MEPs and Commission clear the way for treaty agreement

Members of the European Parliament and the European Commission have cleared the way to start the drafting of a new treaty which is expected to be agreed by the end of October.

Both MEPs and the Commission have endorsed the mandate for a treaty-drafting intergovernmental conference (IGC) agreed by EU leaders at the 21-23 June summit. The European Central Bank, which issued its opinion on the IGC on 5 July, also approved the mandate.

MEPs voted by an overwhelming majority yesterday (11 July) to back German Socialist MEP Jo Leinen’s report on the mandate for the IGC, saying that it preserved "much of the substance of the constitutional treaty". The constitution was more ambitious but was rejected by French and Dutch citizens in 2005. But MEPs regretted that the name constitution and symbols of the EU’s identity like the flag and the ‘Ode to Joy’ anthem had been dropped. UK Socialist MEP Richard Corbett said that the reform treaty "salvages 90% of the constitutional treaty but the 10% difference is rather important".

MEPs also strongly criticised what UK Liberal Andrew Duff called the "crowd of opt-outs which would contaminate the corpus of EU law".

Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates, who was yesterday presenting his programme for the six-month presidency to MEPs, said: "A large part of the substance is there but many things are not." Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering said that "the substance of the constitutional treaty is more or less retained but not for the UK", referring to the opt-outs secured by the UK on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and some aspects of justice and home affairs.

While many MEPs stressed the difference between the EU constitution and the reform treaty, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: "We support the treaty because it’s an improvement on the current situation." Barroso said that the treaty brought more democratic accountability, made EU decision-making more efficient and introduced coherence on foreign policy.

The Commission’s opinion on the IGC, presented on Tuesday (10 July), says that according to the draft mandate agreed at June’s summit, decisions will be taken by qualified majority voting in around 40 areas while co-decision with the European Parliament will be extended to 50 new policy areas including many aspects of justice and home affairs co-operation.

MEPs were most critical of the UK’s opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Leinen said that it was a "blow to the credibility of the EU that not all 27 member states have the same protection of fundamental rights", adding: "I can see [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Chinese looking askance at us."

The Parliament could not accept "first and second class protection" of fundamental rights, he said.

The report calls for member states to agree that the charter is equally valid for all member states. Leinen said that this was a message to the European Court of Justice to ensure in its judgements that UK citizens had the same protection as other EU citizens.

The Commission, MEPs and the Portuguese presidency stressed the importance of sticking strictly to the mandate agreed at the summit. Barroso said it would be "inconceivable" to reopen any of the issues agreed in June, a clear warning to Poland not to try to restart the debate on the voting system. Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyn´ski has said that he got a verbal agreement at the summit that countries could block decisions in the Council of Ministers for up to two years by invoking the so-called Ioaninna compromise. But the draft mandate does not specify a time period and under the original mechanism a decision should be reached after a "reasonable time".

The European Parliament also appointed three MEPs as representatives on the ICG: German EPP-ED member Elmar Brok, Spanish Socialist Enrique Barón Crespo and UK Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff.

Members of the European Parliament and the European Commission have cleared the way to start the drafting of a new treaty which is expected to be agreed by the end of October.