Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 327)
TUESDAY 8 JANUARY 2008
Mr Jens Nymand Christensen and Mr Pascal Lefevre
Q320 Lord Dykes:
For different reasons!
Mr Nymand Christensen: I think that legitimate
political debate and disagreement and conflict is a prerequisite
for a well-functioning democracy and the European Parliament is
one of the best guarantees of that because you go into the body
and you have MEPs, as you know in the House of Lords and House
of Commons, with very different views arguing them out and trying
to win over some people to the positions they hold. If you follow
the European Parliament, as I have, for 27-28 years, it has been
a remarkable journey that I do not believe any parliament has
gone on in such a short time, from in 1979 being the first directly
elected but very different political body to what it is today,
a very serious player. You probably remember that when the Maastricht
Treaty introduced genuine co-legislation there was a lot of doubt
about whether the Parliament could discipline itself and play
it out, but look at how frequently we have first reading agreements
between the two bodies, how to what extent a body with 785 members
manages to deliver and play a key role to the benefit of the EU
and where the political groups across party lines manage to find
the necessary compromises to significantly influence EU legislation.
As you saw, it played an absolutely essential role in settling
the debates about the Service Directive. The political role and
prerogatives and powers of the Parliament should be seen as something
positive for European democracy. How it will ultimately be reflected
in the media is much more difficult to predict because, as you
know, the EU legislative process is very slow and it is very difficult
to say when you will report something. Is it when the Parliament
voted and made its position or is it when they meet at three o'clock
in the morning for conciliation-negotiations or is it when the
Commission announces its proposal? I find even the serious media
is still searching around for how it legitimately reports and
reflects on those debates and when the case should be given the
space it merits. That is still something where the jury is out.
As we saw with the Service Directive, and we have seen it with
major debates such as on the REACH Directive, the Parliament can
also set a political agenda which sends waves of media coverage
through all the Member States.
Q321 Chairman:
The increase in the number of first reading agreements makes the
role of national parliaments in scrutiny quite an interesting
one. This brings us on to the next question. We have only got
just over ten minutes left and about six questions.
Mr Nymand Christensen: Sorry, I am too long.
Chairman: Not at all. What I suggest
is, if possible, we now eliminate supplementaries so we can try
and get through them. Perhaps in answering a question that Lord
Wade is going to put to you about national parliaments you could
also include some brief comments on the impact of the yellow and
orange cards.
Q322 Lord Wade of Chorlton:
How significant do you think is the role that is given by the
Lisbon Treaty to national parliaments and how should national
parliaments position themselves to fulfil that role? I can personalise
it by saying we are all parliamentarians, what further responsibility
and opportunity will we have that we have not got now?
Mr Nymand Christensen: The new Treaty takes
a major step forward in recognising for the first time a role
for national parliaments. If you step back a little bit, the EU
has always been, and quite legitimately so, built on 27 national
governments. It is a union of sovereign states and the sovereign
states are represented by governments and, therefore, that is
why the institutions meet in the Council of Ministers and the
UK is represented by the UK Government and the German Government
is represented by its ministers. It is a significant recognition
of an institutional development where national parliaments can
play a very positive role in the advancement of EU solutions.
The fact there is a provision in the Treaty now recognising this
is important. As you said, my Lord Chairman, the role specifically
attributed in a number of areas in the new Treaty to national
parliaments is significant, and there we are talking about substance.
On the yellow and orange cards mechanism, we are talking about
the future and how you will play it out, so I cannot say how you
will do that. Being a Dane, and knowing how the Danish Parliament
works, and as you know the Danish Parliament is one of the parliaments
which has worked most systematically since 1973 with EU matters,
I expect that the yellow card, orange card subsidiarity mechanism
is very important. Subsidiarity is an important principle for
the Union and should be brought to the fore, to ensure that we
do not slide beyond and out into areas where we do not need to
go, that we should leave with Member States a degree of regulation
or to raise the question if the EU should regulate at all. I hope
that national parliaments will wake up to that role, but it is
not for me to say that they should. The instrument has been put
at the disposal of national parliaments now for them to assume
that role should they wish to and also to have a debate in the
national context with their governments about it. Based on both
this particular initiative in the Treaty but also on what we call
the Barroso initiative, where the President of the Commission
on his own initiative started to send proposals to national parliaments,
we believe it advances the democratic quality of the EU if national
parliaments are better informed and more actively debating the
proposals that are coming out of Brussels. In the particular legal
area of whether subsidiarity has been respected, national parliaments
are foreseen to have a formal role to play and it is a very significant
step forward.
Q323 Chairman:
Thank you. You were formerly the Commission's Director of Relations
with Civil Society.
Mr Nymand Christensen: That is right.
Q324 Chairman:
So I am sure you will want to say something about what you expect
the citizen's initiative is going to do for the Commission. Are
you a little scared of being overwhelmed by citizen's initiatives?
Mr Nymand Christensen: I am not scared. We think
that it reflects well on a democratic practice which is already
widely used in quite a large number of Member States. We welcome
it because it can motivate a debate about what Europe should be
doing. We, as the Commission with the right of initiative, but
also national governments, can benefit from getting this electric
shock of having one million signatures coming in suggesting that
the EU should take a step in a certain area. We will not always
necessarily follow that but it will be a legitimate and positive
issue to have debated, that a million citizens in Europe want
Europe to act on this. It is a very positive article and I hope
it can only lead to a stronger, more participatory democracy in
Europe. We are at the very early days but after the coming into
force of the new Treaty we will present the proposal from the
Commission on how this citizen's initiative should legally be
organised.
Q325 Chairman:
Let us just see if we can get through two other questions quite
quickly before we have to stop, I am afraid. The first of the
two is the simplified revision procedure and the other passerelle
provisions. Could you give us a little bit of your thinking on
how they are going to be used and what their impact is going to
be?
Mr Nymand Christensen: In the short-term, my
personal view, and I have to say it is personal because the College
has not discussed them, is they will not have a major impact insofar
as now the 27 governments have just agreed unanimously what should
be by unanimity and what should be by Qualified Majority Voting,
so I do not expect in the near future anybody will wish to revisit
these issues again because why would they agree in six, 12 or
24 months to look again at what they have spent a number of years
discussing? Your own government was one of those that repeatedly
stated where the red lines were, where one could have Qualified
Majority Voting, and other Member States had similar positions.
If I look at it in calendar terms, and it is always difficult
to predict the future, I would not expect it to have any immediate
effect. It is more an issue of establishing flexibility so when
the time is ripe, when all the Member States do agree that there
is merit in going from one procedure to another, they can do so
without going through all the formal procedures which are otherwise
necessary. It simply establishes a degree of flexibility in technical
terms which we welcome very much. The simplified revision mechanism
is the same. There was, and has been for a long period of time,
a debate about whether one could have simplified revision mechanisms
for certain parts of the Treaty. You will probably have read the
proposals inspired by some countries' constitutional issues that
when a certain number of Member States had ratified it could come
into force. This has never led to any Conclusions. It cannot find
unanimity among the Member States, far from it, and therefore
cannot become part of the legal basis of the EU. In policy areas,
if you look at some of the Treaty policy articles, they are extremely
detailed and static. When you look at some of the articles drafted
10, 20, 30 years ago, would we really need an Intergovernmental
Conference to sit and discuss this or can we agree time has moved
on and we would like to review this particular policy article
through a simplified mechanism? This is really what is behind
it. As I say, I do not expect this is something that will be at
the front of the minds of any of our Heads of State or Government
in the near future.
Q326 Chairman:
Thank you. I am sorry that this has been a bit rushed but I would
like to get your opinion on the amendment to Article 308. What
would you have to say about that? How significant is this?
Mr Nymand Christensen: As some of you know,
I and my colleague from the Legal Service, Mr Hartvig, had the
pleasure of meeting with some of your colleagues, a few months
ago. The new Article 308 is largely the article we know today.
The innovative element is the fact that in the future the European
Parliament will have to give its consent, so if anything it is
going to be used less than it was before because there is now
another player, not only do the 27 need to agree but you need
to get the European Parliament on board as well and still keep
the unanimous 27 on board. That being said, the Commission is
of the view that 308 should be used with caution only when it
is necessary to implement the objectives which are identified
in the Treaty and to the benefit of the EU. Under any circumstances,
we would not wish the article to be used in a manner which would
be seen to extend the role and responsibility and competences
of the EU. It cannot legally be done and we would not wish it
to be so.
Q327 Chairman:
In other words, if it is in the wind that the European Parliament
is not likely to agree you will not start the initiative anyway.
Mr Nymand Christensen: As Lord Plumb will know,
we try it once in a while with a view to winning the argument
in the Parliament, and we do win the argument, so it is very difficult
to say. Normally you would have a procedure where if you needed
to use Article 308 you would have informal discussions between
the Member States at senior level at Coreper or at ministerial
level, and then you would have informal soundings with the European
Parliament, and in the future I expect with the chairs of the
political groups. You would have to argue the case for why 308
is the legal base. One of the facts is the European Parliament
has been using Article 308 because previously it has only been
given the role of being consulted and in a way that problem has
been solved now. If 308 is the correct basis for an initiative
by legal basis that argument from the European Parliament would
not be advanced, I expect. I want to stress that the innovative
element is the European Parliament's strengthened role.
Chairman: Jens Nymand Christensen, we
thank you very, very warmly indeed for having given of your time
in answering our questions so clearly and very informatively.
We thank Pascal Lefevre for being with us today as well. We will
send you a transcript of this and we will make sure that those
parts that were off the record are off the record. Thank you very,
very much indeed, it has been a great pleasure to meet with you
and your contribution to our inquiry has been extremely useful.
We wish you well in the Commission.
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