WRITTEN QUESTION E-3782/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(6 January 2003)

Subject: Combination of parliamentary democracy with the right to decentralised decisions and diversity within a new institutional structure of the EU

1. Does the Commission agree that there is a need to defend, vis-à-vis the framework for a new administrative structure devised by the Convention on the Future of Europe which concentrates power in the combined national governments, Heads of Government and a President appointed from among them, a model of parliamentary democracy such as exists in the Member States with the usual distribution between preparation and implementation by a day-to-day administration together with a broad decision-making process on guidelines by means of a Parliament elected by all those eligible to vote?

2. Why, on 5 December 2002, in his justified attempt to defend parliamentary democracy against a regression into previous authoritarian administrative forms, did the President of the Commission give the impression that he was coupling such defence with further centralisation and harmonisation within the EU instead of the common resolution of our large-scale and cross-border environmental, humans rights, transfrontier work, transport and tax haven problems?

3. Is the President aware that, by causing the impression referred to in question 2, he was making the less democratic alternative of a Europe of governments of states unnecessarily attractive for those who, within the collectivity of Europe, are attached to the preservation of scope for decision-making at the lowest possible level and the right to diversity of the participating nations?

4. Apart from his personal preferences, does the President feel that a new institutional structure is possible in which parliamentary democracy, the protection of national parliaments and the right to diversity go hand-in-hand with decentralised decision-making on the basis of subsidiarity or a catalogue of competences for the allocation of tasks between the EU and the Member States?

5. In its attempts to convince a majority of the Convention, is the Commission prepared to emphasise guarantees of a normal distribution of tasks between Parliament and day-to-day administration and not variants which sow discord among the probable majority which seeks to defend parliamentary democracy against an authoritarian administrative form based on opaque private agreements between national governments?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(13 March 2003)

In its communication to the European Convention on the institutional architecture of the Union(1), the Commission stressed its attachment to the Community method, which is based on a balance between the institutions in the different phases of the decision-making process, from conception to implementation of EU policies. It takes the view that the roles and responsibilities of each institution must be clarified without upsetting the current institutional balance.

On 5 December 2002, when the communication was presented to the European Convention, the President of the Commission reaffirmed the Commission's intention to consolidate a Union of peoples and of States that is the first true supranational democracy.

The Commission considers that it is clear from its proposals to the Convention, both in the communication referred to above and in the communication it presented at the beginning of the Convention's deliberations(2), that it in no way intends to increase the level of centralisation and harmonisation but, rather, that the essential challenge for the Union is to meet the public's concrete expectations while respecting the diversity of national, regional and local identities.

To this end, it will be necessary not only to make a clearer distinction than is currently the case between legislative and executive functions at Union level and the role of each institution in these functions but also to involve national parliaments more closely in managing European affairs.

(1) Communication of 4 December 2002, For the European Union: Peace, Freedom, Solidarity, COM(2002) 728 final.

(2) Communication of 22 May 2002, A project for the European Union, COM(2002) 247 final.