Resolution of the Committee of the Regions on "The outcome of the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference and the discussion on the future of the European Union"
Date: 2001-04-04
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: European Union, intergovernmental conference (EU)

12.9.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 253/25

Resolution of the Committee of the Regions on ‘The outcome of the 2000 Intergovernmental
Conference and the discussion on the future of the European Union’

(2001/C 253/08)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Treaty of Nice approved by the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments
of the Member States at the meeting of the European Council held on 7-11 December 2000, and to the
Protocol on the Enlargement of the European Union, the Declaration on the Enlargement of the European
Union and the Declaration on the Future of the Union to be included in the Final Act of the Conference,
which are appended to the Treaty of Nice;

having regard to the resolution of the European Parliament of 14 December 2000 on the outcome of
European Council meeting in Nice on 7-11 December 2000 (B5-0938, 0939 and 0942/2000);

having regard to its opinion of 15 September 1999 on the institutional aspects of enlargement — ‘Local
and regional government at the heart of Europe’ (CdR 52/99 fin) (1);

having regard to its resolution of 3 June 1999 on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference (CdR
54/99 fin) (2) and its opinion of 17 February 2000 on the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference (CdR
53/99 fin) (3);

having regard to its resolution of 20 September 2000 entitled ‘For a European constitutional framework’
(CdR 144/2000 fin) (4);

having regard to its opinion of 16 February 2000 on the process of drawing up a Charter of Fundamental
Rights of the European Union (CdR 327/99 fin) (5), its resolution of 20 September 2000 on the Charter
of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CdR 140/2000 fin) (6) and its resolution of 13 December
2000 on the approval of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CdR 381/2000
fin) (7);

having regard to the decision of its Bureau of 12 December 2000, in accordance with the fifth paragraph
of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community and Rule 42(2) of its Rules of
Procedure, to draw up a resolution on the outcome of the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference and the
discussion on the future of the Union and to instruct the Commission for Institutional Affairs to prepare
the work;

having regard to the draft resolution adopted unanimously by the Commission for Institutional Affairs at
its meeting on 23 February 2001 (CdR 430/2000 rev.) (rapporteur: Mr Dammeyer (D-PSE);

whereas after ten months of intensive negotiations, the Nice European Council of 11 December 2000
brought the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to a close and approved a new Treaty covering the four
key issues of the IGC, namely: the size and composition of the European Commission; the weighting of
votes at meetings of the Council; the replacement of unanimous voting by qualified majority voting in
the decision-making processes; and increased cooperation;

(1) OJ C 374 of 23.12.1999, p. 15.
(2) OJ C 293, 23.10.1999, p. 74.
(3) OJ C 156, 6.6.2000, p. 6.
(4) OJ C 22, 24.1.2001, p. 4.
(5) OJ C 156, 6.6.2000, p. 1.
(6) OJ C 22, 24.1.2001, p. 1.
(7) OJ C 144, 16.5.2001, p. 42.

C 253/26

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

12.9.2001

whereas the Treaty of Nice provides for a number of changes to Treaty Article 263 relating to the
Committee of the Regions. In future CoR members will have to ‘either hold a regional or local authority
electoral mandate or [be] politically accountable to an elected assembly’, the appointment of CoR
members and alternates will be determined by the Council by a qualified majority, and the term of office
of CoR members will come to an end ‘when the mandate on the basis of which they were proposed
comes to an end’;

whereas the number of members of the Committee of the Regions has been set at a maximum of 350.
The previous arrangements as regards the distribution of seats in the CoR between the Member States are
to remain unchanged. In a Union of 27 Member States, the Committee of the Regions, like the Economic
and Social Committee, is to comprise 344 members;

whereas the Declaration on the Future of the Union states that the conclusion of the IGC ‘opens the way
for enlargement of the European Union’, and that ‘with ratification of the Nice Treaty, the European
Union will have completed the institutional changes necessary for the accession of new Member States’.
This declaration also calls for ‘a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the European
Union’ in which all the institutions, all interested parties and the applicant states are to be involved. This
process is to culminate in the issuing of a declaration by the European Council at its meeting in Laeken,
Brussels in December 2001;

whereas the process should address, inter alia: 1) a more precise delimitation of competencies between
the European Union and the Member States, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity; 2) the status of the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; 3) a simplification of the Treaties; and 4) ‘the role
of national parliaments in the European architecture’. The aim is to improve ‘the democratic legitimacy
and transparency of the Union and its institutions (and) to bring them closer to the citizens of the
Member States’. After these preparatory steps have been concluded a further IGC is to be held in 2004,

adopted the following resolution at its 38th plenary session of 4 and 5 April 2001 (meeting of 4 April),
by a unanimous vote.

The Committee of the Regions

I.

welcomes the fact that the Treaty of Nice has made
1.
institutional changes, which are required for the accession of
new members and which are to pave the way for the
enlargement of the Union to include the new democracies in
central and eastern Europe along with Cyprus and Malta;

2.
notes that the Treaty of Nice falls well short of what
the Committee has deemed necessary in its opinions and
resolutions if the Union’s ability to enlarge is to be strength-
ened, its democratic legitimacy, transparency and ‘closeness to
the people’ is to be enhanced and lasting improvements are to
be made to the effectiveness of its decision-making;

that, particularly in cases where members have to be replaced
during their term of office, the appointment procedure will
thus be much quicker;

5.
welcomes the decision to set the number of Committee
members at a maximum of 350 in line with its proposals, but
regrets the failure to take advantage of
the opportunity
presented by EU enlargement to bring the distribution of seats
between the Member States into line with the Committee’s
specific political role; and deems it inappropriate that the size
of its membership and the distribution of seats between the
Member States continues to mirror that of the Economic and
Social Committee;

deplores the fact that its term of office has not been
6.
brought into line with the five-year term of the European
Parliament, despite the importance of this for its specific
political role and the effectiveness of its work;

3.
welcomes the IGC’s endorsement at long last of the
Committee’s long-standing demand for CoR members to hold
a political mandate in their home region or local authority
area if they are to become or remain members; and acknowl-
edges that the provisions of the new Treaty accord with its
own proposals;

4.
welcomes the fact that the Council will in future appoint
CoR members and alternates by a qualified majority; and trusts

7.
respects the fact that the IGC, which was obliged to
concentrate on the leftovers from Amsterdam and other
changes relating to EU enlargement, was unable to take
account of the Committee’s further demands; nonetheless
strongly renews its other demands for improvements to be
made to its involvement in the EU decision-making process;
and reaffirms in particular its demand that, with a view to
safeguarding its own rights, the Committee be given the right
to institute proceedings in the European Court of Justice and
be accorded the status of a fully-fledged EU institution;

12.9.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 253/27

II.

8.
welcomes the Declaration on the Future of the Union
and strongly endorses the intention of the Heads of State
and Government to launch forthwith a wide-ranging public
debate on the future development of the European Union
addressing,
in particular, the need to improve democratic
legitimacy, transparency and ‘closeness to the people’; and
welcomes the announcement
that a new IGC is to be
convened in 2004;

9.
welcomes the European Council’s intention to adopt a
declaration on the preparation and content of the 2004
intergovernmental conference at its meeting in Laeken under
the Belgian presidency; and trusts that it will be formally
involved in an appropriate manner in this wide-ranging
discussion;

10.
agrees that particular attention should be paid in this
debate to (i) a better delimitation of competencies between the
European Union and the Member States, taking account of the
internal distribution of competencies within each Member
State, (ii) simplification of the Treaties, and (iii) the status of
the Charter of Fundamental Rights; but also considers it to be
urgently necessary to extend the debate to include: a root-and-
branch reform of the Council; reform of the procedure for
amending the Treaties; the strengthening of the European
Commission’s ability to function and responsibility; and —
above all — the political role of the CoR and its transformation
into a Community institution;

11.
proposes that, in connection with a better delimitation
of competencies, there be a review of the division of political
responsibilities in key policy areas between the European
Union, on the one hand, and the Member States and their
regional and local authorities, on the other, inter alia in the
light of the current debate on European governance; and
would place special emphasis in this context on regional
policy, an area where the subsidiarity principle should be
observed more closely and regions’ autonomy should be
strengthened further;

that,

points out

in the context of preparing and
12.
organising the 2004 intergovernmental conference,
is
necessary above all to examine (i) which tasks can and must
be performed jointly by a considerably enlarged and much
more heterogeneous Union,
(ii) what Treaty reforms are
required for the EU tasks thus defined and (iii) how the
European Union’s condensed and reformed tasks can be clearly
set out in the Treaty;

it

13.
trusts that, when responsibilities are allocated to the
European Union, top priority will be given to the subsidiarity
principle, which has been a fundamental part of the Treaties
since Maastricht and is binding on all European institutions;

14.
points out that the principles applicable to the distri-
bution of responsibility and power between central, regional
and local government in the individual Member States must
be respected;

15.
emphasises, in this regard, that many competencies of
the future European Union need to remain shared competen-
cies — shared not only between the EU and national govern-
ments, but also, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, with
regional and local government; and further notes that the term
competency is not limited to a power to legislate, but includes
other legal powers of action within the responsibility of each
sphere of government;

points to the need also to improve the legal machinery
16.
for the delimitation of competencies; and proposes that the
possibilities for a more systematic and better gradation of EU
competencies be examined;

17.
trusts that in the future architecture for the European
institutions, the role played by regional and local authorities
in Europe will be upgraded, in accordance with the subsidiarity
principle, so as to reflect their importance for European
unification and for the implementation of European policy at
grassroots level; and considers that it will therefore be necess-
ary to give the Committee of the Regions full institutional
status, to provide it with a structure enabling it to carry out
efficiently the duties assigned to it, and to grant it powers
which go beyond a purely consultative role, thereby making it
a participant in the European decision-making process in
which all political levels in the Member States — from local
authority to region with legislative powers — have their place
and share responsibility;

18.
considers at any event that any other new EU institution
— such as a second chamber for the European Parliament or a
new representative institution comprising representatives of
national parliaments — is not expedient or necessary;

19.
would make express reference in this context to its
experiences and achievements; and demands that any further
institution set up alongside the European Parliament and the
Council should be filled with representatives of regional and
local authorities and should evolve from the Committee of the
Regions;

thinks that it is vital to press ahead resolutely with the
20.
overdue political debate on a root-and-branch reform of the
Council, its duties and working methods, in the interests of
greater transparency and subsidiarity;

21.
reiterates its support for the European Parliament’s
proposal that the Treaties be consolidated into a single text
comprising a core part (preamble, objectives, fundamental
rights and provisions dealing with the institutions, decision-
making procedures and the various competencies) and a
separate part on EU policies;

C 253/28

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

12.9.2001

22.
reaffirms the demand which it has repeatedly made for
the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be incorporated into the
Treaties as a legally-binding text; and points to how this will
tie in at the planned Intergovernmental conference with a clear
definition of the areas where the EU is empowered to act;

the Nice European Council

23.
welcomes the call made by the Heads of State and
for a wide-
Government at
ranging debate, involving all interested parties, on the future
development of the EU; regards it as essential that the EU
institutions, all Member State governments and parliaments
the applicant states are properly
and representatives of
involved in this debate; notes with considerable interest the
proposal put
the ‘future
European agenda’ be prepared by a convention; and demands
that the Committee of the Regions be formally involved in this
process;

forward by various parties that

III.

24.
will convene representatives of the EU’s regional and
local authorities to a general assembly in mid-October 2001
in order to discuss the future of the Union and to set out their
demands for the ‘Laeken Declaration’; and urges the regional
and local authorities in the Member States to play an active
and stimulating role and launch a public debate on the future

Brussels, 4 April 2001.

of Europe forthwith in their respective areas of responsibility,
in the interests of more democracy, transparency and subsidi-
arity;

also calls on the regional and local authorities in the
25.
Member States to support the proposals set out
in this
resolution vis-à-vis their national and regional governments
and parliaments; addresses this request in particular to those
regions which have a large say in European matters vis-à-vis
their national governments and are involved in ratifying
amendments to the Treaties; and would invite these ‘consti-
tutional regions’, in particular, to collaborate closely with the
Committee of the Regions as the sole body representing
regional and local authorities;

26.
calls on the European political parties and their rep-
resentatives in European and national political bodies to
support and promote the proposals set out in this resolution;

27.
instructs its President to: forward this resolution to the
Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the
European Commission, all Member State governments and
parliaments and the regional authorities of the Member States;
fight for the Committee of the Regions’ formal involvement in
the debate about the future of the EU and in the preparations
for the next intergovernmental conference; and prepare the
general assembly of the regional and local authorities, to be
held in October 2001.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos CHABERT