MEPs push for free movement

Date: 17/10/1996

By Mark Turner

THE European Parliament will vote next week on measures to guarantee the free movement of people in the Union after winning assurances that the original proposals would not be watered down.

If adopted, the package would eliminate remaining controls at the EU's internal frontiers, abolish restrictions on the movement of workers and their families, and allow legally resident third-country nationals to travel throughout the Union.

But MEPs refused to give their verdict on the three-part package presented by Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti earlier this year after the Council of Ministers indicated these should be handled on an intergovernmental basis, instead of through the introduction of EU-wide laws.

This move by the former Italian EU presidency was designed to break the 40-year deadlock over one of the Union's four fundamental freedoms.

But the Parliament and the Commission feared the tactic would weaken their input into a key area of EU policy.

The Irish EU presidency has unblocked the latest log-jam by promising that it will not propose any changes before the Monti package is debated by the Parliament during its plenary session next week.

Irish Justice Minister Nora Owen has also announced that the freedom of movement guaranteed under Article 7a of the Maastricht Treaty should apply to everybody legally resident in the Union.

These two statements have mollified the Parliament's civil liberties committee.

“This is the first time that a president of the Council has given an unequivocal answer to a question at the heart of the committee's concerns,” said committee chairman Luis Marinho, a Portuguese socialist MEP.

It is unclear, however, whether Owen's promises amount to more than helpful rhetoric. Parliamentary sources fear that the Council of Ministers, in particular the UK, will eventually return to their earlier insistence that the draft legislation be handled on an intergovernmental basis.

If EU governments choose this route, they are likely to provoke a re-run of the parliamentary furore which broke out in July when MEPs learnt that the proposed directive might be replaced with a presidency action plan under Maastricht's intergovernmental procedures.

Officially, the Council is still waiting for the Parliament's vote later this month before relaunching its own debate on the proposals first tabled a year ago.

It will thus be virtually impossible for internal market ministers to reach any substantive conclusions when they meet next Friday (25 October), just two days after the parliamentary vote.

With the following Internal Market Council not due until 26 November, that leaves little time for agreement before the Dutch presidency takes over in January.

The Parliament has taken a keen interest in ensuring the Union translates its treaty pledge on the free movement of people into a reality. MEPs believe it was their threat to take the Commission to the European Court of Justice for its failure to act which eventually prompted Monti to present his proposals.

They are especially opposed to any attempt by governments to reclassify the proposals since they now come under the co-decision procedure, where the Parliament has real decision-making input.

But as the Parliament's ultimate sanction would be to reject the draft legislation - which would not be in MEPs' interests given their desire to see progress on this issue - its negotiating power is limited.

The package also faces further obstacles. The proposals are, at least partially, dependent on measures to strengthen the Union's external frontiers. Agreement within the Council on the necessary convention is as unlikely as ever, due to continued acrimony between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar.

Meanwhile, the Commission is growing tired of delays. “This is a crucial measure to give visibility to European citizenship,” stressed a spokeswoman. “As long as citizens do not have free movement, the internal market will not be complete.”