Brussels Report

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PLENARY SESSION IN STRASBOURG

11-14 December 2006

Tuesday dawned dank and grey, a typical Strasbourg December morning, but a ray of light could be glimpsed on the horizon – the first press conference of the day was on the 62nd Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue last week in Charleston, South Carolina. Jonathan Evans, Chairman of the European Parliament Delegation, and Enrique Baron Crespo, Chairman of the International Trade Committee were anxious to report to the press. The only problem was that nobody from the press turned up, only someone from Nicholas Phillips Associates. It is thus that we can give you an exclusive scoop that, yes, you’ve guessed it, the meeting was a tremendous success.

To be fair, MEPs and Members of Congress have been meeting regularly since 1972 and the Parliament delegation is the largest of the 34 EP delegations, which reflects the importance attached to transatlantic relations. In this latest meeting, both sides agreed to beef up the relationship and develop exchanges of information at the level of individual committees.

At the later press conferences of the political group leaders, Martin Schultz, for the Socialists, Daniel Cohn-Bendit for the Greens, and Graham Watson for the Liberals, all congratulated the Commission for getting foreign ministers to endorse suspension of negotiations on eight out of 35 topics Turkey needs to agree before becoming a member of the EU. By acting quickly, it had prevented Member States from blowing the problem out of all proportion.

Hans-Gert Poettering for the EPP was slightly more nuanced. While congratulating the Commission for avoiding a clash with Turkey, he said it would have been irresponsible of the EU not to react to Turkey’s non-recognition of the Customs Union vis-à-vis Cyprus (“You can’t negotiate with someone you don’t recognise”). He then went even further in saying that, personally, he preferred a privileged partnership with Turkey.

At this stage, Martin Schultz appeared at one of the windows overlooking the press room and started counting the number of journalists present, to see whether he had drawn a larger audience than Poettering. Well, he hadn’t.

BULGARIAN AND ROMANIAN ACCESSION

Later in the morning, Parliament approved the Bulgarian and Romanian Commissioners-designate, by 589 votes to 21 with 28 abstentions in favour of Mrs Meglena Kuneva (Bulgaria) and by 595 votes to 16, with 29 abstentions, in favour of Mr Leonard Orban (Romania).

This was expected as both candidates had passed the hurdle of their Parliamentary Hearings, but it is worth noting that this was the first time that an accession treaty had explicitly required the European Parliament to be consulted on the appointment of Commissioners for New Member States.

The voting on the candidates for the Court of Auditors was less clear cut. The Bulgarian, Mrs Nadezhda Sandolova, had no problem with 561 votes to 32 against, with 38 abstentions. The Romanian, Mr Ovidiu Ispir, had a rather more difficult time, getting through with 356 votes to 229 against and 51 abstentions. The voting was by secret ballot but everybody knew that the majority of the EPP were in the ‘no’ camp, because Hans-Gert Poettering had said they would be during his press conference.

EU ENLARGEMENT

There was a joint debate on Wednesday on EPP Rapporteur Elmar Brok’s report on the EU enlargement strategy and on EPP Rapporteur Alexander Stubb’s report on the EU’s integration capacity.

Brok’s report calls for integration capacity to play a larger role (supported by Stubb), clear budgetary assessment of future enlargement, and prior EP assent to open negotiations. Brok also wants, as does Stubb, the “constitutional process” to be concluded before the 2009 European Elections, with Stubb pointing out that the EU was going to have difficulties honouring its commitments towards South-East European States.

Both Rapporteurs held a joint press conference following the debate and were highly critical of Member States Governments. Brok claimed that with only 66 votes against his report, the House was behind him and trashed the Nice Treaty as being an inadequate basis for the enlarged Union. He ridiculed the idea of having 8 Commissioners for the West Balkans alone and went on to claim that more than 70% of EU citizens wanted the EU to act politically. Finally, Turkey had to be reminded of its commitments and implement them.

Stubb’s remarks were pretty much in the same vein and he criticised Member Governments for claiming responsibility for everything that went well in the EU, and treating the EU as a scapegoat for all the ills.

Several journalists tried to push Brok to say he was against Turkish membership, but he wouldn’t play, saying that every country would be treated on its merits and that there was nothing in either report, which closed the door to any country.

REACH

Well, it’s over… or at least it is as far as the Parliament and Council are concerned. Wednesday saw the House adopt the compromise negotiated between Council and the Parliament on REACH, by 529 to 98, with 24 abstentions. The sparsely attended debate Monday evening threw up no surprises with the Italian Socialist Rapporteur, Guido Sacconi, stating that the Parliament had two choices: adopt the compromise, or end up with the Common Position, thereby dismissing the Greens’ attempts to put forward a set of amendments of their own. Pekkarinen, speaking on behalf of the Council Presidency, noted that this compromise was the result of lengthy negotiations involving 7 Presidencies in all, and he particularly complemented the British Presidency for its role in bringing about the Council’s Common Position.

Commission Vice-President, Gunter Verheugen, explained that the text before the House was an improvement on the original text from the Commission, and felt that the result bore the stamp of the Parliament and that it should be proud of what had been achieved. He added that with these new rules, the EU hoped to set a Global Standard. We shall see.

COMMISSION GREEN PAPER ON ENERGY

MEP’s concern for energy as a priority issue obviously doesn’t extend to attending debates about it. Half an hour into the debate on Socialist Rapporteur Eluned Morgan’s report on the Commission Green Paper, there were no more than 10 MEPs in the Hemicycle. The report, which comes from the Industry and Energy Committee, is generally supportive of the Green Paper’s strategy for sustainable, competitive and clean energy, but stresses that changing conditions in the global energy market needed to be taken into account and that a systematic approach should be developed which considered production, distribution and consumption as part of a policy to secure affordable energy.

Among other recommendations the report also calls for a binding CO² target for 2020 and an indicative one for 2050, changes in the existing Emissions Trading Scheme, binding sectoral targets for renewables to reach 25% in primary energy by 2020, considers that decisions on the future of nuclear power should be for Member States individually to decide, and stresses that consumers must be placed at the centre of all future energy policies. The EPP tried unsuccessfully to water down the commitment to “binding” sectoral targets for renewables, as they had done in Committee, but were outvoted by the PES and Liberals. They also narrowly lost their amendment calling on the Commission to “set ambitious but realistic targets for ultra-low or non CO² emitting and CO² neutral energy technologies to supply 60% of EU electricity demand by 2020, in support of European climate and security of supply objectives”. One area the EPP did succeed in was to keep out the call for complete auctioning of ETS credits from 2012, which Morgan had called for in her report.

The Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, agreed enthusiastically with most of the report and was positively effusive in his praise of Eluned Morgan, congratulating her on her “impressive work”. Mrs Morgan was equally effusive about Commissioner Piebalgs and hoped that he felt Parliament had responded constructively to the Green Paper (he did). She congratulated the Commission on initiating procedures against 19 Member States for non-implementation of a raft of energy legislation and asked for even more to be done in naming and shaming Member States which were in default.

The debate came to a rather sombre end with Commissioner Piebalgs being the first among many to pay tribute to the former Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio who had died the previous night. A more formal tribute and minute’s silence was led by President Borrell before the vote and he told the House that although they had been political opponents, he had always found her a hard working and tireless campaigner.

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That ends the last plenary session of the year and it brings us to the mid-term of this Parliament. In the January 2007 plenary, the next President will be elected. The candidates standing at the moment are Hans-Gert Poettering, the EPP leader, Jens-Peter Bonde, co-leader of the IND/DEM, Monica Frassoni, co-leader of the Greens, and Francis Wurtz, leader of the GUE. Barring any last minute developments, Poettering looks certain to be elected and this will result in a new EPP leader. Up until a few weeks ago, all money was on Joseph Daul the French Chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Chairman of the Committee of Chairmen. However, there is a growing feeling that Daul’s campaign has not got off the ground and a number of heads are appearing above the parapet to make this a real contest.

Antonio Tajani the leader of the Italian delegation is standing, apparently because he is not prepared to accept a Daul stitch-up. He probably won’t have much support outside Southern Europe, but Gunnar Hokmark the leader of the Swedish Conservatives is doing much better than expected. He appeared before the German delegation and by all accounts gave an excellent performance, whereas Daul was floundering. Other names such as Joao de Deus Pinheiro and Othmar Karas are also in the frame and in an attempt to contain this increasingly anarchic situation, the vote has been brought forward to the week before the January plenary and will now take place on Tuesday 9 January.

This week saw some changes within other Political Groups, with the UEN attracting 10 new Members (5 Poles from the Ind/Dem, 4 Italian Lega Nord from the non-attached and another Pole from the PES). This brings their numbers up to 44 and they jump from being the 6th largest Group to the 4th, ahead of the Greens (42) and GUE (41). This will entitle them to a Vice President of the EP and more chance of committee chairmanships etc. It still leaves them a long way behind the three major Groups, and with the arrival of the new Romanian and Bulgarian MEPs in January this difference will be exacerbated as almost all the new MEPs will go into the EPP, PES or ALDE. Their relative sizes in January are likely to be EPP (up 14 to 278), PES (up 18 to 219) and ALDE (up 16 to 106).

The loss to the Ind/Dems will be particularly felt as they drop to 23 Members, only just above the 19 MEPs needed to form a Group. There is still talk of a possible Far Right grouping but this has always failed in the past.

I will examine the implications for industry; if any, of these developments in my report of the January plenary, but for now I should just like to wish everybody a magnificent Christmas and a splendid start to 2007.

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The next Strasbourg Plenary will be 15-18 January 2007

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Nicholas Phillips Associates, a European Union political consultancy based in Brussels and Strasbourg, advises European and North American corporations and associations on lobbying the European Commission and Parliament on draft legislation and policy issues.

For further information, please contact: nicholas.phillips@biz.tiscali.be