MEPs demand role in drafting fiscal compact
Schulz says Parliament must be an “equal partner”.
MEPs have called on Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, to ensure that the European Parliament is fully involved in the drafting of the ‘fiscal compact’ treaty.
Martin Schulz, the leader of the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, and Joseph Daul, the leader of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), led the charge for Parliamentary oversight over the new treaty, which is supposed to be drafted and signed by March.
Schulz told Van Rompuy, during a debate on Tuesday (13 December) on the outcome of the 8-9 December European Council, that the Parliament wanted to be an “equal partner” in drafting the inter-governmental treaty. “Without the Parliament this won’t be operational at all,” he said.
Schulz said that the Parliament’s four main groups – the EPP, the S&D, the Liberals and the Greens – were united “to fight” for full participation. He said the Parliament’s agreement to fast-track EU legislation, which the European Commission said was needed to ensure the treaty worked alongside existing fiscal-discipline rules, would be dependent on how involved MEPs are in the creation of the treaty.
Resolution on treaty
The Parliament’s group leaders have already decided to adopt a resolution on the treaty once it has been drafted. Officials said that a positive view would depend on the Parliament’s degree of participation. The economic and monetary affairs committee has appointed Elisa Ferreira, a Portuguese centre-left MEP, and Jean-Paul Gauzès, a French centre-right MEP, to draft the Parliament’s position on the Commission’s new economic-governance proposals for increased surveillance, presented on 23 November.
Daul said the failure of all 27 EU leaders to agree a change to the Lisbon treaty had put the EU in both a legal and a political mess. He said “everything had to be done to involve” MEPs in the drafting to ensure the Parliament “plays its rightful role” and that the treaty was democratically legitimate.
Van Rompuy was vague about the Parliament’s role in preparing the treaty, which is to include rules obliging member states to balance their national budgets and steps to make the EU’s fiscal discipline more automatic. He said, however, that the Council “will associate the European Parliament…in the work and the process in putting together this inter-governmental treaty”.
José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, tried to reassure MEPs, insisting that the Commission would do “all it can” to make sure the draft treaty was “acceptable” for EU institutions.
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MEPs also voiced concerns over the failure of EU leaders to agree a deal involving all 27 member states. Rebecca Harms, a co-leader of the Greens, said that the decisions adopted not only created new divisions but were also wrong with respect to solving the crisis. “All the things we really need now to solve the crisis can be done without treaty change,” she said.
Roadmap for crisis exit
A meeting of the Parliament’s Conference of Presidents, which gathers the leaders of the parliament’s political groups, plus the Parliament president, decided on Monday (12 December) to draft a “roadmap” for member states to get out of the crisis.
The resolution, which is to be voted on during the Parliament’s first session in January, will set out the Parliament’s views on what EU member states should do to alleviate the crisis. It rejects treaty change as a short-term solution and urges eurozone members to give the European Central Bank more powers.