JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 19 May 2004

Scrutiny of EU Business.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Seán Haughey)

I am Vice-Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs. The Chairman has been detained at a press conference and will be here shortly.

The Chairman did not welcome members from the observer states. This was an omission which we are happy to put right at this time. I, therefore, give a warm welcome to the delegations from Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

The next item on the agenda deals with scrutiny of EU business in accordance with the protocol on the role of national parliaments in the European Union to the Amsterdam treaty. Before opening this discussion, I wish to make a brief report to COSAC. During the meeting of the chairpersons in Dublin in February last, the Chairman was asked to make a statement to this plenary on the operation of the secretariat. I am pleased to do so now on his behalf.

The secretariat began its work on 15 January and immediately commenced to execute the mandate received from COSAC in Rome in autumn 2003. I will briefly recall its tasks. The secretariat is to assist the Presidency in its work in the organisation of COSAC and to prepare reports as requested. It is to keep the archives and update the COSAC website. It is to compile a factual report on developments in the European Union procedures and practices relevant to parliamentary scrutiny every six months in order to provide the basis for debate in COSAC. The full secretariat met on six occasions since its inauguration and I can report on the progress made.

Members have before them the first biannual report which reports the panorama of developments in the Union which have a direct impact on the role and tasks of national parliaments in contributing to the evolving political architecture of the Union. It provides up-to-date information on scrutiny procedures in our different parliaments and I found the most recent information from our new parliamentary colleagues on their scrutiny procedures most interesting. I will deal later with this report.

I am pleased to hear that, following our decision in February and after further technical discussions, the secretariat has updated the website with the new software provided by the Danish Parliament. Work will continue on preparing guidelines on the management of the website. I would also again like to thank the European Parliament for the office accommodation and logistical support it has put at the disposal of the secretariat. This is much appreciated. Work on gathering material for the archives is proceeding well, thanks to the willingness of parliaments to make their material available.

I express my appreciation for the continuing assistance provided for the Chairman and his staff. I thank the European Parliament for the excellent facilities which have been made available to the secretariat.

We now come to the substance of the debate on the scrutiny of EU business in accordance with the protocol on the role of national parliaments in the European Union to the Amsterdam treaty. The Presidency has circulated the first biannual report in accordance with the mandate presented to the COSAC secretariat. I thank the members of the secretariat for this excellent report. Members will be aware that Rule 7.1 of the rules of procedure provides that the principal business on every draft agenda shall be derived from COSAC's role as a body for exchanging information, in particular on the aspects of parliamentary scrutiny. The principal item of business should be scrutiny of EU business.

Chairpersons at the February meeting emphasised the importance of scrutiny. During that meeting and in consequent correspondence, our colleague, Claus Larsen Jensen, leader of the Danish delegation, raised some important points. Perhaps during the discussion on scrutiny, Claus will again refer to his useful report on the new scrutiny arrangement for subsidiarity planned for the Folketing. I am sure other colleagues will also share their views on this important subject.

We look forward to a stimulating discussion which will go some way towards enhancing co-operation between our respective parliaments on the issues relating to the scrutiny of parliamentary business. Our first contributor will be Dr. István Szent-Iványi from Hungary.

Dr. István Szent-Iványi

Two days ago, the Hungarian Parliament passed a new law on co-operation between it and the Government in respect of European affairs issues. The law is in full accordance and conformity with the protocol to the Amsterdam treaty and it is intended to follow the model of document-based procedure. It is based on a procedure which includes consultation and conciliation between the Parliament and the Government. The Parliament has a say in all major issues. This is not binding in legal terms but it is a binding opinion in political terms on the Parliament and the Government. In the first instance, the Parliament should give a reasoned opinion and an explanation thereof. This move improves not only scrutiny but also the communication of information and hiring of candidates to all important EU positions and the full enforcement of the principle of subsidiarity. We are in conformity, therefore, with the process and principle laid down in the draft constitution. We would like have a strong parliamentary role as that would provide the only opportunity to diminish the democratic deficit everywhere and we would like to strengthen the say of national parliaments in all affairs where the government takes over the legislative role of the European Parliament. I will circulate documents which give information on the new rules. We are proud of them and think they will provide a real strong control over government activities in all legislative matters.

Mr. Janez Kramberger

The role of the Slovene Parliament is important because our people in their independence of 1991 had an important task to do and our Parliament helped to a great extent. We also play an important role in terms of international relations. In accordance with our law pertaining to foreign affairs, our Parliament has to submit all matters concerning negotiation to the relevant bodies of the Government and is answerable to the Parliament and particularly to the foreign affairs committee of Parliament when it comes to these proposals.

The Parliament gives it approval to all the negotiating provisions that led up to the accession of Slovenia to the EU. We are aware that even after 1 May the Slovene Parliament will maintain legislative powers but only in certain areas where there has been no transfer of power between our Parliament and the bodies of the Union. As concerns the activities of the Slovene Parliament, it is important for us to receive written documents and submissions from our Government. Last year we amended our constitution. There is an article which relates to European issues and we have in a way restructured our relationships between the Parliament and the Government. I know this also happened in other member states.

As recently as a month ago, we adopted an Act on co-operation between the Parliament and the Government when it comes to matters pertaining to the Union. This gives a key role to a new committee, which is called the great committee, and there is also the foreign affairs committee, which is also affected by this new provision. In a way our system is similar to that in Scandinavian member states where an important role is given to these parliamentary committees and the government, for its part, retains the executive powers.

Our Parliament also supports the protocol attached to the constitution, which refers to the role of national parliaments and subsidiarity. We have, therefore, played an active part in this process and in the Convention, which helped draw up the protocol. We are happy the protocol has not met with objections on the part of different member states.

It could well be that if the new member states still have open minds and are not too restrictive in their approach, they will bring fresh air and a new impetus to the Union whenever we address the role of national parliaments and the legislative processes of the Union. We must always remember our national parliaments are still very much in charge of processes and they must also work together with their governments.

Mr. Giacomo Stucchi

All of us will agree on the need to strengthen appropriate measures to ensure the European Parliament exerts proper scrutiny over EU affairs. Certain specific guidelines have been approved and the scrutiny occurs via governments. We have indications of how the governments are to act in this regard.

With regard to the development of best practice, it is important to focus our co-operation in COSAC on that. The value added afforded by the co-operation between national parliaments and the European Parliament is composed of the enrichment it is able to provide by exchanging experience and each parliament respects the proper functions of the other, whether we are talking about co-decisions or consultation with the European Parliament or the indications given by national parliaments to their governments or scrutiny of the principle of subsidiarity and its application.

There is a specific contribution to be made by national parliaments and that cannot be undermined. The European Parliament comes in as well. We do not wish to see the value of co-operation undermined by any of the players. For the reasons I have set out, it is important that we do not risk or restrict the area of co-operation between parliaments on the subject of scrutiny on specific tasks such as examining subsidiarity. The national parliaments have a general role to play when it comes to defining European policies. Through their governments at this time it would be inappropriate to set them up as guardians ready to halt any developments being taken in the EU in order that when we are looking at subsidiarity and the early warning system, co-operation between all the national parliaments in the Union and the European Parliament is needed. Such co-operation cannot but enrich analysis. Moreover, the European Parliament enjoys direct functions when it comes to controlling the application of subsidiarity as co-legislator but it also enjoys ex post facto scrutiny and the Commission is accountable to it. National parliaments, when it comes to subsidiarity, could have their role enhanced in a number of ways. If they compare their role with other national parliaments and the role of the European Parliament we might see enhancement.

I would also like to draw attention to something that is too often overlooked, which should be at the core of monitoring subsidiarity, namely the annual legislative report produced by the Commission. We also have the Council's annual activities programme. In Italy we have established a practice where we review that. This enables the legislative bodies to act upstream of subsidiarity controls and, therefore, we are able to step in in good time when it comes to shaping decisions taken at European level and we are able to provide an input into some of the major policy options. COSAC also ought to have an input into the annual legislative programme of the Commission and I am convinced, if that were the case, we would be able to set our collective stamp somewhat better on the control of subsidiarity in due course.

Chairman

I point out that we have 14 speakers to go and then more are to come in. If we do not keep contributions brief then later other members will not be able to contribute.

Mr. Claus Larsen-Jensen

The Danish Parliament is in the process of changing and improving our procedure. Initially this was done by sending a note or memorandum to everyone. On the one hand, we have started a system which can scrutinise the principle of subsidiarity from day one while at the same time co-ordinating our viewpoints with other national parliaments, otherwise we cannot comply with the rules demanding six weeks' response. Then we have the committees in our Parliament which have to be involved in the Parliament, while we must also find this yellow card model to make things fit together.

We are thinking of the Dutch idea where the west side gives a means of following what happens; I am using symbols rather than having to use translations. Who is to handle subsidiarity in a national parliament? In the Danish Parliament the treatment of subsidiarity is naturally linked to the treatment of European policy. It is therefore obvious for us to locate it in the European affairs committee, but this problem must be solved in every country in a way that complies with certain time limits, and to inform other countries of what we intend to do. The presidency of COSAC should be the working group, as under the Dutch chairmanship, to find a model which enables us to use this yellow card system.

I propose dealing with the co-operation which has grown considerably with the regional forums both internally in Europe and also in the Mediterranean. There is also the idea of welcoming new eastern neighbours. We should start discussion as to how parliaments can handle new assemblies, whether every country needs to be involved in everything and how one gives that concrete form. I propose we ask the presidency of COSAC to look at this, otherwise we end up with so many parliamentary assemblies that participate without a major context.

Mr. Andrea Manzella

On this subject a defen-sive approach seems prevalent, separating the various components in the hiatus between the Commission initiative and the development of an early warning system. We have modern constitutional organisations now and we should have participation, not separation. This shift from negative defences to active participation is the method of the future.

We should have networking among elected assemblies and the new protocol includes for the first time regional bodies in EU activities. It does not mean we are regionalising the powers of the Union but during the decision-making procedures of the Union, which are based on the community method, there must be the foundation on the basis of a network and territory.

Italy is convinced this should be borne in mind, particularly as we continue to work on the Lisbon strategy. That strategy cannot remain only in the hands of parliaments, both national and European. We should all deal with these issues.

Mr. Alphonsos Macaitis

The Lithuanian Parliament has chosen the model of an active parliament, a strong one which would get involved, receiving different documents at an early stage. At present we are scrutinising the subsidiarity system in the Finnish, Danish and Swedish parliaments. Our Parliament has decided that certain committees responsible for various areas should play a certain role: the foreign affairs committee would work with the second committee, while the European affairs committee would work with the first and third pillars. They will mandate Ministers going to the Council. We also scrutinise the annual programme on Commission tasks on a traffic light basis. Green means issues which need no mandate, yellow marks issues to be scrutinised and red means a mandate will be needed.

Our specialised committees are involved in the work at the level of the Council. Granting a mandate occurs not only in the European affairs committee, which has representatives from all committees. It can also be done in plenary session. With subsidiarity we have a similar model to the Danish one.

I thank the secretariat of COSAC for this excellent material. I offer to colleagues a further discussion of the fourth working group on the European Convention and the role of national parliaments. We should further discuss the conclusions presented on 24 October last year. Not all conclusions were included in the texts of the Convention or the protocol, but some of the other conclusions were very significant and we should exchange opinions about them.

Mr. Jan Jacob Van Dyk

: We are going to discuss the protocol and the role of national parliaments, which is based on the Treaty of Amsterdam. I remind members we have already had a report from the Committee on European Parliamentary Research and Development which gives a good overview of what is happening in all the national parliaments. We have also received this report from the COSAC secretariat, which is very helpful.

We must look to the future. There is a constitution for Europe and new protocols are in effect, one for the future of national parliaments and another dealing with subsidiarity and proportionality. This is a new opportunity for national parliaments to try to commit all the members of parliament, not just the European experts, to European affairs. The Dutch Parliament has carried out an investigation. The House of Representatives and the Senate established a new commission to find out in what way it can fulfil the requirements put forward by the protocol on subsidiarity. Some issues are being discussed, for example, what should be the role and commitment of regional authorities and civic society in this regard, and what kind of role we foresee in establishing new contacts between all the national parliaments. These issues will be discussed in the Commission and we will publish the report in September. We are not just doing this by way of research, we have sent a questionnaire to all the national parliaments of the EU asking for their points of view in this regard. I am thankful for the co-operation we received. We received more than 17 replies from 17 national parliaments, which was very helpful. It is hoped to have a more profound discussion on the issue during the COSAC meeting in The Hague in November. We hope to agree on the role of COSAC and the procedures that can be put in place in the different national parliaments.

Mrs. Sofia Voultepsi

I, too, congratulate the Irish Presidency and express my joy. It is my first time attending here as an elected Member of Parliament, not as a journalist, which was my original profession.

I would like to talk about information, a subject which is very close to my heart. I recollect some years ago a question was put to the monarch of a European country as follows. If all your privileges were taken away and you could keep one, which would it be? The king replied, "Information is the only advantage and prerogative I would keep under these circumstances". We are talking here about information and a deficit in parliamentary scrutiny. If information is lacking, citizens will feel they are very removed from the power centres where decisions are taken and will turn their face from politics. The Greeks are passionate in following what is happening in Europe, the work of the Convention and the constitution but they feel very remote from Brussels and the decision-making centre. We believe that national parliaments should, therefore, enjoy a higher profile of participation. It is the role of COSAC to get genuine information and to have a genuine high quality and high quantity exchange of information in order that we can bind citizens into European affairs.

Mr. Íñigo Méndez de Vigo

I express my appreciation of something I heard today, that is, the commitment we all have to the constitutional treaty. In the Convention, the majority were from parliament. We as parliamentarians must put pressure on our governments to adopt the constitution as quickly as possible.

On the point under discussion, I was pleased to hear what some people had to say. I worked on subsidiarity in the Convention and we created the early warning system. This is new and it will be extremely useful because it will involve national parliaments in European issues. A series of issues emerged during the discussions on which I would like to comment. First, our working group designed the early warning system. This will involve as a right each parliament, including the individual right of each chamber where there are bicameral systems. I would be concerned if one tried to turn it into a collective right of national parliaments. This would be an error because subsidiarity also means sensitivity. It is an important component to have national sensitivity to European issues. If someone tries to convert it into a collective right, it will be doomed to failure.

Second, it would be a failure to have a collective means of determining who scrutinises subsidiarity in each national parliament. We tried to do this in the Convention and we realised it would be an exercise in subsidiarity. Each parliament must determine which body will carry out this function. It depends on whether it is possible for regional assemblies to participate or whether there are other considerations. If we try to make either the body or the right collective, it will be the wrong solution. Each national parliament will have to seek its own solutions. I emphasise that seeking solutions to these problems in such an innovative area means we are on the right track.

Lord Grenfell

I warmly congratulate the secretariat on its first six-monthly report. It certainly exceeds all my best expectations and is a real treasure house of information and wisdom. It justifies the long and sometimes not easy journey towards the establishment of the secretariat.

I would like to refer to three issues raised in the report, which I hope COSAC members, individually and collectively, will continue to monitor with particular care. The first relates to transparency in the Council. Deliberations open to the public are restricted to proposals under the co-decision procedure. There is no obligation to meet in public when the consultative procedure is used. Is this satisfactory? Second, the Commission is getting much better at providing impact assessments for important policy initiatives. This is absolutely indispensable to scrutiny by national parliaments. What progress has been made in the European Parliament in carrying out impact assessments in regard to amendments proposed to legislation? Third, we need to get a much better grip on what goes on in the comitology committees and discuss how we will do this.

I want to make one point about the COSAC information exchange network. The value to the House of Lords of the European select committee was recently demonstrated through one of our sub-committee inquiries into the proposed Rome II regulation. The committee sought information via the network from other national parliaments on how they intended to scrutinise the proposal. Within a matter of days, responses were received from the European affairs committee of the Folketing, the delegation for the European Union of the Assemblée-Nationale de France and the committee for European Union affairs at the Riksdagen in Sweden. We thank our colleagues for replying so promptly. On completion of the inquiry, we sent our report to all COSAC members via the network and we hope it assisted them with their own scrutiny. I am convinced that a better exchange of information with national parliaments will inform and improve our reports and lead to an enhanced scrutiny of European proposals.

Mr. Nicos Cleanthous

Thank you, Chairman, for your invitation. I take this opportunity to thank the Irish Presidency, which has been very sensitive to these issues.

The protocol to the Amsterdam treaty, which speaks of the role of national parliaments within the European Union, is an important and positive step because it recognises the importance of national parliaments within the context of Europe.

Notwithstanding that, no mention is made of an immediate role for national parliaments. In fact, what it talks about is a kind of secondary role for our national parliaments. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be important for us to review the Amsterdam treaty and to take a look at the ways in which national parliaments can gain access to information in the very first stages and as early as possible so as to be informed about what is happening within the European Commission. That is key because it would allow national parliaments to act, to prepare activities and to work together with their governments in preparing these different activities. The role of national parliaments is not mentioned as an immediate one for the time being. That is why we are waiting for the next step, a protocol on the role of national parliaments within the context of the constitutional treaty for the European Union because there, for the very first time, a genuine role will be granted to national parliaments. We are awaiting that status. We are awaiting the constitution because we believe it will give us a very important role.

Having said that, for the time being we are lacking in experience. It is difficult for us to exercise all of our rights. We are new member states. There are older member states which are better informed of these matters. For us it is new and for the first time we are trying to exercise our rights. We are doing this almost on an experimental basis as a state. We are trying to collect all the information we require in order to make sure we can exert influence on our government but it is quite a job. It is a big task and a challenge for us. We believe this procedure will give us an important role. It is almost a full-time activity in this domain.

I see the Amsterdam treaty and the protocol relating thereto as an interim phase before we move onto the new phase where we will have a clearer idea of our duties and roles. Our Parliament must address European issues and take into account our different national systems and diversity. We have a document which was sent to us by the COSAC secretariat. That text has been most helpful in our work. Moreover, it is also appropriate for us to make useful contributions to this procedure, to the European institutions and to legislative proposals. Of course, these proposals are not binding.

There is a need for us to strengthen the role of COSAC. The discussions which we have among ourselves are of an informal nature at present but they pave the way for further discussions and for the big decisions which will, ultimately, be taken at a European level.

I would like to make a request and I would be very happy if it were acceded to. Would it be possible for the European Commission to take a closer look at the role of national parliaments and to see whether that role could be a direct and immediate one which could be more important in the future and would aid co-operation with our governments in the future? That would be very helpful to us as new member states. We do not have the same kind of information as other states and this would be a first step.

Mr. Michael Roth

This is one of the most important debates before COSAC. We must improve the way national parliaments deal with European issues and a degree of self-criticism will not go amiss in certain cases.

National parliaments, through COSAC, are being drawn closer together. We want to trigger a more in-depth exchange of views and experiences between us. However, I would like to flag one point which is close to the heart of the German delegation. We do not need any further bodies for national parliaments at European level. We are the partners of the European Parliament. It is the task of the European Parliament to carry out parliamentary scrutiny at a European level. We are responsible for domestic scrutiny of European action and there is a broad field of action before us. Some of this is fallow territory. Our Danish colleagues have done an outstanding piece of work on this issue. In the German Bundestag we are currently discussing the consequences of the constitution. My Cypriot colleague made a similar point. We must have links between the Commission and national parliaments. I regret that national parliamentarians are sometimes not able to pressure their national governments to provide them with documentation in good time. Clearly, things can be enhanced at national level in certain areas.

I would like to emphasise a point made by a Dutch colleague. It is not enough for the European affairs committees to be strengthened, to have a better linkage with the specialist sectoral committees and to improve our links with our governments on European business. We must ensure the interests of all of our parliaments are enhanced in respect of Europe. This must come centre stage. If we deal with these European issues in the wings of our regular work there will be an ongoing deficit.

The COSAC secretariat has done a very good job and general policy reports come forward. However, biannual reports should focus on the European debates of the national parliaments. We should forge mechanisms to see where scrutiny works well and where it is capable of being improved.

Ms Heidi Hautala

I thank the secretariat for producing an excellent report of the scrutiny procedures of national parliaments. This will form a very good basis for our future work which I hope will become more practice orientated and will bring the parliaments together on the topical issues which are a challenge to all of us.

I support what Mr. Roth from the Bundestag had to say. We must concentrate on the basic function, which is that every national parliament must have a grip over its own government. This will enable us to have a better sharing of information with each other within COSAC. I agree that we do not need a new institutional arrangement.

The new member states seem to have adopted many of the best practices of the national parliaments of the older member states. The co-operation between our parliamentary committee and our colleagues in the new member states has been excellent in finding those best practices.

We have recently paid attention to the fact that we need to be more proactive in our Parliament and in our parliamentary committee. We need to be there when things are still on the table and the Commission has hardly published its proposals. That is the time to start the debate. A good example of how this could happen has been that for the first time ever the Commission's proposal on the service directive has raised a wide, even a public, debate. Politicians are quoting the directive in their weekend speeches and for the first time we see EU policy becoming flesh and blood at national level. Several of our special committees are already talking to experts on the substance of this directive even though the Council working groups have hardly started their work.

I also thank the European Parliament for its excellent efforts in defending citizens' rights. In that regard I speak of the controversial issue of transferring passenger information to the US security officials. We must share information between parliaments and with the European Parliament on sensitive issues and on matters which governments like to keep to themselves. I regret to say that even our Government, last Friday, failed to inform the European Parliament on the actual state of play.

Communications needs to be two-way. I thank the European Parliament citizens' rights committee for consulting the national parliament on this matter before Boogerd Quaak dropped in her report. That is an excellent example of how we should conduct two-way communications.

The new legislative procedure, according to the new constitutional treaty, will open up possibilities and doors to national parliaments at a time when the Council is hopefully and finally opening its doors when legislating. We should examine this in more detail because it may present us with an opportunity to make EU policy public policy in member states.

Mr. Jacek Protasiewicz

I wish to begin by congratulating the Irish Presidency on its excellent report which serves as a good basis for this discussion. I would like now to inform the committee on the debate we had in the Polish Parliament in terms of the role it could play in connection with accession to the EU. Poland examined the Amsterdam treaty and, in particular, the protocol on the role of national parliaments. It also took into consideration in an optimistic way what is being set out in the draft constitutional treaty as drawn up by the Convention. The conditions set out in that document for scrutiny by national parliaments of EU business are satisfactory.

Poland believes its two chambers have an important role to play and has drafted a law setting out the way in which that scrutiny function will be carried out. Obviously, that was done on the basis of experience gained by long-standing EU members and from experience of meetings with the English, Greek and Irish Presidencies. We learned a great deal in the course of those meetings. We believe that much can be done. One of the first things Poland did was to set up a European affairs committee. There is a mechanism of obligatory consultation regarding not just draft documents but Government positions on them and important personnel decisions. A strong mandate has been given which forces the government to co-operate closely with the Polish Parliament. That committee is in the process of being constituted by the Polish Parliament. It is expected it will see the light of day within the next few weeks. It will represent our Parliament in meetings such as this and in direct bilateral relations with EU national parliaments and in the European Parliament. We are prepared to participate in what has been referred to by Mr.Méndez de Vigo as the early warning system. We believe that COSAC should be at the heart of such a system and in particular its secretariat. The secretariat should issue the early warnings.

We also favour the extension of the role of COSAC in such a way as to ensure co-operation among other parliamentary committees responsible for issues such as citizens' freedom and so on.

Mr. Yasar Yakis

I express my great pleasure to be here today and to extend my thanks to the committee for its hospitality.

I am deeply influenced by what I heard about the eradication of international terrorism. The Turkish Parliament's experience in this regard will be a valuable asset to European countries. The Turkish Parliament is supportive of dialogue and co-operation between national parliaments in the European integration process. To overcome the democratic deficit of the European Union there must be a broader acknowledgement and improvement of the role of parliament. Recently, our joint efforts have produced very positive outcomes for improving national parliaments' input to European business.

The intensification of co-operation and dialogue between our parliaments will contribute to the process. In doing so, national parliaments and their citizens will actively participate in the European integration process and will make decisions. This is the key to a more democratic future, making our common aspirations rise above the current outflow of political relations between institutional and governmental actors. Sharing and benefiting from each other's experience will be a significant asset for our Parliament in its quest for a stronger and more prosperous Europe. Hence, we would like to make use of the best practices of our fellow national parliaments.

In my opinion, joint co-operative research which scientifically loops into the subject must be undertaken. In this context, we should ensure that decisions taken at European level are more transparent and democratic. The protocol annexed to the Amsterdam treaty on the role of national parliaments was a first decisive step towards this goal. The Copenhagen parliamentary guidelines are confirmation of our joint efforts. COSAC should try to deepen the methods and procedures to follow up implementation of those principles. I sincerely believe that these exchanges will strengthen democratic legitimacy and increase transparency within the European Union.

Mr. Carl B. Hamilton

It appears the Swedish experience is similar to that of other countries around the Baltic Sea where we have strict scrutiny of our Government when it comes to these matters. I will not speak too much about that.

However, there is a point I would like to mention which has not emerged from the discussions so far in the context of a new proposal for a constitution. It seems that with this new proposal there will be an incitement for national parliaments to co-operate to seek out other national parliaments which could, perhaps, create a blocking minority with others or, perhaps, create a two thirds majority depending on the case. There will be an incentive for such arrangements, formal and informal.

In co-operation between national parliaments and the European Union, there will be some new factors in the future. COSAC could help in this respect. While there is co-operation, COSAC could help to support it.

I would also like to refer to a matter mentioned by the German delegation, namely, that this is an opportunity for us to involve all the committees which deal one way or another with the European Union. It is an opportunity to bring them all on board. That is an important argument that would mean subsidiarity and scrutiny would be placed within the remit of a specialised committee and not the EU committees of our parliaments. That would, in a way, encourage or even force our Members of Parliament to become more involved in future than they are currently. At the moment, it is an elite or minority that deals with these matters. It would be better to have a broader basis and to cast the net wider. Therefore, I argue that there will be changes and perhaps our committees will have a lesser role in the future when it comes to scrutiny of EU matters while specialist committees will have a greater role.

This is an opportunity for openness or transparency whenever we discuss EU matters, for example, the matter of subsidiarity and the scrutiny of it. It is extremely important to ensure we have transparency in our discussions and in our hearings.

Mr. Pavel Sroboda

I wish to share the experience of the Czech Republic and its reactions in respect of the role of the national Parliament as laid down in the protocol. We have been discussing this matter for more than a year and have adopted legislation which has come into force. We also have a committee for European affairs which now enjoys new terms of reference and powers. I will touch briefly on that committee and its powers.

First, the committee must have available to it all information arising from the European Union. That information is then classified and grouped so that it is laid out in a form relevant to particular committees. It goes to committees with an opinion of our national Government. This is important when it comes to negotiating our position on European affairs nationallly. The committee then takes a decision on whether the legislative document or Act is to be debated. It decides whether the lead European committee will deal with the matter itself or refer it to another specialist committee. We determine the distribution of our work at that stage.

After that, the subject is discussed in a plenary session of the national Parliament or, more frequently, the committee will deliver an opinion which is then formally adopted and of which the Government must take account. The words "take account" were used deliberately because the committee has considerable powers vested in it. We have chosen a strong profile for the committee. This conforms with our new legislation which sets out the competences of the committee. Our committee is also involved in the matter of appointments and nominations to posts in the European Union.

The purpose of our legislation is not to complicate further the situation for the Czech Government. However, it is our intention to influence legislation because we are aware European legislation will have a considerable impact on our national legislation and that duties and obligations will arise from it.

We also wish to be able to explain the process in an effective way to our citizens. The committee has an important role in this. The complicated machinery of the European Union appears somewhat rebarbativeto the population. We would like to make matters more attractive and accessible to our citizens.

Mr. Alberto Costa

I emphasise the importance of national parliamentary scrutiny in areas such as fundamental rights and justice. Traditionally in many of our countries, these are areas which are within the competence of parliaments. Recently, and in the near future with the new European constitution, some of these areas will move to the European sphere. In some cases Bills and laws will not necessarily be discussed in public as has been the case under our own constitutional arrangements.

The scrutiny carried out by our parliaments could end up being nothing more than statements. In some cases scrutiny will take place before adoption of laws while in other cases it may not. We need to ensure that in all our systems we are prepared to provide the necessary guarantees of good quality legislation and good quality European rights. It is not a question of creating a collective right as Mr. Méndez de Vigo was saying. It is a question of properly implementing subsidiarity. We must devise a means of communication among parliaments which will make it possible for every parliament to know the positions of the others in all of these difficult areas.

It is important in the future for Europe not to be able to pass on personal data on Europeans to third countries without beforehand having carefully considered the issue in our national parliaments. We are, certainly, talking about subsidiarity. However, another value which is just as important is at stake here, namely, the democratic quality of European institutions. Our national parliaments must be linked to guarantee this.

Chairman

I thank everyone for their co-operation this morning and ask for co-operation for just a little longer. We now conclude the morning session and will resume at 2.45 p.m. approximately.

Sitting suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 2.55 p.m.