APPENDIX 5: NOTE OF INFORMAL SESSION,
VILNIUS COSAC, OCTOBER 2013
Members participating: Lord Boswell of Aynho (Chairman),
Baroness Corston, and Lord Hannay of Chiswick.
In attendance: Jake Vaughan (Clerk to the Committee)
and Dominique Gracia (House of Lords Representative to the EU).
In the margins of the L COSAC Plenary meeting, hosted
by the Lithuanian Seimas, on 27-29 October, an informal 'round-table'
was held. The session was open to all delegates attending the
L COSAC. The aim of the 'round-table' was for delegates to exchange
views about and share experiences of the role national parliaments
play in shaping and scrutinising EU decision-making.
MR PETRAS
AUšTREVICIUS,
Deputy Speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas and Deputy Chair of the
Committee on European Affairs, opened the meeting.
LORD BOSWELL
OF AYNHO
gave a short summary of the House of Lords EU Committee's inquiry
to-date, thanking those around the table who had submitted written
contributions and inviting anyone with an interest to consider
doing so. He informed the delegates that all the contributions
and evidence taken would be made available online. He said that
his Committee was seeking to contribute to the ongoing debate
about democratic legitimacy, not to conclude it.
MR RENÉ
LEEGTE, Vice-Chair of the EU Affairs
Committee of the Dutch Tweede Kamer, welcomed this second informal
session in the margins of COSAC, following the first one held
in Dublin in June 2013. He raised the question of what meaning
the yellow card mechanism had for the European Parliament (EP),
and what influence the mechanism had over the EP's work. How were
Reasoned Opinions (ROs) taken into account?
MR MIGUEL
ANGEL MARTÍNEZ
MARTÍNEZ, Vice-President
of the EP, said that, in his view, interparliamentary cooperation
was not currently working as well as it could. There had been
unnecessary and unproductive tensions, and practically no progress
in establishing complementary mechanisms. He pointed to the role
of national parliaments (NPs) in controlling and holding to account
their own national governments in their activity as members of
the European Council. As an example, he raised a section of the
COSAC Contribution that welcomed the political-level agreement
on the multiannual financial framework (MFF). He asked why there
was no recognition there that the Council was responsible for
delays in taking forward this agreement, and pointed out that
the EP had no mechanism to ask NPs to scrutinise national governments
for such actions. In his view, the current role of NPs in controlling
national governments and scrutinising their actions in Council
was extremely limited and insufficient, and he lamented that the
EP had failed in setting out a routine mechanism for learning
about what NPs were doing nationally to scrutinise governments'
EU-level actions.
MS EVA
KJER HANSEN,
Chair of the European Affairs Committee of the Danish Folketing,
said that the yellow card mechanism clearly worked, as it had
been triggered that very day (regarding the European Public Prosecutor's
Office proposal).[144]
This was a good sign, showing that NPs were using the mechanisms
available, which was an important first step. She recalled a lengthy
discussion with Vice-President Maroš Šefcovic regarding
the right to ask inquiries of the Commission, and whilst NPs do
have this right, they make little to no use of it. It was important
that NPs used all the tools at their disposal, and also that they
reflected on how they wanted these tools to develop in the future.
MR CHRISTOPHER
FEARNE, Chairman of the Standing
Committee on Foreign and European Affairs in the Maltese House
of Representatives, remarked that NPs were of primary importance
to citizens. In his view, there were a number of issues to address
regarding EU power structures and decision-making, and interparliamentary
groups should be leading the way. Unless parliaments were proactive,
the vacuum would be filled by some other structure. He also remarked
on the usefulness of the 'cluster' meeting held in Copenhagen,
Denmark, on the free movement of workers.[145]
LORD BOSWELL
OF AYNHO
asked whether a small group of parliaments could collaborate in
preparing a study on a specific policy area of shared interest.
For example, in the COSAC plenary, Mr Herman De Croo had suggested
a topic for a future COSAC debate; could parliaments prepare a
joint paper to be tabled before COSAC in order to inform that
work? MR HERMAN
DE CROO,
Member of the House of Representatives of Belgium, welcomed this
suggestion.
MR PAULO
MOTA PINTO,
Chairman of the European Affairs Committee in the Assembly of
the Republic of Portugal, called for greater distinctions between
the mechanisms available for influence. Controlling governments
was one mechanism, but there were many others. He called for more
detailed responses to ROs. He agreed with Ms Kjer Hansen that
NPs were not yet using all possible mechanisms to their full extent,
highlighting the importance of a steady and prompt flow of information
between parliaments, for example, regarding ROs.
MS TINEKE
STRIK, Chair of the Standing Committee
for European Affairs in the Dutch Eerste Kamer, agreed that information
sharing was crucial, referring to the Dutch Parliament's efforts
to gain access to the Council's extranet database.[146]
When negotiating with the Dutch government, responses to a COSAC
questionnaire[147]
indicating the types of information received by other NPs, was
influential. She pointed to the need for NPs to be discriminating
in the way they prioritise the information they already received,
in order to make best use of it. She also remarked on the possible
difficulties for NPs in taking a line contrary to their national
government, given that many national governments have parliamentary
majorities. However, there was scope for NPs to cooperate along
party lines, politicising scrutiny of national governments. Ms
Strik also commented on the dialogue between the NPs and the European
Commission, asking Vice-President Šefcovic for his view on
the importance or relevance of Commission responses to opinions,
given that once proposals are published they are on the negotiating
table and primarily in the hands of the co-legislators.
MR DE
CROO commented on the relative
power of institutions and how this could be measured. Whilst this
was difficult, the number of lobbyists surrounding the EP indicated
that there was a lot of power there. He remarked that, for NPs,
there was an element of hypocrisy in claiming to have power and
control, even when it may not be strictly true, in order to encourage
citizens to vote in national elections.
VICE-PRESIDENT
ŠEFCOVIC, Commissioner for
Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration, responded to
some of the points that had been raised. He noted that the Commission
often receives conflicting contributions from different parliaments,
even from those with parliamentary majorities of the same political
family. This makes it challenging to know how to proceed in response
to NPs' contributions as a whole. Thanks to changes to internal
systems, the Commission should be able to make higher quality
responses to contributions in future, and to do so within three
months.
He responded to Ms Strik's question, saying it was
important for the Commission to have information about NPs' views.
This information formed an important part of the briefing for
Commissioners going into negotiations in Council and Parliament,
and ultimately in trilogues. He also advocated NPs submitting
responses to public consultations run by the Commission, as NPs'
opinions carried a great deal of weight. In the future, the Commission
would inform NPs directly about public consultations and hearings,
and in response to NPs' request, would send directly all the documents
that were being sent to the Council.
MS MAIPETRA
KUMPULA-NATRI,
Chair of the EU Affairs Committee in the Finnish Eduskunta, said
that while the most important channel for the NPs to contribute
to the legislative processes was through national ministers, it
was also important for NPs to know about how EU proposals were
being developed and where the ideas were coming from. It would
be important to have those Commissioners and Commission civil
servants who were responsible for a certain policy field to visit
and speak to NPs—or to conduct video conferences—about
policies being developed in their field.
MR EDMUND
WITTBRODT, Chairman of the European
Union Affairs Committee of the Polish Senate, highlighted the
distinction between decisions taken by the executive and those
taken by the legislature in terms of democratic legitimacy, and
said a discussion was needed about whether decisions should be
taken by the former or the latter.
MR MICHAEL
CONNARTY, member of the European
Scrutiny Committee of the UK House of Commons, argued that the
yellow card mechanism had only had a minor impact, and was in
fact a sop to NPs to persuade them to agree to the Lisbon Treaty.
Post-Lisbon, the mechanisms of restructuring Europe had changed,
and major changes were now being dictated by the response to the
euro area crisis, giving the Commission greater power over euro
'ins'.
LORD HANNAY
OF CHISWICK,
member of the EU Select Committee of the UK House of Lords and
Chairman of the EU Sub-Committee on Home Affairs, Health and Education,
disagreed with Mr Connarty, saying that the yellow card mechanism
had had a slow start, but was now becoming stronger. He contrasted
the eight weeks given to NPs to issue ROs with the unlimited time
the Council had in which to negotiate a proposal. He also noted
that the yellow card was only a negative power, setting NPs against
the Commission and possibly also the EP, which often had a different
view on subsidiarity to NPs. In order to have a more positive
dialogue, there had to be more debate between national MPs and
MEPs, as Mr Martínez Martínez had suggested. He
noted that almost every inquiry conducted by the Lords EU Committee
took evidence from MEPs. Lord Hannay also agreed with the suggestion
from Vice-President Šefcovic that earlier engagement with
policy formation was crucial.
MS KJER
HANSEN remarked on the outcome
of the 'cluster' meeting held on free movement, which would be
a letter to Commissioner László Andar. She said
that the Commission's openness to direct contact from NPs was
very welcome. She thanked Lord Boswell and the Lithuanian Presidency
for organising the session and expressed the hope that there would
be more such meetings in the future.
MR LEEGTE
commented briefly on the Tweede Kamer's experience in hearing
Commissioners, using the example of discussing trade with China.
He also referred to the Tweede Kamer's position paper, circulated
earlier that day,[148]
which called for the Commission to make a political commitment
to give greater time for ROs to be submitted, and a lower threshold
for triggering a 'yellow card' review. This would not require
treaty change if the Commission would give a political commitment
and act accordingly.
144 COM(2013) 534: Proposal for a Council Regulation
on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
The Reasoned Opinions issued can be viewed at http://www.ipex.eu/IPEXL-WEB/dossier/
document/COM20130534.do. Back
145
This meeting on free movement and national welfare systems was
held in Copenhagen on 21 October 2013. Back
146
This database, run by the Council of the European Union, contains
papers relating to Council meetings, including limité documents. Back
147
This questionnaire fed into the 17th Bi-annual Report, available
at http://www.cosac.eu/documents/bi-annual-reports-of-cosac/. Back
148
This paper is available online on the Tweede Kamer website at
http://www.tweedekamer.nl/
images/Brochure_Democratic_Legitimacy_in_the_EU_181-237266.pdf. Back
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