asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will state the role the Government consider the European Parliament should have with regard to EEC affairs.
14.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - European Union.
13.
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he has any proposals for eventual European Union.
With your permission, a Cheann Chomhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 14 together.
The Government fully accept the commitment set out in the communiqué after the Paris Summit in October, 1972 to transform, before the end of the present decade, and with the fullest respect for the treaties already signed, the whole complex of the relations of the member States of the Communities into a European Union. This commitment was, of course, also accepted by the previous Head of Government.
In my statement of foreign policy in the Dáil on 9th May of last year I expressed dissatisfaction with the present very indirect form of democratic control in the Community, which, among other things, at present makes the Community and its institutions appear remote to the peoples of Europe. Setting out the attitude we would adopt in our approach to the establishment of a European Union, I said that it would be unacceptable to us as to others that policies under an economic and monetary union should not be under adequate democratic control, which could involve a strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament and, in time, possibly also a movement towards the implementation of the qualified majority voting system in the Council.
These are among the principles which will serve as guidelines for the Government's contribution to the drawing up of a report on European Union. The institutions of the Community (Parliament, Council, Commission and Court of Justice) were given a mandate by the Paris Summit to draw up such a report, before the end of 1975; the Copenhagen Summit asked that this work be accelerated. The Government's contribution will be made in the context of the Council which decided on 5th February, 1974, that its Committee of Permanent Representatives, aided possibly by an expert working group, should prepare a draft report for submission to it.
In accordance with our desire to obtain in the short-term increased powers for the European Parliament the Government have supported proposals to give greater budgetary powers to the Parliament. These proposals are at present under consideration by the Council.
In the Minister's view is any progress being made towards the achievement of this communiqué or do things look less optimistic at the moment?
It is encouraging that the Copenhagen Summit decided to accelerate the work but there are, of course, other aspects of the present state of the Community which are a bit discouraging and which suggest that it would be difficult to make much progress with this work, perhaps in the immediate future. In other words, there is a state of will to speed things up, but there may be problems about getting a concerted will towards a solution in the immediate future. We have two years to do this work which is to be completed by the end of 1975 and, hopefully, within that time the situation will improve and the Community may pull together rather better and come up with a satisfactory solution as to what a European Union should be and how it should function.
Would the Minister agree that one of the great concerns of the Community at present is the gap which exists between the statements of principles that emanate from Summit meetings and the Community intent to implement those statements?
I would, indeed, agree that there is a problem there which was highlighted most dramatically by the fact that immediately after the Copenhagen Summit we had a meeting in Brussels in which we failed to reach agreement on a regional policy.
Is this not a fundamental problem of the European Community at this time?
It is.
Expectations are being raised and are not, in fact, being realised.
I accept that that is a very real problem.