Leader challenges Euro MPs to demonstrate new maturity

Date: 08/02/1996

KLAUS Hänsch has set himself three key tasks during his 30-month spell as European Parliament president - to improve the institution's internal efficiency, ensure the 626-member assembly is strategically placed during the Maastricht reform negotiations and smooth the way towards EU enlargement.

Now more than half-way through his mandate, Hänsch holds the presidency at a pivotal time in the Parliament's development. The institution is larger and potentially more unwieldy than ever before, yet it must convince EU governments of its maturity if it is ever to enhance both its powers and credibility.

Hänsch has repeatedly urged MEPs to concentrate on the feasible rather than be distracted by developments around the world over which they have no control. Nowhere is this more evident than in the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC).

The lengthy shopping list of ambitious, but unpractical demands tabled in the run-up to Maastricht in 1991 has been replaced with a carefully-honed set of proposals.

The 58-year-old former academic, journalist and press officer explains: “The European Parliament's case rests on four points. We must make decision-making more effective. Parliament must have co-decision where qualified majority voting operates in the Council of Ministers. We must strengthen the ability of the Union to take Common Foreign and Security Policy decisions and we must increase cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs, especially in the joint fight against international organised crime.”

As he contemplates the IGC ahead, Hänsch is confident that MEPs' views will be taken on board. He even detects a small shift in the British government's traditional hostility towards a greater role for the Parliament in EU business.

Speaking after a meeting with UK Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind at the end of last month, he revealed: “Mr Rifkind told me the British government is opposed to a massive strengthening of powers of the Parliament in the IGC. This means that the strengthening of parliamentary rights is possible. The debate will be on what is 'massive'.”

Hänsch, who was one of the original intake of members after the first direct elections to Strasbourg in 1979, stresses that the assembly's recipe for the IGC is not just about increasing MEPs' powers. It is also about ensuring the Union emerges strengthened.

Hänsch's insistence that MEPs focus on the central elements of the Maastricht review is matched by his determination to tighten up the Parliament's frequently illogical internal rules. Within a week of being elected president in July 1994, he made his intention clear to the Parliament's Secretary-General Enrico Vinci.

“Since then we have tried, with some success, to focus our work. This has involved organising important debates at a time when the public can perceive what we are doing and trying to bring debates and votes closer together, especially on very important matters,” explains the parliamentary president.

This has meant selecting at least one high-profile issue for each of the Parliament's plenary sessions. In November, the centre piece was the first-ever debate on the state of the Union. In December, the high points were preparations for the EU summit in Madrid and approval of a unique customs union with Turkey.

Assessing the effect of the changes, Hänsch is proud of what has been achieved. “We have streamlined the way the Parliament works compared to the past. We have increased our ability to project to the public what we are doing and we have helped to strengthen the reputation and image of the Parliament in relation to other institutions,” he says.

But Hänsch is a realist and recognises that brave words alone are not enough to make the public and governments alike sit up and take note of the Parliament.

“In the final analysis, the public will take more notice of the European Parliament when it takes genuine decisions. The Turkish customs union was one such example,” he argues, insisting upon the need for the Parliament to win a greater role in approving EU legislation.

The IGC and internal reforms feature heavily on Hänsch's current agenda, but he is also looking to a more distant horizon: enlargement of the Union. It may be some years before EU membership rises above the current 15, but the Parliament is even now preparing for that day.

“We are helping already. We have joint parliamentary committees which help to prepare our counterparts in national parliaments for membership of the Union. For the past year, I have been in permanent contact with my colleagues in national parliaments associated with the Union. The last meeting was in Warsaw in December, the next is in Brussels in the summer. We discuss problems and the need to prepare for EU membership. More and better press information is required for the political class in these countries,” he says.

While a firm supporter of the Union's enlargement eastwards, Hänsch, who left his native Silesia for Schleswig-Holstein when he was seven years old, draws a clear line when it comes to the future negotiations.

“We have to make it quite clear that enlargement means they are entering the European Union. It is not a negotiation where the Union and the applicants meet in the middle,” he insists.

It is also vital to ensure that increased membership does not unduly dilute the nature of the Union as it has evolved over the years, says Hänsch.

“Every country joining the Union has an impact on the EU, its structure, politics and direction. That has been the case in the past and will be so in the future. But if enlargement totally changes the character of the Union or destroys it, then the price would be too high. It should not be paid,” the president argues.

Few people have enough imagination to envisage what a Union comprising more than 20 members might look like. Hänsch confesses it is a daunting task, but he knows the fundamental characteristics of the EU which should not be sacrificed in the interests of wider membership.

“The general character of the Union means not just a free trade zone, but also a political union able to have common policies on things like the environment, with a certain social dimension and a Common Foreign and Security Policy. These must remain. We also need institutional changes and I hope that the IGC will at least give general orientations.”

Enlargement will require imaginative thinking to fine tune the way the EU does business, says Hänsch, offering his own formula for achieving this.

“We have to look at the possibility of more flexibility in the Union. We have to solve the problem of how to encourage those countries which wish to go forward to do so. This would not be a nucleus, as it could differ from area to area. On the other hand, we have to solve the problem of how to achieve this while guaranteeing a single legal system in the Union.”

Hänsch has less than a year of his mandate left to run before, under a political agreement between the Parliament's two largest groups, he hands over the presidency, probably to a Christian Democrat. But he has vowed to continue his behind-the-scenes crusade to improve the institution's internal efficiency.

A restructuring of staff deployment is on the cards. The work is low-profile, time-consuming and unglamorous, but, if successful, will ensure his successor inherits a smoother running machine.

Hänsch's pragmatic style and his readiness to accept political realities effectively rebut any allegations that the Parliament, with its quest for more power, is seeking a federal Europe in which national governments will play a more subordinate role.

“It is quite clear the EU is and will remain a Union of member states. Decisions on what part of sovereignty is transferred to the Union and what is not will remain in the hands of member states. All fundamental political decisions of the Union and in the Union will, in future, be taken by member states,” he acknowledges.