Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 84)
THURSDAY 3 MAY 2007
MR KLAUS
WELLE AND
MR ANTHONY
TEASDALE
Q80 Chairman:
That information was shared with the European Parliament? Was
it published or circulated?
Mr Welle: There are no tripartite efforts in
this area and I think that is a weakness.
Q81 Lord Marlesford:
My worry has always been that however rational the decision-making
process and however democratic in the sense that it seeks to reflect
desires of the people of the countries, however well you do your
job in the European Parliament and maybe we do our job in the
national parliaments and the Commission tries to take account
of all of these things, there are an awful lot of decisions in
the Council which are ultimately decided by horse-trading. How
on earth does one somehow expose these when they happen or, ideally,
reduce them?
Mr Welle: I think the Council has already gone
some way there by allowing meetings to be public when they are
legislating. We have to acknowledge there has been some movement
there. Some years ago, the Council would have said, "Our
meetings cannot be public by the very nature of what we are doing",
but nowadays the Council has gone a long way towards allowing
that. What the Parliament administration has been asking, for
example, is that the three institutions meet and establish a joint
calendar for decisions to be taken, of course knowing that those
decisions may not be taken at precisely any given moment and it
will have to be updated, but if we could have a some joint programming
on the timing of decisions coming up, that would very much help
us and them and the Commission to deal with dossiers, but up to
now Council has not been ready to engage in such an exercise.
Q82 Chairman:
I think we are coming to the end of our time, Mr Welle, but I
have one hypothetical question I would like to put to you, if
I may. I know that good fonctionnaires do not like hypothetical
questions but I am going to try anyway. If, in fact, in the end
we do move to a "permanent presidency", do you think
this will create a more tripartite framework for discussion between
the institutions?
Mr Welle: If I give you an answer, I will simply
confirm that I am not a good fonctionnaire!
Chairman: Okay.
Q83 Lord Tomlinson:
In the absence of an answer to that, can I just have one more
go. It strikes me from what you are saying about the Council that
you have got all sorts of things you would like the Council to
be doing but the Council do not acquiesce with your wishes. Does
the European Parliament have a strategic view, thinking in terms
of power in a political sense rather than competence in a juridical
sense, of where the pressure points are that it can more likely
encourage Council to be slightly more compliant?
Mr Welle: I think the Parliament has had the
experience that the political debate with the Council has to be
undertaken at the political level in Council, which is with the
presidency. Whenever the debate was conducted at this level, the
experience has been that issues could be carried forward. For
example we secured an understanding in the Austrian Presidency
that when issues could have been decided under co-decision but
the Parliament did not want to over-regulate and go into too much
detail, if that same issue came back as a comitology decision,
there was a natural right for the Parliament to have a second
look at the issue. So that was an issue that could be taken forward
with a presidency—just like the question of transparency
in Council could be taken forward with the Finnish Presidency—but
it always depends on the specific sensitivities of a specific
presidency.
Q84 Chairman:
I am afraid we have come to the end of our time. Thank you very,
very much indeed for your very clear and interesting answers to
our questions. We will send you a transcript so that you can look
at it to see that we have properly reflected what you said. I
would like to thank both you and Anthony Teasdale for being with
us. It has been a very, very interesting session for us and very
helpful to us in understanding better how the APS is discussed
amongst the three institutions. Thank you very much indeed for
your kindness in coming.
Mr Welle: I thank you for your invitation and
the possibility to set some of these arguments out. I know that
your reports have the capacity to inspire debate way beyond the
House of Lords, so if you are actively involved in the discussion
about how we can take the Better Law-Making approach forward,
this would be an excellent contribution to the debate.
Chairman: Good. Thank you for your invitation,
we will take that up. Thank you.
| 
