Resolution of the Committee of the Regions on "The outcome of the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference and the discussion on the future of the European Union"

(2001/C 253/08)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Treaty of Nice approved by the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States at the meeting of the European Council held on 7-11 December 2000, and to the Protocol on the Enlargement of the European Union, the Declaration on the Enlargement of the European Union and the Declaration on the Future of the Union to be included in the Final Act of the Conference, which are appended to the Treaty of Nice;

having regard to the resolution of the European Parliament of 14 December 2000 on the outcome of European Council meeting in Nice on 7-11 December 2000 (B5-0938, 0939 and 0942/2000);

having regard to its opinion of 15 September 1999 on the institutional aspects of enlargement - "Local and regional government at the heart of Europe" (CdR 52/99 fin)(1);

having regard to its resolution of 3 June 1999 on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference (CdR 54/99 fin)(2) and its opinion of 17 February 2000 on the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference (CdR 53/99 fin)(3);

having regard to its resolution of 20 September 2000 entitled "For a European constitutional framework" (CdR 144/2000 fin)(4);

having regard to its opinion of 16 February 2000 on the process of drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CdR 327/99 fin)(5), its resolution of 20 September 2000 on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CdR 140/2000 fin)(6) and its resolution of 13 December 2000 on the approval of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CdR 381/2000 fin)(7);

having regard to the decision of its Bureau of 12 December 2000, in accordance with the fifth paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community and Rule 42(2) of its Rules of Procedure, to draw up a resolution on the outcome of the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference and the discussion on the future of the Union and to instruct the Commission for Institutional Affairs to prepare the work;

having regard to the draft resolution adopted unanimously by the Commission for Institutional Affairs at its meeting on 23 February 2001 (CdR 430/2000 rev.) (rapporteur: Mr Dammeyer (D-PSE);

whereas after ten months of intensive negotiations, the Nice European Council of 11 December 2000 brought the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to a close and approved a new Treaty covering the four key issues of the IGC, namely: the size and composition of the European Commission; the weighting of votes at meetings of the Council; the replacement of unanimous voting by qualified majority voting in the decision-making processes; and increased cooperation;

whereas the Treaty of Nice provides for a number of changes to Treaty Article 263 relating to the Committee of the Regions. In future CoR members will have to "either hold a regional or local authority electoral mandate or [be] politically accountable to an elected assembly", the appointment of CoR members and alternates will be determined by the Council by a qualified majority, and the term of office of CoR members will come to an end "when the mandate on the basis of which they were proposed comes to an end";

whereas the number of members of the Committee of the Regions has been set at a maximum of 350. The previous arrangements as regards the distribution of seats in the CoR between the Member States are to remain unchanged. In a Union of 27 Member States, the Committee of the Regions, like the Economic and Social Committee, is to comprise 344 members;

whereas the Declaration on the Future of the Union states that the conclusion of the IGC "opens the way for enlargement of the European Union", and that "with ratification of the Nice Treaty, the European Union will have completed the institutional changes necessary for the accession of new Member States". This declaration also calls for "a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the European Union" in which all the institutions, all interested parties and the applicant states are to be involved. This process is to culminate in the issuing of a declaration by the European Council at its meeting in Laeken, Brussels in December 2001;

whereas the process should address, inter alia: 1) a more precise delimitation of competencies between the European Union and the Member States, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity; 2) the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; 3) a simplification of the Treaties; and 4) "the role of national parliaments in the European architecture". The aim is to improve "the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions (and) to bring them closer to the citizens of the Member States". After these preparatory steps have been concluded a further IGC is to be held in 2004,

adopted the following resolution at its 38th plenary session of 4 and 5 April 2001 (meeting of 4 April), by a unanimous vote.

The Committee of the Regions

I. 1. welcomes the fact that the Treaty of Nice has made institutional changes, which are required for the accession of new members and which are to pave the way for the enlargement of the Union to include the new democracies in central and eastern Europe along with Cyprus and Malta;

2. notes that the Treaty of Nice falls well short of what the Committee has deemed necessary in its opinions and resolutions if the Union's ability to enlarge is to be strengthened, its democratic legitimacy, transparency and "closeness to the people" is to be enhanced and lasting improvements are to be made to the effectiveness of its decision-making;

3. welcomes the IGC's endorsement at long last of the Committee's long-standing demand for CoR members to hold a political mandate in their home region or local authority area if they are to become or remain members; and acknowledges that the provisions of the new Treaty accord with its own proposals;

4. welcomes the fact that the Council will in future appoint CoR members and alternates by a qualified majority; and trusts that, particularly in cases where members have to be replaced during their term of office, the appointment procedure will thus be much quicker;

5. welcomes the decision to set the number of Committee members at a maximum of 350 in line with its proposals, but regrets the failure to take advantage of the opportunity presented by EU enlargement to bring the distribution of seats between the Member States into line with the Committee's specific political role; and deems it inappropriate that the size of its membership and the distribution of seats between the Member States continues to mirror that of the Economic and Social Committee;

6. deplores the fact that its term of office has not been brought into line with the five-year term of the European Parliament, despite the importance of this for its specific political role and the effectiveness of its work;

7. respects the fact that the IGC, which was obliged to concentrate on the leftovers from Amsterdam and other changes relating to EU enlargement, was unable to take account of the Committee's further demands; nonetheless strongly renews its other demands for improvements to be made to its involvement in the EU decision-making process; and reaffirms in particular its demand that, with a view to safeguarding its own rights, the Committee be given the right to institute proceedings in the European Court of Justice and be accorded the status of a fully-fledged EU institution;

II. 8. welcomes the Declaration on the Future of the Union and strongly endorses the intention of the Heads of State and Government to launch forthwith a wide-ranging public debate on the future development of the European Union addressing, in particular, the need to improve democratic legitimacy, transparency and "closeness to the people"; and welcomes the announcement that a new IGC is to be convened in 2004;

9. welcomes the European Council's intention to adopt a declaration on the preparation and content of the 2004 intergovernmental conference at its meeting in Laeken under the Belgian presidency; and trusts that it will be formally involved in an appropriate manner in this wide-ranging discussion;

10. agrees that particular attention should be paid in this debate to (i) a better delimitation of competencies between the European Union and the Member States, taking account of the internal distribution of competencies within each Member State, (ii) simplification of the Treaties, and (iii) the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights; but also considers it to be urgently necessary to extend the debate to include: a root-and-branch reform of the Council; reform of the procedure for amending the Treaties; the strengthening of the European Commission's ability to function and responsibility; and - above all - the political role of the CoR and its transformation into a Community institution;

11. proposes that, in connection with a better delimitation of competencies, there be a review of the division of political responsibilities in key policy areas between the European Union, on the one hand, and the Member States and their regional and local authorities, on the other, inter alia in the light of the current debate on European governance; and would place special emphasis in this context on regional policy, an area where the subsidiarity principle should be observed more closely and regions' autonomy should be strengthened further;

12. points out that, in the context of preparing and organising the 2004 intergovernmental conference, it is necessary above all to examine (i) which tasks can and must be performed jointly by a considerably enlarged and much more heterogeneous Union, (ii) what Treaty reforms are required for the EU tasks thus defined and (iii) how the European Union's condensed and reformed tasks can be clearly set out in the Treaty;

13. trusts that, when responsibilities are allocated to the European Union, top priority will be given to the subsidiarity principle, which has been a fundamental part of the Treaties since Maastricht and is binding on all European institutions;

14. points out that the principles applicable to the distribution of responsibility and power between central, regional and local government in the individual Member States must be respected;

15. emphasises, in this regard, that many competencies of the future European Union need to remain shared competencies - shared not only between the EU and national governments, but also, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, with regional and local government; and further notes that the term competency is not limited to a power to legislate, but includes other legal powers of action within the responsibility of each sphere of government;

16. points to the need also to improve the legal machinery for the delimitation of competencies; and proposes that the possibilities for a more systematic and better gradation of EU competencies be examined;

17. trusts that in the future architecture for the European institutions, the role played by regional and local authorities in Europe will be upgraded, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, so as to reflect their importance for European unification and for the implementation of European policy at grassroots level; and considers that it will therefore be necessary to give the Committee of the Regions full institutional status, to provide it with a structure enabling it to carry out efficiently the duties assigned to it, and to grant it powers which go beyond a purely consultative role, thereby making it a participant in the European decision-making process in which all political levels in the Member States - from local authority to region with legislative powers - have their place and share responsibility;

18. considers at any event that any other new EU institution - such as a second chamber for the European Parliament or a new representative institution comprising representatives of national parliaments - is not expedient or necessary;

19. would make express reference in this context to its experiences and achievements; and demands that any further institution set up alongside the European Parliament and the Council should be filled with representatives of regional and local authorities and should evolve from the Committee of the Regions;

20. thinks that it is vital to press ahead resolutely with the overdue political debate on a root-and-branch reform of the Council, its duties and working methods, in the interests of greater transparency and subsidiarity;

21. reiterates its support for the European Parliament's proposal that the Treaties be consolidated into a single text comprising a core part (preamble, objectives, fundamental rights and provisions dealing with the institutions, decision-making procedures and the various competencies) and a separate part on EU policies;

22. reaffirms the demand which it has repeatedly made for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be incorporated into the Treaties as a legally-binding text; and points to how this will tie in at the planned Intergovernmental conference with a clear definition of the areas where the EU is empowered to act;

23. welcomes the call made by the Heads of State and Government at the Nice European Council for a wide-ranging debate, involving all interested parties, on the future development of the EU; regards it as essential that the EU institutions, all Member State governments and parliaments and representatives of the applicant states are properly involved in this debate; notes with considerable interest the proposal put forward by various parties that the "future European agenda" be prepared by a convention; and demands that the Committee of the Regions be formally involved in this process;

III. 24. will convene representatives of the EU's regional and local authorities to a general assembly in mid-October 2001 in order to discuss the future of the Union and to set out their demands for the "Laeken Declaration"; and urges the regional and local authorities in the Member States to play an active and stimulating role and launch a public debate on the future of Europe forthwith in their respective areas of responsibility, in the interests of more democracy, transparency and subsidiarity;

25. also calls on the regional and local authorities in the Member States to support the proposals set out in this resolution vis-à-vis their national and regional governments and parliaments; addresses this request in particular to those regions which have a large say in European matters vis-à-vis their national governments and are involved in ratifying amendments to the Treaties; and would invite these "constitutional regions", in particular, to collaborate closely with the Committee of the Regions as the sole body representing regional and local authorities;

26. calls on the European political parties and their representatives in European and national political bodies to support and promote the proposals set out in this resolution;

27. instructs its President to: forward this resolution to the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission, all Member State governments and parliaments and the regional authorities of the Member States; fight for the Committee of the Regions' formal involvement in the debate about the future of the EU and in the preparations for the next intergovernmental conference; and prepare the general assembly of the regional and local authorities, to be held in October 2001.

Brussels, 4 April 2001.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos Chabert

(1) OJ C 374 of 23.12.1999, p. 15.

(2) OJ C 293, 23.10.1999, p. 74.

(3) OJ C 156, 6.6.2000, p. 6.

(4) OJ C 22, 24.1.2001, p. 4.

(5) OJ C 156, 6.6.2000, p. 1.

(6) OJ C 22, 24.1.2001, p. 1.

(7) OJ C 144, 16.5.2001, p. 42.