Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-111)
COMMISSIONER MARGOT
WALLSTRÖM, MR
CHRISTIAN LEFFLER
AND MR
TOMAS NIKLASSON
12 JULY 2007
Q100 Kelvin Hopkins: Based on the
views you have heard so far in the course of what is described
as the "constructive dialogue", how do you think the
process might be improved in future years?
Commissioner Wallström: I
would like to see maybe more of these general debates in the national
parliaments; I would welcome that, those initiatives presented
at an early stage the Annual Policy Strategy, also national parliaments
would be able to identify what will come up because it is all
about timing. It is about knowing well in advance so that national
parliaments can make their voices heard or have an influence on
the policy strategy, so I would like to maybe see more of that
as well as getting the European Parliament into more of this overall
assessment of the Annual Policy Strategy, so for them to say,
"We think the balance is too much on this or that",
or, "We would like to add bigger issues". Otherwise
every committee only looks at its own agenda and says, "This
particular regulation ought to be so-and-so", or, "You
have forgotten this or that", which is, of course, good as
well, but for the Annual Policy Strategy it is more about what
are the priorities for the European Union and to do more on the
communication part as well.
Q101 Kelvin Hopkins: There is much
evidence that there is a lot of scepticism about the European
Union, in which direction it is going and how far it has gone,
as evidenced by the French referendum, the Dutch referendum and,
indeed, the Swedish referendum on the euro, but these voices are
not heard in the institutions which are having this dialogue.
Would it not be better to build in some of those voices at the
institutional level?
Commissioner Wallström: This
is what comes from every national parliament. Also you would have
those voices, or the fears or the concerns, raised in the debate.
I think it would help to bring it more to the national level as
well. The debate would have to take place both in the national
parliaments according to national democratic traditions as well
as at the European level. Not one week goes by without us discussing
the results of or the lessons learned from the French referendum
or from the Dutch referendum, and the media report very much also
the Euro sceptic positions and I think this is good. That is how
it should be in a democratic society. You can hear both sides
and different views.
Q102 Chairman: I can assure you,
Commissioner, that the voice of Kelvin Hopkins is heard regularly
and loudly and most lucidly in the Parliament on all the issues
he has raised with you today. Can I ask you a question which we
have not touched on in referring to what came out of the discussion
with the Lords Committee? The document has been described as "aspirational",
which can be a sign of broad but weak indications of where we
wish to go. Would it not be more useful if it were linked more
closely to the budget and affordability of the contents of the
strategy document so that people knew, if you like, the price
tag of delivery on the things that are in the aspirations?
Commissioner Wallström: This
is ideally what you would like to see as you have it in any national
democratic decision-making process. You would like to link the
budget and the money to your political priorities but this is
not exactly how it works in the European Union because of the
time lag that comes from such a rather heavy decision-making process
that we have, and also the kind of budgeting procedures that we
have with the long-term budgets. You will only see the money come
up and be decided on afterwards based on the long term framework,
so it does not follow exactly. The timing you need is to plan
and decide on different proposals, including the budget in the
European Union, so there is no direct correspondence. The purpose
of the Annual Policy Strategy is also precisely to set this overall
political framework in which the annual budget then is to be established
and this is the first stage in a procedure where what follows
is the legislative and work programme and that is much more detailed
and that is where you can start to calculate the costs of it as
well. As it is today, the institutional framework is such that
there is seldom a direct link between the policy initiatives during
one year and their related expenses in the same year. That is
what I think we have to look at now when we are making the budget
review as well and, as you know, this is going to start in the
autumn. All the institutions will start to look at the budget
review and what we want to get out of the budget review.
Q103 Chairman: You can understand
presumably why such a question would be so important. You would
never run a national government, hopefully, or our own domestic
economies, on the basis that we decide what we want and just tell
them to send it to us regardless of the bill at the end of the
day. It may be that it is not affordable, so the problem of having
aspirational statements that become policy, that become bills
in reality, may be inconsistent with the other aspiration, which
is to be efficient, effective and economically affordable. You
can see why I hope that people are concerned because if it is
too wide a sweep it will not tell people what they are signing
up to. Eventually they will become policies and policies will
come with budgets and bills and costs.
Commissioner Wallström: Chairman,
they do not have to be too concerned because there is a budgetary
and legal framework that sets the frames and the limits called
for in expenses that we will have for policy initiatives and we
know that we can also not go to the European Parliament and ask
for more money so we will have to stick to the budget frame for
a given year. We have had a number of examples where we think
the rigidity of this system is maybe too big and that the controls
are too burdensome. I think that if it once was lax now we are
maybe over-controlled sometimes in the use of taxpayers' money
and we have improved it also year by year, and a lot of it, of
course, is spent in Member States. Most of it is.
Q104 Mr Cash: But, Commissioner,
the Court of Auditors has failed to sign off the accounts of the
Union so often, 14 times. Forgive me, but I cannot follow what
you are saying because you are suggesting that somehow or other
there is proper accountability and I have very grave concern that
actually it is nothing of the kind.
Commissioner Wallström: The
reason for this is exactly that, that most of the money is spent
in Member States and what we now try to do is also to make Member
States declare how they use and spend the money from the European
Union through the structural funds and the different ways of funding
activities in Member States, the common agricultural policy, for
instance. This is all spent by Member States.
Mr Cash: That is not what the Court of
Auditors says.
Chairman: Can I suggest that it is an
attractive diversion but not one we have time to follow.
Q105 Mr Clappison: Commissioner,
the Annual Policy Strategy talks a lot about the delivery agenda.
Can I ask you to say in specific terms what you are going to deliver
to our constituents?
Commissioner Wallstrom: You mean
to the UK?
Q106 Mr Clappison: What you would
say to our constituents and people elsewhere what you are going
to do, specifically.
Commissioner Wallström: I
could mention, let us say, climate change and energy issues, if
I choose only two things, or I could mention what has been happening
on passenger safety or on roaming charges for citizens—I
think they also need a very concrete examples of how we can change
everyday life—or I could use an area which I know very well,
which is the environment, where saving water, including in the
UK, is, as a result of legislation at the EU level, implemented
in all Member States, so I think I would mention especially these
two issues because that is an interest of most citizens today.
Q107 Mr Borrow: One of the areas
in the proposal is to do further work on the Common Consolidated
Corporate Tax Base. This has been raised in the past and has been
strongly opposed by a number of Member States and many in the
UK are somewhat surprised that the Commission should be raising
this again given the strong opposition from Member States. It
seems a somewhat hopeless task and a waste of energy to seek to
further advance something which clearly is not going to get anywhere
at all.
Commissioner Wallström: You
are absolutely right and we have seen from the discussion in the
Council that the assessment of such an initiative differs from
Member State to Member State. There are also delegations who welcome
this and the European value-added is, of course, that it will
be possible to compare and use the same base in an internal European
market. It is important to be able to say that we use the same
way of calculating the tax base. It is not establishing the same
taxes but it is to say that this is how we calculate the tax base.
We are now looking at all these different views and we are reflecting
on the need for further action in this area and to be able to
describe what is the European value-added of this initiative,
and we are right now making an impact assessment, so we will look
at all the economic and social and other effects of such a proposal,
but it is clear that Member States have very different views on
it.
Q108 Mr Borrow: Could you clarify
for the Committee what is the legal base for having such a proposal?
Commissioner Wallström: That
I cannot answer straightaway but I would be happy to come back
and tell you exactly what is the legal base that we use for this.
I am not an expert in this field, as you will understand, but
I will be happy to provide the answer.
Q109 Chairman: Does none of your
officials have that information?
Mr Leffler: Not at hand.
Q110 Chairman: We would be happy
to receive correspondence to the Committee if you wish.
Commissioner Wallström: I
will do that.
Q111 Chairman: That is one of our
duties, to look at the legal base of any proposal from the European
Union.
Commissioner Wallström: Chairman,
I just want to say that there is no proposal yet. This is really
something that has been brought up for discussion with Member
States and, as I said, we are looking at doing an impact assessment
to look at what are the different views and what will be the impact
of it.
Chairman: Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Can I just say that we will send you a copy of our report and
appended to that report will be the responses we have had from
some of the Committees of the Parliament looking at the points
of substance which are contained in the Annual Policy Strategy
document and giving you a collective opinion of whatever value
that has on the process of the Annual Policy Strategy document.
I think it is worth saying to you that this Committee views very
positively the idea of engaging at a very early date with the
process of policy-making in the European Union hopefully, by alerting
the Committees of this Parliament to the issues we see of legal
and political importance, we can encourage the ministers in their
deliberations in the EU Councils to take much more seriously the
interests of parliaments in their communications with or inquiries
about any policy issue. We think it can only be positive to engage
as early as possible, so we are very grateful to the Commission
for the initiative in general.
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