratic and transparent, and expresses the wish that the national parliaments take this opinion of the European Parliament into account during the ratification process;

28. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission and to national parliaments.