EP group leaders mull moves to focus debate on key dossiers

Political group leaders in the European Parliament will this week discuss plans to focus plenary debates on important legislative dossiers and cut back time spent on subjects where MEPs have no formal powers.

A report from the working group on Parliamentary reform, which will be debated today (20 September) in the political leaders’ meeting, or conference of presidents, says that MEPs are spending more time during the plenary session debating own-initiative reports on matters over which the Parliament has no power than on subjects where MEPs can influence legislation.

An internal Parliament study showed that MEPs spent nearly 22% of debating time on own-initiative reports compared to less than 19% of time on legislative proposals.

Graham Watson, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said: "The plenary sessions are clogged up with own-initiative reports. Parliament should concentrate on the legislative agenda."

Watson said that own-initiative reports should be "no longer than one sheet of A4". If they went to the plenary session it should not be possible to amend them, he said. Instead, MEPs could reject one report in favour of another. "The idea is to make the Parliament more serious," Watson said.

According to the report from the working group, which is being chaired by German centre-left MEP Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, MEPs debated 79 of the 92 own-initiative reports sent to the plenary.

The document says that more Parliamentary reports should be voted on directly to allow "more voting time for major pieces of legislation and political debates with Council and Commission".

The plenary agenda should be managed better by identifying a priority list of reports and items for debate by political group leaders or heads of committee, the report says. To encourage MEPs who have drawn up own-initiative reports to skip a debate in plenary, slots could be made available on Mondays and Thursdays to the authors to present their reports. Plenary debates on Mondays and Thursdays are very poorly attended by MEPs.

The report says that there is a "broad consensus" in the working group for better management of the time available for plenary debates. But there is no suggestion of cutting down on the number of own initiative reports.

The report also suggests a one-month cooling-off period between votes in committees and in plenaries as a general rule for legislative reports in first reading. Many MEPs have complained that there is not enough time to consider the sometimes thousands of amendments put forward after committee votes and before plenary votes.

The working group’s report also makes suggestions about better organisation of question-time, when MEPs quiz representatives from the Council and commissioners, as well as changes in the organisation of debates to give more speaking time to MEPs who have worked on specific proposals and issues.

The working group will present two further reports, one on the work of Parliamentary committees and one on relations between the EU institutions early next year, and two other reports, on external relations and on the Parliament’s structure for 2009 next summer.

The plan is to implement changes recommended by the group in time for the new Parliamentary legislature in 2009.

Political group leaders in the European Parliament will this week discuss plans to focus plenary debates on important legislative dossiers and cut back time spent on subjects where MEPs have no formal powers.