Shake-up planned as MEPs prepare for added responsibility

Date: 19/11/1998

By Rory Watson

A RADICAL shake-up of the European Parliament's internal procedures is being prepared as MEPs come to terms with their new responsibilities under the Amsterdam Treaty.

Staff redeployment and the role of plenary sessions, committee and political group meetings, and overseas delegations are all being reassessed as senior MEPs and officials rewrite the institution's internal rule book.

One of the greatest influences on the Parliament's future work will be the sharp increase in the areas where it will have equal legislative authority with EU governments. This is now just 15 subjects, but will eventually be extended to 40.

Allied to this, MEPs will continue to carve out roles for themselves in economic, monetary and employment policies and will be increasingly involved in the enlargement negotiations as they develop their dialogue with parliaments in the applicant countries.

"The significance of these changes for the European Parliament is that they will lead to a change of emphasis towards the more traditional role of a parliament: scrutinising, improving and deciding legislation, holding the executive to account and exercising its budgetary powers," Secretary-General Julian Priestley explained in a recent internal memo to senior MEPs.

In addition, MEPs will continue their traditional role of speaking out on world events and of acting as a forum for European public opinion.

But the message coming through the various working groups examining the Parliament's new arrangements is that fresh priority must be given to its legislative work, especially as it will be possible in future to adopt directives after just one, instead of two, readings.

Priestley intends to set out various ways in which these different challenges can be met in a position paper to political group leaders next month.

But there is already a growing feeling inside the Parliament that the practice of holding two weeks of committee meetings and one of political groups in Brussels every month is unsuited to the increased legislative tempo.

One idea being discussed is that MEPs should be given more time to examine draft legislation and prepare their response within their political groups. Another reform would bring greater order to the tabling of amendments. These would be shifted at an earlier stage to prevent the tendency towards voting marathons.

"We are looking at the whole way Parliament works and how the provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty can be stretched to maximise the parliamentary input," explained UK Socialist MEP Richard Corbett.

He, together with two Spanish colleagues - Antoni Gutiérrez Díaz and Ana Palacio - has identified some 30 internal changes which could be made.

The reforms will almost certainly mean revamping the structure of the Brussels mini-sessions, which are poorly attended. Instead of the current two-day meetings seven times a year, Corbett and others would like to see a two-to-three hour plenary session held every week in the Belgian capital. "If you had it on a Wednesday, the Commission would have to come to us to explain its decision and answer questions after its weekly meeting," explained Corbett.While this scrutiny role would be developed in Brussels, legislative decisions and showcase events would be in Strasbourg.

In parallel with these initiatives, a separate group of MEPs, including French Christian Democrat Nicole Fontaine and UK Socialist Ken Collins, are involved in talks with EU governments on ways of improving the mechanism for ironing out their legislative differences under the co-decision procedure.

Yet another group, under French Socialist Jean-Pierre Cot, is tackling one of the Parliament's - and the Union's - more insuperable problems: how to reconcile the right of people to use their own language with the conflicting demands of efficiency.

Major feature on the proposals being mooted to reform the EP's procedures once the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified.