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JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 8 Oct 2003

Vol. 1 No. 42

German Bundestag: Presentation.

I welcome the delegation of members of the German Bundestag, the German-Irish parliamentary group. Mr. Axel Fischer is the vice-chairman of the group and is leading it today. The other members are Mrs. Petra Bierwirth, Mr. Michael Grosse-Bromer, Mrs. Ina Lenke and Dr. Margit Spielmann. They are accompanied by the delegation's secretary and interpreter. You are most welcome and I hope you are enjoying your visit. We can discuss the European Cup next year if you wish but perhaps we should discuss the Intergovernmental Conference and the role of parliamentarians. I invite the members to make some opening remarks, after which we can have an exchange of views.

I will introduce the members of the committee. Deputy Carey is vice-chairman of the foreign affairs committee, Deputy Haughey is vice-chairman of this committee and Senator Ormonde, Senator Lydon and Deputy Harkin are members of this committee.

Mr. Axel Fischer

Thank you for your kind and friendly welcome. We have had an interesting time in Dublin and have had interesting discussions. We are pleased to be before the Committee on European Affairs to discuss European politics. Our parliamentary group will introduce themselves.

Mr. Michael Grosse-Bromer

My name is Michael Grosse-Bromer. I am a lawyer and notary public. I have been in the German Bundestag for one year and my constituency is near the city of Hamburg. I am also a member of the legal committee and deputy representative of the committee for foreign affairs.

Mrs. Petra Bierwirth

My name is Petra Bierwirth. I have been in the German Bundestag since 1998. My constituency is Brandenburg, one of the so-called new lander, and I am a member of the environment committee.

Dr. Margit Spielmann

I am also from the region of Brandenburg. I have been in the Bundestag since 1998 and am a member of the committee on health and social security. I am also a member of the committee on women, families, senior citizens and youth.

Mrs. Ina Lenke

I come from Lower Saxony near Bremen, a large town which you may know. I have been in the Bundestag since 1998. I am a member of the committee on women, families, senior citizens and youth.

Mr. IngoBåcker

As you can see, I am the secretary of the group. I am part of the administration of the Bundestag in Berlin.

Mr. Fischer

I do not know if it is all right to put questions to the Joint Committee on European Affairs at this early stage. In Germany we are currently discussing Europe. There are plus points, such as a more open Europe, but there are also fears that the EU might regulate too many things, particularly regarding the treaty on the new European Constitution. There seem to be two sides, the first being what the EU will control and do, and the second what the national parliaments can do. We would be very interested to hear from you how the flavour of debate is in Ireland and how sentiments are here. Do you think that the treaty will be all right as it is shaping up or would you wish to change it?

Next year Ireland will assume the European Presidency. What are the main points with which you wish to deal, and what are the main issues?

First, regarding the intergovernmental conference and the draft constitutional treaty, some of us got back late last night from the meeting of COSAC, the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees between the member states and the European Parliament. One of the concerns there was to ensure that national parliaments are involved in the Intergovernmental Conference process. The European Parliament has suggested a series of five meetings to which national parliaments would send representatives. We chose Deputy Carey, who was here with us, to be ours. It is very important that national parliaments be involved in the process. It is difficult to see many of the institutional or policy questions being reopened to any great extent. Most member states have a 5% concern. The problem is that it is a different 5%. If one reopens some questions, one must reopen others.

I am concerned about one issue - the propensity of the German and French leaders to drive the agenda. When I was on the reflection group which prepared the Treaty of Amsterdam, we avoided meetings of small or medium-sized member states on every occasion for we did not want to create a bloc of large member states and small member states. If there is not sensitivity in handling the German and French relationship, and if they try to become a locomotive for the Union, one will find small and medium-sized member states forming groups as well. That is simply not a good thing.

You also asked about the priorities for our Presidency next year. The completion of the Intergovernmental Conference will be among them if it has not been completed. If it has been completed, getting it signed and getting the ratification process under way will be important. Several summits are due next year, including the EU-US summits and EU-Russian summits, so there is a very big agenda for us. Enlargement itself takes place next year, and how that is handled and dealt with will be important. One of the issues that this committee has asked the Government to put on the agenda in every way possible is the developing world, including HIV and AIDS, indebtedness and trade. To that end we set up a small group under the chairmanship of the secretary general of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. On that group was a former Prime Minister, a former Foreign Minister, a former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and a former adviser to our President. We asked them to report to us as a committee on how we might try to set the agenda on that. We have been trying with our Minister to push that issue up the agenda.

Mr. Grosse-Bromer

The Chairman mentioned that it would be important at the Intergovernmental Conference to involve national parliaments regarding the final shaping of the draft of the constitutional draft. In the German Parliament that was not so perfect. I do not know how Ireland solved the problem of the national parliament getting enough information so that it will have an impact on the negotiations.

As a member of the legal committee, I have sometimes got the impression that national parliaments - including ours - have difficulties transforming EU laws and directives into national laws or bringing them in at a national level. I do not know if the situation is similar in Ireland or if it has been handled well.

I join with the Chairman in welcoming our colleagues from Germany, a country with which we have had a long and friendly relationship. I take up the point made by the Chairman and two of the previous speakers. The subsidiarity principle and the scrutiny of EU legislation are becoming more and more important. One notices with this new treaty and everything the EU does that it never says it is going to take less power but always says it will take more power away from national parliaments. I am very supportive of the European Union but it has its place and national parliaments also have their place.

We have a scrutiny committee as a sub-committee of our main committee and we look at all the proposed decisions and laws coming from the European Commission. Under the new treaty we will have a yellow flag process which will state that a proposed law from Brussels should not be on the agenda but should remain with the national parliament. I echo what the Chairman said in that there is room for much more communication and co-operation between national parliaments so that when they see Europe is proposing another law which is not really its business, we should come together as national parliaments and say: "No, that is enough. We can do this ourselves."

When our scrutiny committee makes a decision or issues a comment, it is only one of 25 and is in many ways a lonely voice. Maybe the German and Italian Parliaments are facing the same questions but we are not communicating on these issues. We need to build the process of communicating with Parliaments to keep an eye on the limits of EU power.

I also welcome the German delegation. I have great respect for one German lady, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies of DG XVI. I met her once or twice when groups of us were going to Brussels to lobby for Objective One status for a particular region in Ireland. At the time we had perhaps more in common with the Commissioner than we had with some people at home. She was very supportive of the idea of strong regional bodies, so I was pleased to see some of our ideas were shared by our European partners.

One of the delegation's speakers asked if the EU was regulating too many things. There would be some concern about this in Ireland and the delegation will be aware that we voted no to the first Nice Treaty, though we voted yes some time later. There were many reasons for that vote but while we have just voted yes to a new Nice Treaty we will be asked to vote on a new Constitution within the next two years and some people wonder if we are moving too fast. There is a certain sense of unease and whether that is well founded, I wonder if it is the same in Germany.

The delegation asked about our position regarding the Intergovernmental Conference. We had our Foreign Minister here a few minutes ago and he said that as far as he was concerned, the draft treaty was a good basis from which to work but that obviously different countries had different issues. He discussed two of those issues - he clarified security and defence so that we know where we are going and this is an area in which Germany would be interested. He also spoke about the team Presidency, though there were other issues also.

Deputy Mulcahy referred to the scrutiny of European legislation. Within the draft Constitution it is proposed that if a third of the national parliaments want to question some of the proposed legislation under subsidiarity, it could then be referred back. The whole idea of subsidiarity is crucial because it deals with the unease some people here feel about the EU taking more power unto itself, as Deputy Mulcahy said. Perhaps there could be some flexibility there. In an enlarged Europe of 25 nations, one-third of the parliaments is about nine, which is a considerable number. There may be a possibility that that could be watered down to 20%, which would go some way towards easing these concerns.

On a personal level, I was pleased to see the response of Germany and France to the actions of the US and the UK in Iraq. That response acted as a very important counterbalance.

I wish to join in the welcome extended to the delegation from the Bundestag this afternoon. It is good to see so many lady MPs, something which we hope indicates the trend of the future. We hope to improve in that area ourselves.

The delegation has raised the issue of how, as a national parliament, we reach out to the public at large as well as our stance on the future of Europe. We had difficulties in relation to the future of Europe and we got the biggest fright of our lives when we were defeated during the first Nice referendum. It meant that we should not take the electorate for granted. We had to plan a different course of action in linking in with the public at large. We took it on ourselves to invite the Minister with special responsibility regarding the future of Europe to come and talk to us at length at every phase of development through the convention stage and later. We attempted to get rid of the jargon. For example, we have used the word subsidiarity already here today. While we can understand that not many people out there may understand the exact significance of it. It is very important that we keep our electorate informed in a clear and concise way. We do that through this committee and through the stewardship of our Chairman who has initiated bringing this committee out into the country visiting various regions, talking to schools and groups of people who may be interested in this whole process.

This is another example of how we try to reach out. We will have to have another referendum on this issue. We cannot take any chance that we will not have the public informed at each stage of our progress regarding the future of Europe because there is some unease. There is concern that we are losing our power and that our cultural identity is being eroded. There is also a concern that, because we are a small country, we will be absorbed by the bigger powers. The public are bothered by this. It is very important that we reinforce our own identity and identify what we want from being part of Europe. Of course we have to be part of Europe but retain that identity. It is a difficult balancing act. The national parliament has a huge role in this. That is how we deal with this matter.

I would like to add something to that. There is a different tradition here. We had to have referenda to change our Constitution on our entry to Europe, on the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty, the Nice Treaty and we will have to have another referendum. In your country, having a referendum is not considered a good thing. We have some people here who think we should tell everybody in Europe that they ought to have a referendum. It would be interesting to hear your views on that.

Mr. Grosse-Bromer

I would like to give three answers to the topics with which we dealt. Large countries also have responsibilities and we must be watchful to ensure that they take them on. I had the good luck a few weeks ago to listen to Jean Claude Yunque who comes from Luxembourg, which is also a small country. He said, "Let us never forget that a little flea can also drive a lion insane".

As to whether the convention and the European constitution process has moved forward too fast, I would say yes, but I have only been a member of the parliament since September last year and I do not know what took place prior to that. I would like to have been more involved in the work or to have received reports every now and then on what was being discussed and on decisions that were taken in order to be more au fait with matters. When another parcel of decisions were brought in, our Minister used to say, "Please do not let us open this up". They would have related to the 5% of grievances each country had, which were mentioned. As to whether it was clever to do this work so quickly, I do not know, but I doubt it.

As regards the relationship between Germany and France, it is good that we always seek to strengthen our mutual friendship, but as to whether it would have been necessary to do it in the way in which it has been done lately, I am not so sure. I might have wished it would not have been done in this way.

On the point of referenda, it is advantageous to go to the country and to visit schools to once again disseminate the idea of Europe and to explain what is meant by subsidiarity, in other words, to let people do in their environment what they can do best. Members will be familiar with the concept of subsidiarity. That might calm down some of the fears. In Germany I am against a referendum, and I am being perhaps a bit provocative when I say that it would be a great pity if the European Treaty were to fall just because the country does not like a particular clause in the agriculture rules, holds a referendum and then rejects the whole Treaty.

The positive aspects of Europe, peace and general personal freedom, are well known, and the young people are aware of these. We need to promote the other ideas and benefits of Europe to the population. There is a question of whether the Treaty has been hammered out too fast. I do not know. In Germany there are no difficulties with accepting it because our parliament votes on it and one can prepare one's members of parliament sufficiently to vote for it. It is not as difficult as with a referendum when the entire population must prepare.

I strongly support the idea of more co-operation between the national parliaments. Such co-operation would not be too difficult between Germany and Ireland which have always been great friends. Let us work jointly in this area as much as possible.

I welcome the delegation. Reference was made to the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty. One of the issues in the debate at that time involved the question of enlargement and the free movement of labour and in particular immigration from the applicant countries. I wonder if that is an issue of concern to the citizens of Germany. Regarding the applicant countries which will accede to EU membership next year, we are in favour of free movement of labour from these countries to this country, with no restrictions in the short-term, though that will be reviewed.

Regarding the introduction of the euro, the Deutschmark was clearly a very well known currency to which the Germans were very committed. UK citizens are similarly committed to sterling. Was the issue of joining the euro, the common currency of Europe, a major bone of contention?

Mrs. Lenke

We have the elections to the European Parliament coming up next year and we should not make vain promises to our population in that area. We should create as one of our most important election points for the youth of Europe the prospect of joining a Europe where there are recognised certificates for schools, universities and so on, so that our labour market becomes transparent, with no separate Irish or German labour market but a European labour market that is transparent and within which all can move.

There is another point which is very important for me as a politician engaged with questions of women and family. We have to provide more opportunities for women. France does a lot and is a model in this regard. French women have more children than in other European countries, although most French women work outside the home. This is a challenge for all our governments. Those governments which take this on board will succeed in the way Scandinavia and France have succeeded. I would like to comment on free movement. My party is of the opinion that access to the labour market in Germany should be regulated by the national parliament. Mr. Vitorino has another view on this but Portugal has a lesser percentage of foreigners than Germany. We have heard that the question of immigration and the co-existence between Irish people and foreigners will be more frequently discussed in the Irish Parliament in the future.

National parliaments should be able to decide on these points. Of course, what in our opinion is important and should be dealt with and controlled by the EU is a common, foreign and security policy. On the Deutschmark, despite all their fears the Germans did not miss the mark so much when the euro was introduced. As the euro arrived they were very interested to see what it was and how best to handle it. We did it without a referendum.

It is a pleasure to have met you today. My party is affiliated to the EPP with the CDU. Other parties here are affiliated with other groups. It is good to have exchanges and contacts of this kind in a formal setting. Reading through the brief in preparation for this meeting I was mindful of the importance of trade between Germany and Ireland and German investment here. Relations between Germany and Ireland have always been good. It is good to hold these friendly exchanges. We are glad you took the time from your busy schedule to meet with us today. We look forward to having many exchanges in the coming years. I hope the remainder of your visit will be successful and that you will have the opportunity to sample some of the less serious parts of Irish society before your return to Germany.

Mr. Fischer

We thank you very much and wish your committee the best in its work and deliberations. We would love to meet with you again either in Germany or here.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.25 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 15 October 2003.
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