WRITTEN QUESTION P-3674/00

by Herman Schmid (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(22 November 2000)

Subject: Public access to the work of the Article 133 Committee

One of the proposals for the Nice Summit is to amend Article 133 of the Treaty of Amsterdam (EU) so that, in the negotiations on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements on intellectual property (TRIPS) and services (GATS), the Council would be able to act by majority decision. It is also being proposed that the Commission alone should be allowed to conduct all negotiations in the WTO. The governments of the Member States would be allowed to follow the negotiations on the spot and convey their views to the Commission during the negotiations. If any of the three alternatives is adopted, all WTO negotiations, and not only those on the trade in goods, would fall within the Commission's sphere.

The great threat is the absence of public or political debate on the matter, for which the democratic deficit in the EU is largely to blame. A group of officials, the Article 133 Committee is preparing and dealing with trade matters on behalf of the Commission. It is practically impossible to keep track of its work as it operates behind closed doors. For example, it would be interesting to know how much of the Commission's negotiating brief for the Seattle meeting was unknown to the Member State parliaments and the general public before the WTO meeting.

How does the Commission intend to make public the documents of the Article 133 Committee and other preparatory official working parties in the EU? What public access is there to the work of the Article 133 Committee today?

Answer given by Mr Lamy on behalf of the Commission

(20 December 2000)

The proposal made by the Commission at this Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to extend the scope of Article 133 is intended to ensure that the Community can effectively defend common interests in international trade negotiations.

Although the Commission already acts as negotiator in all World Trade Organisation (WTO) areas, the option of taking decisions by a majority vote is essential for an effective trade policy. It is also consistent with the general approach taken by the Commission and the Parliament that qualified majority should be the rule and unanimity the exception.

Democratic accountability is ensured through the role of the governments in the Council, themselves accountable to their national parliaments, in adopting negotiation directives and concluding international trade agreements. However, the Commission agrees with the Honourable Member that this needs to be complemented by parliamentary control at the European level. It has therefore proposed to enhance the role of the European Parliament substantially in all aspects of trade policy. This would not only increase the accountability of trade policy, but also its efficiency because our trading partners would know that the Commission negotiates with the full backing of the democratically elected representatives of European citizens.

Already within the current legal framework, the Commission is firmly committed to enhancing transparency and public access in the trade policy debate. This applies first and foremost to the relations between the Commission and the Parliament.

The Commissioner for External trade and his senior officials participate regularly in parliamentary discussions on the whole range of trade policy issues. The Commission is also engaged in a regular dialogue with organisations of civil society on issues relating to the WTO agenda.

As regards the 133 Committee the Honourable Member refers to, this is a sub-group of the Council whose role it is to advise the Commission in the conduct of negotiations. On the specific question of access to Article 133 documents, the Commission would like to point out that making available the official documents of the 133 Committee does not lie within its responsibilities as those documents are produced by the Council Secretariat. Concerning documents transmitted by the Commission to the 133 Committee, the Commission wrote to the President of the Industry, external trade, research and energy committee on 20 January 2000, agreeing to transmit to the Parliament significant documents sent by the Commission to the 133 committee, as well as other important reports established by the Commission. Documents of a more sensitive nature are transmitted as confidential or restricted documents. A large number of documents are, however, distributed as public documents and these are posted on the Directorate General Trade website.

Public documents include the near totality of Community submissions to the WTO, as well as discussion papers concerning the Community New Round strategy.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Community has also been in the lead in arguing for a policy of improving public access to WTO documents.