B4-0850, 0851, 0852, 0856 and 0915/95

Resolution on the European Council in Cannes

The European Parliament,

A. having regard to the uncertainty surrounding the future of the European Union, the public disquiet that this is creating, notably as regards the economic situation with its high level of unemployment, the confusion over the timetable for the third phase of EMU and the divergent expectations of the 1996 Treaty revision intergovernmental conference, especially regarding the CFSP and defence,

B. whereas the UN soldiers in former Yugoslavia find themselves in a situation of extreme vulnerability due to their mandate, their command structure and their equipment and installations,

C. whereas the legitimate government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, unlike the Bosnian Serb militia, should be seen as a friendly state; whereas Bosnia- Herzegovina, based on a pluralistic democracy and a multi-cultural society, is part of the community of values on which the European Union is based,

The European Parliament,

1. Expresses its strongest condemnation of the escalation of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, especially the increased and deliberate killing of civilians, the aggression against the safe areas and the barbaric kidnapping of the UN peace-keepers by the Bosnian Serbs;

2. Calls for the immediate release of all the UN soldiers and gives its support to initiatives to achieve this objective;

3. Considers totally unacceptable the idea of a UN retreat from Bosnia- Herzegovina, because this would imply completely giving up the idea of peace-keeping or peace-restoration, and would open the way to a further escalation of the war;

4. Calls on the Council and the governments of the Member States to take all necessary measures to provide the UN with the human and logistical resources needed by the peacekeeping troops in order genuinely to protect the civilian population, especially in the safe areas, to prevent a further escalation of the war and to obtain the implementation of the peace plan drawn up by the Contact Group;

5. Welcomes and supports the creation of the Rapid Reaction Force which, while making use of NATO facilities, will be under European command; recognizes, however, that it will be insufficient, if limited to its present size, to enforce the protection of the safe areas;

6. Supports the call of the French Government to broaden the mandate of UNPROFOR in order to reduce their vulnerability and to strengthen their ability to fulfil their humanitarian tasks by providing a credible defence of the safe areas and to guarantee free access to them; insists that the elimination of heavy weapons must be implemented; invites EU Member States to commit themselves seriously to achieving these goals;

7. Insists that the UN should remain in Bosnia-Herzegovina and be able to act effectively; if that should prove impossible, Bosnia-Herzegovina must be provided with the means of self-defence in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter;

8. Urges the governments of Serbia and Montenegro finally to recognize Bosnia- Herzegovina as a sovereign state within its current borders and to exercise all forms of pressure on the Bosnian Serb leadership to obey the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

9. Calls on those citizens in the Member States of the European Union who are concerned about the situation in the former Yugoslavia to ensure that their governments are made aware of public feeling on this issue;

10. Calls upon the European Council meeting in Cannes to take decisive action to restore public confidence in the European Union, notably by taking measures to strengthen the Union's contribution to the fight against unemployment by:

- releasing the European Investment Fund from its artificial constraints which inhibit its full expansion, so that it can play a macro-economic role in the realization of the proposals in the Delors White Paper, notably by helping small and medium-sized enterprises,

- implementing the commitments it made in Essen to top up the funds available for the trans-European network, ensuring that financial constraints do not obstruct the employment and competitiveness objectives laid down in the Delors White Paper, and ensuring better coordination of all the financial and investment instruments available to the Union,

- laying down measures to provide for better coordination and cooperation between the social affairs ministers and the ECOFIN Council,

- proposing instruments and concrete action to implement those proposals contained in the White Paper which have still not been developed, including those in Chapter X and those which would boost sustainable economic growth,

- endorsing the Commission's communication of 8 March 1995 on the follow- up to the Essen European Council (COM(95)0074 - C4-0114/95), notably on the creation of a 'multilateral surveillance procedure on employment', and initiating inter-institutional discussions on further steps to be taken;

11. Welcomes the approach taken by the Commission's Green Paper to the arrangements for introducing a single currency, with particular reference to its proposal for a 3-stage transition scenario involving the setting of absolute deadlines to complete the process no later than the year 2001 or 2002 depending on the date when the political decision to introduce the single currency is taken;

12. Welcomes the concept of critical mass defined in the Green Paper which guarantees the credibility and irreversibility of the single currency from the beginning of the third phase;

13. Welcomes the interactive nature of the Green Paper which makes possible a broad debate and calls for the main emphasis to be on defining more precisely the operations involved in the critical mass, on a more in-depth consideration on how to counteract any attempt at speculation which might destabilize the process and on relations between the single currency and the currencies of member states of the single market which may not have joined monetary union, thereby supporting efforts by the latter to join EMU and to reduce any risk of a widening gap between the single market and the single currency;

14. Acknowledges that the proposals in the Green Paper will go a long way towards reducing the political uncertainty still surrounding the Economic and Monetary Union project, and makes an urgent appeal to the Cannes European Council to give a firm political signal in this direction;

15. Recalls its proposals for institutional reform, as set out in its resolution 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 ((Minutes of that Sitting, Part II.)), i.e. equipping the Union with a more effective, more transparent and more democratic decision-making system whilst maintaining the 'acquis communautaire' and a single institutional framework;

16. Calls on the European Council to take note of the reports made by the institutions on the subject of the 1996 Treaty revision, by requesting the Reflection Group responsible for preparing the IGC to base its work and proposals on these reports, especially the report by the European Parliament, and by granting it as broad a mandate as possible;

17. Strongly supports the prospect of accession by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; takes the view, however, that these countries will be able to join only if they accept the 'acquis communautaire' and if the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference succeeds in strengthening democracy and establishing more effective, democratic and transparent decision-making mechanisms; welcomes the Council decision to start accession negotiations with Malta and Cyprus and to invite these countries to the Cannes European Council;

18. Renews its opposition to the Customs Union with Turkey while Kurdish Members of Parliament are imprisoned and the rights of the Kurdish people are not recognized, and calls on the Council to forward to it without delay the outcome of the negotiations on the Customs Union;

19. Calls on the European Council to give greater priority to the new EU- Mediterranean partnership, firstly by making every effort to ensure the best possible preparation of the Conference on Security, Cooperation and Development in the Mediterranean region, which will be the first purely European project the success of which could be a great boost for the credibility of the CFSP, and secondly by recognising the need for adequate funding for Mediterranean policy;

20. Calls on the Council to undertake a joint action in those African countries threatened with genocide, notably Rwanda and Burundi;

21. Calls for the EDF to be made an integral part of the European Union budget;

22. Reiterates that it will not accept a reduction in real terms of the sums allocated under the previous Financial Protocol and that it will do everything in its power to maintain the Union's commitment to the ACP countries;

23. Calls on the European Council not to approve the political guidelines of programmes in the field of external policies unless the budgetary authority has first defined the funding possibilities;

24. Calls on the European Council to restate that action to combat fraud against the Union budget will be one of the major priorities and, in this connection, stresses that the Council should adopt as a matter of urgency texts on the protection of the Union's financial interests, taking Parliament's position into account;

25. Calls on the European Council to support Parliament's request to the Commission to propose a European Charter of Public Services and a global definition of 'universal service';

26. Urges the Council to reach agreement with Parliament on the still unclear procedures for institutional cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs, in the form of an inter-institutional agreement, which should at the same time encourage the Commission to make full use of its right of initiative;

27. Is concerned at the fact that Europol is being set up without prior strengthening of the Commission's role and without funding from the Community budget or monitoring by the Court of Auditors, and that it will neither fall within the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice nor be accountable to the European Parliament; calls formally on the Council, therefore, to open the consultation procedure immediately and urges the Council to take Parliament's views into account before the convention is finally adopted;

28. Calls on the European Council to adopt the proposals made by Parliament on several occasions to combat racism and xenophobia, as well as by the consultative commission, to ensure that the European Union and the Member States give a clear and firm response to the menaces of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, and to decide in principle in favour of the EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights;

29. Calls on the Commission and the Council not to prolong the mandate for the Molitor Group, since the work of the Group to 'simplify and put under subsidiarity¨ European legislation on 'the environment¨, 'employment and social affairs including health and security¨, 'food hygiene¨ and 'machine norms¨ has been done in secret without using the normal democratic procedures;

30. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the other institutions and to present it to the Cannes European Council.