Pöttering under pressure to sign up to reforms

Pro-reform MEPs are stepping up pressure on Hans-Gert Pöttering to sign up to further changes in Parliament’s rules and procedures before he is elected Parliament president next January.

Pöttering won the unanimous backing of the 264-member centre-right EPP-ED group on Tuesday (14 November) to be the group’s candidate to take over as president next January. His election is a near certainty as he also has the support of the 201-strong Socialist group which signed up to a deal to split the five-year term with their candidate, Josep Borrell. Pöttering will have a majority of around 465 votes, easily more than the 366 he needs. But in order to send a signal that he has the support from the widest possible range within the assembly he wants votes from the 90-member Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

He appeared before the ALDE group last night (15 November) to explain which additional reforms he could consider in return for its support.

ALDE leader Graham Watson is asking for the Parliament to meet in plenary session every week to debate major current affairs issues and respond to major policy initiatives from the Commission.

Watson said this week: "It’s ridiculous that Parliament only meets once a month."

Pöttering indicated he could accept holding an additional weekly session in Brussels as an experiment.

Watson said that that if the group was satisfied with Pöttering’s reform pledges "there will not be great pressure from my group to put up a candidate". ALDE will decide whether to put up its own candidate on 29 November.

Leaders of Parliament’s political groups have agreed to set up a working group to examine further reforms to the assembly’s working methods. But this group, which is expected to be chaired by a senior MEP from one of the two largest groups, will not start work until the election of the new president in January.

Jens-Peter Bonde, joint president of the Eurosceptic Independence and Democracy group, also called on Pöttering to sign up to a reform agenda. Bonde, who launched the Fair Chair campaign this week in Strasbourg, opposing the pre-arranged deal on the presidency with the Socialists, said he would not stand against Pöttering if he adopted some of the campaign’s five-point programme. He called for a genuine election for the president of Parliament. "I don’t oppose Pöttering as a person but he will serve the structures who appointed him," he said.

The campaigners want a proper election, an end to the d’Hondt system of allocating posts on the basis of delegation size, an end to meeting in Strasbourg, reform of voting procedures and more chance for backbench MEPs to take part in debates.

Bonde said that many MEPs from the big groups supported his campaign but were reluctant to back it publicly.

The Fair Chair campaign is backed by Independence and Democracy plus members from all other groups in Parliament.

Pro-reform MEPs are stepping up pressure on Hans-Gert Pöttering to sign up to further changes in Parliament’s rules and procedures before he is elected Parliament president next January.

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