Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
THURSDAY 3 MAY 2007
COMMISSIONER MARGOT
WALLSTRÖM, MR
STEN RAMSTEDT
AND MR
TOMAS NIKLASSON
Q40 Lord Tomlinson:
— it is not a very good way of dealing with it?
Commissioner Wallström: No, that is true.
Q41 Lord Tomlinson:
Similarly, if I go to the summary of changes in the "Financial
Framework" heading a few pages on, 3.2.5, and I look at the
various headings there: competitiveness for growth and employment,
projection in terms of APS changes zero, and cohesion for growth
and employment, APS changes zero. Then there is a 10.6 million
increase on preservation and management of natural resources.
Then we come to freedom, security and justice, zero APS increase.
Citizenship, zero APS increase. That strikes me as saying very
clearly in figure terms that these are not having any increased
significance.
Commissioner Wallström: The political explanation
for all of this is that the Financial Perspective will not change,
we agreed that it would remain basically as it was agreed for
2007-13. The changes here are marginal.
Q42 Lord Tomlinson:
Or non-existent in some cases.
Commissioner Wallström: In some cases it
is not touched. These are the only things that should be added
on or changed. It does not change the overall figures. These are
only the changes. Maybe you should have had the whole table to
be able to compare. It gives only the changes, not the full picture
on all the headings, and that is why it looks confusing. I agree,
it is totally incomprehensible.
Q43 Lord Tomlinson:
In terms of trying to read the strategy from the figures I have
to say it is impossible.
Commissioner Wallström: I think you have
to read the text as well otherwise you will not understand anything.
It is partly explained by the text on what we do and where we
do change some of the figures. In most cases they will be same
figures that were established in the decision on the Financial
Framework for 2007-13. It is important that people point to these
things. We can look and understand but if somebody comes in who
is not a Commission official it might not be that easy, so you
are right. I think you have to read the text to understand what
we are doing.
Q44 Chairman:
In that case is it not really a zero-sum game because—
Commissioner Wallström: The Financial Framework.
Q45 Chairman:
— the Financial Framework sets the ceiling and if you want
to spend more on one category you have got to spend less on another?
Commissioner Wallström: That is absolutely
true. There was an agreement to stick to the Financial Framework
Agreement and you know how tough it was to get there.
Q46 Chairman:
That was a useful exchange because that has helped us understand
what is going on. We need to read the text very carefully. Have
any of my colleagues got anything on that particular issue? I
am aware of the passage of time and I am very anxious to get on
to communication priorities but also, on the way there, just a
reference to Better Regulation. The APS does not mention the need
to give greater prominence to fundamental rights in impact assessments
and ensuring the Commission's proposals comply with fundamental
rights. Is this a concern for you at all or not? It is something
we are quite interested in. I just do not know whether this is
a priority for you, giving greater prominence to fundamental rights
in impact assessment. It is a slightly esoteric question.
Commissioner Wallström: The whole concept
of Better Regulation has very often been misconceived, misrepresented
or even misinterpreted. We keep having this debate in the European
Parliament about what is Better Regulation. Some accuse the Commission
of not wanting us to scrap existing legislation and they say,
"Why are you doing this?" We have presented a list of,
I think it is, 68 proposals so far on legislation that we have
found outdated and we can simply get rid of. This is an important
part of it, to look at things that are not modern, not up-to-date
and we can scrap them. We also look at how we can improve the
quality of our legislation, how we can make better laws and have
better consultation so when we ask people, our stakeholders of
different kinds, whether they are small and medium-sized businesses
or consumers, we will have a better proposal, a better policy.
We have to improve the quality of the things that we actually
present to the European Parliament. We have to make sure that
we have impact assessments, that when we have a proposal we look
at it and ask, "Is this from an economic, environmental and
social point of view a good proposal? Is it good enough? How can
we improve the quality of it?" All of these elements have
to be there and have to be taken into account. That is why we
have promised that every proposal in our Legislative and Work
Programme shall undergo an impact assessment, so it has to be
accompanied by an impact assessment. This is what we are living
up to. Because there were questions about, "How do you do
the impact assessments? What about the quality?" we also
established an Impact Assessment Board from November last year.
That is to make sure we have a quality check, quality support
and control for all of these impact assessments. There is a supervising
task for this board. We believe in impact assessments but this
has also been learning by doing, that you have to make sure impact
assessments are done according to the same criteria and follow
international standards for how you make an impact assessment.
Chairman: We certainly welcome the emphasis
now being placed on impact assessments. That is a very welcome
development and we attach a lot of importance to it.
Q47 Lord Tomlinson:
On the Better Regulation, can I just pursue one small question.
I was talking to David Arculus on Monday night, who was the Head
of our Better Regulation Task Force in the United Kingdom, and
he expressed his great frustration with the lack of progress he
has made in the United Kingdom in relation to his idea which was
one in, one out; if you want a new regulation you ditch one somewhere
down the line. How does your 68 out compare with the number of
new regulations that are coming in?
Commissioner Wallström: I can give you
an example. It does not always work in that mechanical way because
if you look at REACH, for example, which I know very well—too
well some would say—that one piece of legislation replaces,
I think it is, 60 existing Directives and Regulations. We will
have a one-stop shop for those who want to know how we regulate
chemicals and the place of chemicals in the market. It is in one
Directive, even if it is a long one and it has technical annexes
and all of those complexities, but it replaces many existing Directives.
You need to modernise sometimes and with a modern piece of legislation
you can get rid of a lot of the old stuff in one go. In general
I think there is more of a move towards more Framework Directives.
With 27 Member States we cannot regulate in detail on everything,
we have to move towards framework legislation and then leave it
to Member States to say exactly how it will be done and the EU
sets the target date or the overall goal for objectives and leaves
it to Member States as to how to do it and by what measures.
Chairman: Thank you. Let us move for
a moment to the European Institute of Technology.
Q48 Lord Marlesford:
Commissioner, you will be well aware that one of the sources traditionally,
as it were, of criticism of the EU, and particularly of the Commission,
was one that the Commission appears to forge ahead with some idea
before it has been agreed by the Council of Ministers. Recognising
fully your prerogative for putting forward ideas, nevertheless
we have always understood that endorsement by the Council is needed
before that can be put into practice. The European Institute of
Technology has been very controversial. In Britain it has been
studied extensively, both by the Lord Chairman's Committee and
also debated in Parliament, particularly in the House of Lords,
with a lot of considerable expertise, and in general I would summarise
by saying that it is being seen as both unnecessary and undesirable.
I am talking purely from the UK perspective. Therefore, it is
with surprise that you are intending to undertake preparatory
work during 2008 to make sure that it becomes operational in 2009,
including the appointment of a governing board and the selection
of the first knowledge and innovation communities, before the
European Parliament and the Council have considered the proposal.
Commissioner Wallström: We explain our
intentions in the Annual Policy Strategy. What happens then depends
upon a series of factors, including how the European Parliament
and the Council will look at our proposals. We will also have
to start preparations if they are ever to be realised. We have
been very open about this proposal. We have presented it and there
is a lively debate. If we get endorsement and the go-ahead from
the European Parliament and the Council we will have to be well
prepared. We are still depending on progress in both the European
Parliament and the Council.
Q49 Chairman:
This is really a wish list of what you would like to see happen
and then it will be up to the Parliament and the Council.
Commissioner Wallström: If we see that
there is absolutely no endorsement of these ideas then we will
have to conclude that it is impossible.
Q50 Chairman:
You will have to drop it.
Commissioner Wallström: So far we have
received a lot of support from other quarters. I know that the
debate is a difficult one in the UK.
Q51 Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed. In the 10 minutes that are left to
us maybe we can divide it between two issues. We are certainly
anxious to hear about your communication priorities and I wonder
whether in saying something about that you might be able to give
us some hint as to how you are going to communicate the whole
future of Europe issue as we move up towards an IGC, et cetera,
which is obviously of great interest to us. After that, if we
may, I want to close by coming back to the role of the national
parliaments in making inputs into the APS. Would you like to talk
to us a little bit about your communication priorities?
Commissioner Wallström: As you can see,
in the document we have listed the political items chosen for
special communication efforts.
Q52 Chairman:
Yes.
Commissioner Wallström: Those are the budget
review, Single Market review, social reality, migration, the institutional
settlement being part of this, energy, climate change and the
EU's role in the world. We have also said the general message
is that we have to listen better, we have to explain better and
we have to go local, that is we have to become much closer to
the citizens. We can use our representation offices in each and
every Member State, together with the European Parliament's offices,
to make sure that we inform local and regional journalists. We
meet with civil society organisations, we can make an open space
where debates take place and we also provide all the factual information
that citizens might need. We use our information network, our
Europe Direct network, including a free call service, and any
citizen can call in their own language and ask about anything.
Nowadays we even have Europe Direct offices in the UK and very
often they are in co-operation with authorities, local authorities,
libraries, et cetera, where we provide factual information for
citizens. You have a right to know what goes on at the European
Union, that is our starting point. It will take quite an effort
to communicate what happens to the Constitutional Treaty and any
new solution that might come up, but I hope all Member States
have learned a lesson from what happened. There is a price to
pay, as President Barroso often says, if six days a week you blame
Brussels for everything and on the seventh day you come and ask
people to vote "Yes" to a constitution for the European
Union, this will not work. We have to engage with citizens. As
I said, I want to turn it around. I want to see it as a right
for citizens to be informed, to get good and correct information
and to have a say. That means on our part that there is an obligation
on the institutions to create access to such information and to
listen to citizens. To me, it is a matter of democracy in the
long run. That is what we are working against to make sure that
we overcome this democratic deficit, as it is called, where citizens
feel they are so remote and Brussels bureaucracy is far away somewhere.
Every week the UK ministers go to sit around the same table as
ministers from all the other Member States to take decisions that
affect citizens' lives, so they have a right to know about this
and have an influence. How can we do that? This is what I am trying
to do with the communication policy. We have a number of tools
available to us already, including Europe by satellite where we
have the newsroom where we have the highest number of accredited
journalists coming to press conferences every day at noon. In
all of our offices we have representatives who are faces for Europe
and we have to use those to make sure that we get information
out about these issues. It is not mission impossible but mission
irresistible.
Q53 Chairman:
Can you just satisfy my curiosity on one point. I am struggling
to understand what is really meant by "Social Reality Stocktaking".
Commissioner Wallström: This is really
to see where we are on the social agenda and how people see the
European Union's role and the role of the different institutions
and what can be done. Social reality means that we look at how
we can compare Member States on social reality, what it looks
like, what about social gaps, to make sure we have an overview
of where we are. We can use the facts and figures we have access
to as well as maybe Eurobarometer and all of these instruments.
Q54 Chairman:
If I may make a slightly political point. I think one of the reasons
why Social Reality Stocktaking sends a little bit of a shiver
down the spines of politicians in Britain is because they feel
that if in effect what you are doing is making those comparisons
and identifying the gaps then you feel it is the job of the European
Union to fill the gaps with Commission proposals followed by legislation.
That may be a misunderstanding, but there is that slight feeling
that you are in the early stages of coming to a point where you
will be seeking the harmonisation of social policies.
Commissioner Wallström: The only way to
change the distribution of responsibilities and so on is through
a new treaty and the treaty does not provide for very ambitious
change in social policy, this is still reserved for Member States.
There are a number of things we can do at European Union level
to better co-ordinate or make sure we have some kind of overview
of what happens in Europe because we are so interdependent on
these issues. To avoid social dumping or salary dumping, or what
have you, it is important to know what it looks like. I would
say the Structural Funds and the way we use EU money has been
very much to raise the standard of living in many of the poorest
areas and it is important that we know what it looks like today.
Q55 Chairman:
Before I put the final question, is there anything anybody else
wants to say at this point?
Commissioner Wallström: It is hot!
Q56 Chairman:
I did not mean to sound threatening! This is really a recap of
what you said right at the very beginning. As I said, we are very
interested as national parliamentarians in knowing at what point
we can make some kind of an input into the discussions in the
build-up stage of the Annual Policy Strategy. As you quite rightly
said, it is a question of picking the right moment where, whether
it be national parliaments or the European Parliament, what they
have to say can make an impact. It seems to me as a first priority
for us we need to get an early indication of what the APS is and
we are very happy that this is directly communicated to us. During
the period in which the Annual Policy Strategy is being, as it
were, examined, taken apart and looked at very closely by the
European Parliament and eventually by the Council, how is it that
we can make our voices known as national parliamentarians? Can
we send in comments on specific parts of the policy? What is it
we can do? It is one thing to have a debate in our chamber on
this but I am not sure that the debate would necessarily be very
helpful to the Commission. Our Committee and our Sub-Committees
may have specific ideas they want to communicate.
Commissioner Wallström: I take what you
say very seriously because we can conclude after having worked
on establishing an agenda for increased co-operation with the
national parliaments that it has been a success so far. We are
very pleased with it and hope that national parliaments are pleased
with it. It gives us a lot back. It gives us a lot of input into
our work in the Commission. Also there is the fact we have had
so many visits, more than 200 visits, by Commissioners to national
parliaments, including when, for the first time, President Barroso
went to the French Senate, and that was really tough but we all
felt it was worth it. What we are doing now is looking at how
this structured dialogue has worked, what are your impressions
and what do you think we could improve. You want to know do we
take it seriously and do we take you seriously and how does that
show. One of the ideas we are looking at is how we can publish
your opinions so that everybody is able to know this is what the
House of Lords said on this or that proposal and how we can make
that accessible. We are looking at ways of how to improve it and
deepen our co-operation. One of the things that has been discussed
has to do with the `red card'. I saw the Swedish former Speaker
proposed that there should be a red card mechanism but there is
a risk with it. Of course, the Commission will always defend its
right of initiative but there is also the risk that it becomes
purely a matter of quantity and how many national parliaments
you will need which means we will wait until a certain number
of parliaments say it is interesting instead of now when we can
change a proposal because we get a very good proposal in one of
the opinions from a national parliament. That it has to be a certain
majority or percentage of the Parliament is a risky thing because
we would not even present a proposal if we risked having so many
of the national parliaments against us. It can be a very strange
debate or political situation. Our instinct is to say that is
not a good proposal, but it is a good thing to have national parliaments
involved in a much better way. You can give your views on what
you want on the Annual Policy Strategy. If you discuss it as part
of your dialogue you can give your opinions as you do on everything
else: matrimonial legislation or what have you, you have heard
a number of these proposals previously. You can say, "We
have discussed it and this is what we think. The tables are bad.
It is incomprehensible. The list of priorities ought to be shorter",
or whatever. We welcome that and think it is important. I think
the only way to anchor better the European Union in the minds
of citizens is to go through the national parliaments, the national
democratic traditions and the national political parties. How
else can people understand what goes on? It has to be anchored
at the national level. I believe in this a lot and it has to be
part of the daily, weekly, monthly political debates in every
Member State. That is when it is meaningful.
Chairman: Lord Tomlinson, who was a member
of the Convention, I know has views on the red card. Two years
ago I thought the red card was a good idea but I am now beginning
to think that it is not a good idea on the grounds that you may
well find—this is purely a personal view, I am not reflecting
the views of the Committee—a number of parliaments who have
not done their homework will hear what other parliaments are going
to do and will say, "Oh, you are going to hold up a red card,
we will do it too" and then you will get a majority of the
ignorant holding up legislation, which I think is very dangerous.
Lord Tomlinson: Rent a red card!
Q57 Chairman:
That is right. So I think the red card is a red herring.
Commissioner Wallström: That is another
risk to it. They have to decide, "Do we have any views on
this? We can send proposals and one national parliament can say,
`we have no interest in this, we will not engage, we will not
do the job'" and others will say, "We are really interested
because we know there is a debate in our country and we have a
committee", it can reflect better.
Q58 Lord Marlesford:
How many national parliaments have actually made representations
to you on this programme?
Commissioner Wallström: Forty-four chambers
in total, about 83 proposals that we have been sent in six months.
We are working on making sure that we can improve it. We have
asked for comments about how they think this process can be improved.
We think it is good.
Mr Ramstedt: Sorry, correction: 21 chambers
with a total of 83 opinions on 44 different proposals.
Q59 Lord Marlesford:
So how many countries is really what I am trying to get at.
Commissioner Wallström: Around 20 countries.
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