Santer warns against road to ‘anarchy’

Date: 17/10/1996

By Rory Watson

EUROPEAN Commission President Jacques Santer has made a spirited defence of the institution he oversees as he looks ahead to the major political challenges of the next 12 months.

In an interview with European Voice, Santer warns that sharing the Commission's exclusive right to table draft legislation with EU governments and MEPs would lead to “anarchy and total paralysis”.

He also insists that a strong Commission is an essential precondition for a successful Union.

Santer will stress the institution's pivotal role when he unveils the Commission's political priorities for 1997 in the European Parliament next week. His message will be seen as a determined effort to head off any attempt to use the Intergovernmental Conference to whittle away at the Commission's powers.

Despite the crossfire of criticism sporadically directed at the institution, Santer maintains that those EU leaders who raised the issue of institutional reform at the recent Dublin summit called for the Commission to be strengthened rather than weakened.