Examination of Witnesses (Questions 95-99)
COMMISSIONER MARGOT
WALLSTRÖM, MR
CHRISTIAN LEFFLER
AND MR
TOMAS NIKLASSON
12 JULY 2007
Q95 Chairman: Vice President Wallström,
thank you very much for coming back again, having rearranged your
diary. We are very pleased you could do that. As I have said,
we have two ongoing inquiries. One is the Annual Policy Strategy
document which you have taken responsibility for as the Minister
responsible for communicating with parliaments, and the second
one is into the Council conclusions and the purpose and structure
of those. I have said to you privately that we would also like
to ask you a couple of questions at the end about your statement
yesterday to the European Parliament which is of interest to us
generally since we have been following the process of the Council
and the proposed IGC. Could I first ask you to introduce your
colleagues before we start our questions?
Commissioner Wallström: Thank
you very much, Chairman and honourable Members, for this opportunity
to come back here and answer any questions you might have. I would
be happy if I could just give a short introduction as well to
the APS. It will only take a few minutes. With me I have Christian
Leffler, who is my Head of Cabinet, and Tomas Niklasson, who is
working for the Secretariat General on these issues.
Q96 Chairman: Can I start off the
first session on the Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 put out by
the Commission? It says in the Annual Policy Strategy document
that the Commission looks forward to a "constructive dialogue"
and exchange of views with the European Parliament and the Council
about where the priorities should lie in 2008. Can you explain
exactly what is meant by this constructive dialogue with other
EU institutions and what have been the results so far?
Commissioner Wallström: Thank
you very much. First of all can I say that the Barroso Commission
has made it one of its priorities to be involved in a constant
dialogue with national parliaments and we have had several hundreds
of visits now by Commissioners to national parliaments all over
the European Union. The other day we received the hundredth opinion
from national parliaments on different proposals from the Commission.
We have also been involved in the consultation on the Annual Policy
Strategy and I am very pleased to see the strong interest by the
British Parliament in our Annual Policy Strategy. I also gave
evidence to the House of Lords EU Committee on 3 May and have
since received their first report on the APS. This is really,
you could say, a test for consulting more thoroughly on the Annual
Policy Strategy. We are, of course, trying to improve this procedure
constantly and this is a way to inform everyone at an early stage
what our overall political priorities are for 2008 and, of course,
we welcome any input into this strategy. We have also had, should
I say, a rather detailed discussion with the different committees
in the European Parliament. We would like to see this becoming
more political, not so much into the detail of every committee's
work but rather more on the overall policy strategy, but this,
I am sure, can be improved and we welcome any input. So far we
have also listened especially to what the European Parliament
says and we have adopted their views. For example, we have introduced
different proposals on energy policy which they underlined and
which was clearly their wish, and we have also done it on a number
of other policy issues. Would you allow me to give you a brief
background and maybe put the Annual Policy Strategy in the right
context?
Q97 Chairman: If you wish.
Commissioner Wallström: I
would like to say something on the policy focus and also the impact
on financial resources. As you have seen, the document outlines
the policy priorities, it defines the communication priorities
for the first time and it underlines our commitment to better
regulation. It is the first element in the preparation for our
work programme. I have also presented the APS to the COSAC meeting
in Berlin. We have received already a number of written contributions
or resolutions from national parliaments and in some parliaments
they arranged an open plenary debate where we had a chance to
explain the Annual Policy Strategy and invite discussion. This
will be reflected in the next stage of this procedure which is
our legislative and work programme for next year, so you can say
that it is an open consultation process involving both national
parliaments and the European Parliament. The strategic objectives
defined by the Barroso Commission at the beginning of our mandate
remain valid—prosperity, solidarity, security and a strong
and open Europe in the world—and summarise the core ambitions
of this Commission. A number of highly important issues are, of
course, not confined to just one or the other of the strategic
objectives. They need to be taken forward in synergy across policy
areas. Three of these have been highlighted in the Annual Policy
Strategy, the first being energy and climate change, where we
need to deliver on the very positive results of the European Council
in Hampton Court and the key elements of the energy package must
be put in place—well-functioning internal markets, a vibrant
renewable sector, energy efficiency and solidarity and interconnection.
All those proposals will be taken forward. We will, of course,
also push for strong commitments by the EU and global stakeholders
to the post-Kyoto process. Secondly, there is the renewed Lisbon
Strategy for Growth and Jobs. We think we are making good progress
on this in partnership with the Member States and next year we
will reflect on how to press ahead with further reports. We will
do a single market review and a social reality check which will
be presented this year and the Commission will launch a series
of initiatives to make sure that the single market continues to
deliver on its economic promise and allow citizens to reap the
benefits. The third cross-cutting issue is migration and with
its various facets this is a key challenge to the EU. Labour migration
properly managed can make a positive contribution to our economies
and our societies and we plan to propose further measures to achieve
a common European asylum system by 2010. We will also need further
action on preventing illegal migration, combating the ruthless
business of human trafficking and also protecting our common borders.
Finally, if you would allow me just one word on human resources,
this Annual Policy Strategy also proposes some reallocation of
staff and calls for a limited number of additional staff in line
with the Commission's predicted needs to cover the needs due to
enlargement only. All other priorities will be covered through
internal reallocation within the Commission and efficiency gains.
There is already, as you know, a multi-annual financial framework
in place for the period 2007-2013, and what is proposed in our
Annual Policy Strategy falls within this framework. Some marginal
modifications that are needed are highlighted in our annual policy
plan. Most of the policy proposals included in this APS will not
have any direct impact on next year's budget. The reason for that
is that the legislative proposals first have to be adopted by
the Council and the European Parliament so the idea of establishing
a direct link between the strategic policy dialogue and the annual
budgetary process as proposed in the report drawn up by the House
of Lords EU Committee needs to be further thought through. This
may be something you would wish for but it is not yet the case
that there is total symbiosis between these two processes. After
this introduction I am happy to answer any questions you have.
Chairman: That is fine. That was integrated
into the answer to the question I asked about the dialogue. It
is worth explaining to you that the role of the European Scrutiny
Committee in the Commons is not similar to that in the Lords.
The Lords tend to set up in their Standing Committee's investigations
into the merits of proposals. We tend not to look at the merits.
We refer the merits for debate to our Standing Committees. We
deal with the question of the legal, political and economic importance
of matters that come from the European Commission and we have
referred our inquiry to all of the Standing Committees, the Select
Committees of the departments and issue committees of the House,
and some of them have in fact responded on questions of substance
in your Annual Policy Strategy document. They will be included
in our report which will come to you by the end of July when we
hope to have that finished, but we are really interested in the
process and whether it enhances the scrutiny that we try to carry
out on behalf of the UK Parliament, so it is in a sense more of
a focus on the process and its worth and robustness rather than
on the contents of the Annual Policy Strategy document itself.
Q98 Jim Dobbin: Commissioner Wallström,
welcome to the European Scrutiny Committee. That was a very interesting
introduction. I just have a couple of questions that might enable
you to expand on what you have already said. The first one is,
why has greater emphasis been placed on the dialogue this year,
particularly with the national parliaments?
Commissioner Wallström: Since
this is the first time that there has been a Commissioner responsible
for working with national parliaments and establishing a co-operation
with national parliaments, this was done for the first time with
the Barroso Commission and I do have that as a portfolio responsibility,
already two years ago I presented a ten-point programme for the
work of national parliaments. Since then we have intensified our
work on this and also tried to improve our procedures, make them
more open, more inclusive, including the contacts with national
parliaments and also with the European Parliament, and build on
our experiences. It is a bit like learning by doing to see what
we can get out of it. We would like to see more of a political
process and procedure where we also want the parliaments to be
able to say that they find these overall objectives too limited
or they would like to add this or that. As I said, one innovation
is to have also communication priorities, so you can say that
we are in a constant learning procedure but I think basically
that to give more of a voice to national parliaments is to give
us also a better chance to connect to citizens, to the democratic
traditions that exist in every Member State and with respect to
the political parties and how they work in every Member State.
I think this is the only way to create a good debate about European
affairs in Europe.
Q99 Jim Dobbin: In what ways does
the 2008 Annual Policy Strategy differ from previous years to
make the dialogue more effective?
Commissioner Wallström: I
think we have first of all been able to explain better the overall
objectives. I think we have also been able to identify communication
priorities, which has not been done before, and we have been able
to take into account, for example, what the European Parliament
has said. One other example of where we have made our Commission
priorities in tune with the European Parliament's comments is
requests on ports policy. They wanted a legal framework on services
of general interest, they wanted measures in the area of "flexicurity"
which I know my colleague is now working on to present later on,
the regulatory framework for electronic communication, et cetera,
so we have been able to follow up more clearly, I would say, and
prove to them that we have taken these things into account. We
have added a number of issues and initiatives but it is never
complete. This is in constant evolution.
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