Examination of Witnesses (Questions 297
- 299)
TUESDAY 8 JANUARY 2008
Mr Jens Nymand Christensen and Mr Pascal Lefevre
Q297 Chairman:
May I thank you very much indeed, Mr Nymand Christensen, and also
your colleague, Pascal Lefevre, for being with us. You have stepped
into the breach very nobly to take the place of Christian Leffler,
and we understand exactly why he could not be here. We are delighted
to have you with us. I think you have been able to see some of
the questions that we would like to put to you. I should start
by saying I think this is a record number of the members of the
Select Committee who have ever come together in this room, which
demonstrates the deep interest we have in the topic of the Lisbon
Treaty. We are on the record, if that is all right with you, but
if there is anything you want to say where you want to go off
the record if you will just indicate that, but we hope that you
will not need to resort to that. I would just like to ask you
whether or not you would like to make an opening statement of
any sort or go straight into the questions, I leave it entirely
to you.
Mr Nymand Christensen: My Lord Chairman, my
Lords, thank you very much for inviting Mr Lefevre and myself
to come here today. We send apologies to you from Mr Leffler again,
who is in Slovenia with Margot Wallström who has stepped
in and replaced the President leading the Commission's delegation
to the new Presidency country. We have had to do a lot of shuffling
around. I am delighted to be here today. We are in a very interesting
period because we see a lot of opportunity from where we are now.
Let us face it, after the successful ending of the IGC and the
signing of the new Treaty here in December, we hope the Union
can very shortly move into concentrating fully on the issues at
stake for the citizens of the countries. It is, of course, an
exaggeration to say that we have not been able to deal with a
lot of matters of substance in the meantime, but it is clear,
and you have all seen it from the press coverage and the minutes
of the European Council and things like that, that institutional
matters and Treaty matters have been occupying the Heads of Government
and State for a number of years now, starting with the Laeken
Declaration over the Convention, the IGC and the ratification
process which was ultimately aborted. We see that we have reached
a very important stage where we hope that the 27 Member States
within a short period of time will be able to successfully complete
the ratification of what their prime ministers have signed up
to so that all the energies and forces in Europe can start to
concentrate singularly on the issues of globalisation, environmental
challenges, security, safety for our citizens and things like
that. We think that 2008 is the beginning of that but it is clear,
however, that the year will be marked by the fact that we are
in a process of ratification in 27 countries and each Member State
pursues this process under its own constitutional national procedures
and it is not for us in Brussels and the European institutions
to interfere in any way whatsoever in that process. We wish to
be helpful in explaining, as we see it, how the new provisions
in the Treaty may be helpful for a future Union, how it may turn
out to be a better Union, but we also recognise that the Treaty,
and treaties per se, is the product of agreement between governments
and we are living with what governments have agreed. The Commission
has embraced the result and thinks that it will lead to a better
Union but, first and foremost, it is an agreement between the
27. I just wanted to say that as an opening. We are very happy
to try to answer some of your questions.
Q298 Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed. As you will clearly understand, having
you here with us is an occasion for us to probe a little bit more
about the Commission and what the impact of the Treaty will be
on the Commission. Maybe you would like to answer that focusing
a bit on whether or not you feel that the Commission has come
out of this with enhanced powers or the opposite.
Mr Nymand Christensen: I do not think that is
the case either way. The Commission's powers are not fundamentally
changed. The Commission note that the Treaty preserves the right
of initiative on most areas of policy in the EU within itself.
The main change which we see in the Treaty concerning the Commission
is, of course, the provision that from 2014 there will be fewer
Commissioners than the number of Member States, which unavoidably
will change the nature of the body. For those of us who were party
to the lengthy discussions between the government representatives
at the IGC before the Constitution was drafted, and even at the
Convention, we know that it was a subject of great discussion
between governments whether there should be one per Member State,
and the compromise which is maintained in the Lisbon Treaty was
that out of respect for the 12 new Member States, who it was largely
agreed should be entitled to have a member of the College for
a full period up to 2014, it was decided to delay the introduction
of the, so to speak, reduced Commission until then. The main change
is in that area. The number of Commissioners will be two-thirds
of the number of Member States and if it was today it would be
18. Another change which one should not overlook is the High Representative.
It is clear the fact that the Member States have agreed to unite
three key roles in one single person, the Foreign Policy Commissioner,
the High Representative and the President of the Council of Foreign
Ministers, who is also the Vice-President of the Commission, is
a significant institutional development which will also impact
on the Commission. These are the main large institutional reforms.
The fact is that the new Treaty moving to co-decision in some
policy areas where that has not been experienced earlier, such
as in agriculture, will impact on the Commission because our way
of operating between Council and Parliament is significantly impacted
by the fact that we have co-legislators on all internal market
legislation and the fact that the European Parliament now becomes
a player on a par with the Council in deciding agricultural policy
is a significant innovation which we will adjust to and work with
and it will have an impact on how we work with our agricultural
legislation.
Q299 Chairman:
We may explore that a little bit more in a while. Do you feel,
given the fact that the President of the European Council is accountable
to the national governments and that the President of the Commission
is accountable to the Parliament, that this creates tensions or
difficulties? You will have a permanent President of the Council
who may feel that there is a difficulty in fulfilling his function
with the President of the Commission being a very distinguished
operator as well. Are there going to be problems there?
Mr Nymand Christensen: I think one can say that
the texts have been drafted in such a manner to make it as clear
as possible how each of those people will function. First of all,
the future President of the European Council will not set up his
own big, independent apparatus, he will rely on the Council of
Ministers. That is the first point I want to make. The second
is that the President of the European Commission is accustomed
to working with the Presidents of the European Council, some of
them with large personalities, who also play out exactly the role
that the future President of the European Council will play, in
other words represent next to him the EU in a number of international
fora. I think you all know, it works amazingly well. We have a
very good co-operative spirit between the European Commission,
the President of the Commission, and the various Presidencies,
including their prime ministers or presidents. The texts have
clearly been drafted with a view to limit any kind of confusion
or turf battle. In particular, of course, the President of the
European Council prepares the meeting for the European Council.
It is perceived, and I have seen it myself and I know a number
of you around the table have as well, that it is such a workload
to prepare a European Council meeting by consulting 26 other colleagues
that it is virtually impossible to fulfil your national role as
prime minister or president fully and satisfactorily in the weeks
preceding the European Council. One should not underestimate the
workload that comes with the role. He or she will be responsible
for preparing it, setting the agenda and monitoring the follow-up
so far as it is within the remit of what the governments would
do. The real area where one must reflect on the work is in the
field of international co-operation and there it is clear that
the texts foresee that the President of the European Council will
represent the EU at Heads of State and Government level when we
speak about foreign, security and defence matters. In all other
matters of EU competence it is the President of the European Commission
who represents the EU as it is today. In a way, it is not moving
the roles around from what the President of the European Commission
has today vis-a"-vis a rotating President and a more permanent
President of the European Council. We have the expectation, and
experience shows, that there will develop a spirit of mutual interest
and common understanding and preparations when you go to G8 meetings
and things like that to make sure that we are all pulling in the
same direction, that what the 27 Member States and the European
Parliament have agreed as the outline of the EU strategy is pursued
by all players, whoever they are and in whatever role they play.
The risk is always there that senior politicians try to mark their
territories slightly more sharply, but experience shows that we
should be rather optimistic about how those two players will be
able to work together in the external global field to the benefit
of the EU.
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