Dispute over call to revamp committees

Date: 22/10/1998

By Rory Watson

UK SOCIALIST MEP Ken Collins has stirred up a furious debate among his colleagues in the European Parliament by calling for a radical overhaul of the institution's committee structure.

The long-serving chairman of the Parliament's environment committee, who plans to retire next June, is recommending that the number of specialised committees which scrutinise draft European Union legislation should be drastically reduced and their remits redrawn. "The main problem is that the committee structure we have now has grown up in an ad hoc way over the years with no one stopping to think what the Parliament should be doing. With the Amsterdam Treaty coming into force and the European elections next June, we now have an opportunity to review it," he explained.

Pressure for change is coming from the fact that some committees have a relatively light workload while others are overburdened, and a growing awareness that as the Parliament takes on new responsibilities, existing staff need to be better deployed.

Under the new structure proposed by Collins, there would be just 14 or 15 committees instead of the 23 - including subcommittees - which now exist. This would mean the end of separate committees for external relations, petitions, budgetary control, fisheries, research and technology, transport and women's rights.

This has already prompted a fight back by the petitions committee, whose members warned last week that without a specific parliamentary committee it would be impossible to apply in practice the right of petition which European citizens enjoy under the Maastricht Treaty. "The problem is that while most people accept the logic of the ideas Ken Collins has put forward, they then tend to say that their particular area is too important and should not be changed," said one veteran MEP.

In the paper he has prepared for the Parliament's political group presidents, Collins argues the reform would lead to a "fairer balance of work between the committees and a wider spread of legislative work", and that fewer committees with more members would make "legislative committees in particular more representative of the Parliament as a whole".

A revamped structure with a smaller number of more powerful committees would also strengthen the Parliament's hand in its dealings with European Commissioners in general and during their investiture hearings in particular.

"There needs to be a closer association between the European Commission and the Parliament. In this era of expanding legislative co-decision between MEPs and governments, the Parliament should also think about the Council of Ministers' structure," added Collins, who chairs the conference of parliamentary committee chairmen and women.

A final decision rests with political group leaders, with supporters of reform hoping that a blueprint can be agreed before next June's Euro-elections.

Ken Collins, MEP, has put forward proposals to overhaul the EP's committee structure.