CONTENT OF THE DRAFT TREATY ESTABLISHING THE EUROPEAN UNION

by Altiero Spinelli

SUMMARY: The European Parliament discusses the proposals put forward by the Committee on Institutional Affairs on the content of the draft Treaty establishing the European Union.

After securing approval for its work in general terms (6 July 1982), the Committee on Institutional Affairs appointed - in addition to Spinelli - six rapporteurs to be responsible for drafting the various chapters of the reform plan: Moreau (French Socialist) for economic and monetary policy; Pfennig (German Christian Democrat) for policy of society; Prag (British Conservative) for international relations; Junot (French Gaullist) and then Seeler (German Social Democrat) for finance; De Gucht (Belgian Liberal) for the juridical structure of the Union; and Zecchino (Italian Christian Democrat) for the institutions.

In the course of its work, the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and in particular its rapport, discussed the most important aspects of the reform with exports from all Community countries at seminars organized by the Florence European University Institute.

In response to an invitation from that institute, on 13 June 1983 Spinelli had given the sixth Jean Monnct lecture on the subject "Towards European Union", in which he described the basic action taken by the European Parliament to achieve European Union.

The resolution of the Commission on Institutional Affairs on the content of the draft treaty adopted by the Committee on 5 July 1983 with 29 votes in favour, 4 against and 2 abstentions, is approved by the Assembly on 14 September 1983 with 201 votes in favour, 37 against and 72 abstentions. In "Speeches in European Parliament, 1976-1986", Pier Virgilio Dastoli editor. (EP, 14 September 1983)

Mr President, in order to carry out the task assigned to it by Parliament in July last year, the Committee on Institutional Affairs appointed six rapporteurs to draw up the six sections making up this motion for a resolution, and me to coordinate their contributions and bring them together in a single text. I shall accordingly be confining myself to a presentation of the motion for a resolution in broad outline and an exposition of it political implications, while my fellow rapporteurs will be speaking to their respective sections.

The essential features of this motion for a resolution can be summarized as follows. First, it is not a work of improvization.

It is not so much to my six colleagues and myself as to the committee as a whole that the draftsmanship and coordination should properly be attributed. Under the intelligent, determined chairmanship of Mr Mauro Ferri, it has spent an entire year reading arid rereading every paragraph of every section, quite often reworking them completely, so as to reflect the broadest possible consensus in each case. Before proceeding to the final vote, it invited proposals for amendments from the political groups and, finding that these were largely compatible with the existing text, it incorporated them more or less in their entirety into the final text that it eventually adopted, by a majority of 29 votes to 4, with 2 abstentions.

Secondly, this motion for a resolution is on a theme which is not new to Parliament. In drafting it, the Committee on Institutional Affairs has adhered faithfully to the guidelines which Parliament voted by a very large majority to approve in July 1982. The text therefore merely gives concrete form to a political institutional vision already embraced by this House.

Thirdly, contrary to what has been rashly suggested, this motion for a resolution is not a leap in the dark. On the contrary, the intention has been to base it on what has been achieved to date in the institutional and political aspects of the construction of Europe, in other words on the acquis communautaire proper and the commitments entered into in respect of political cooperation and the European Monetary System. We are confronted by serious new political and economic problems calling for common action or cooperation among European nations, but neither the competence nor the powers vested in the existing European institutions are adequate for the purpose of dealing with them effectively.

The motion for a resolution proposes a redefinition of the institutions' respective areas of competence and powers with the aim of rekindling confidence in the construction of Europe among the peoples of the Community, confidence which is being eroded by the current state of institutional and political disarray in the Community. Ladies and Gentlemen. I shall not insult you by enumerating these problems or the shortcomings of our institutions, with which you are all too familiar.

They are a perennial topic within this Chamber and beyond. Without trespassing on the ground to he covered in my colleagues' reports, I draw your attention to the fact that the competence vested in the Union has ben geared to the problems with which it will have to cope, but the motion for a resolution proposes that its competence be exercised in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity and insists that there must be a high degree of agreement whenever a transfer of competence to the Union is envisaged for the purposes of intergovernmental cooperative action and whenever common action by the Union is conducted for the first time in one of the fields specified in the Treaty.

Having thus affirmed that unification of our peoples around common policies cannot be achieved other than gradually and with their democratic consent, the motion for a resolution nevertheless then addresses the problem of reform of the existing institutions so that each is able to function effectively in the framework provided by the Union and none is able to steal a march on the others and obstruct all action, which has been the situation in the past and remains so today.

The institution in which the citizen is represented, namely the Parliament, the institutions in which Member States' governments are represented, namely the Council of the Union and the European Council, and the institution responsible for applying the laws and enforcing the Treaty, namely the Commission, have been redefined in the light of the positive and negative lessons by repeating that this motion for a resolution is neither a leap in the dark nor an abstract construct. It is the reasonable, measured response to the real problems that arise in connection with the competence and powers of the European institutions. Any suggestion of reducing the scope of this competence and these powers would be comprehensible only to those who are against the European Union, but not to those who are committed to it.

I come now to a fourth feature of the motion for a resolution: it is not an expression of the thinking and ideology of particular political group. The drafting process has been a collective effort, with Conservatives and Communists, Liberals and Socialists, Christian Democrats and anti-clerics, people from the left and the right, federalists and moderate Europeans taking a hand. That it has been possible to work together to produce a coherent, constructive text demonstrates the marked degree to which the European idea now transcends the traditional ideologies of our parties. The other side of the coin, admittedly, is that no-one finds the text exactly as he would have written it.

Nevertheless, what each of us should be looking for is not the ideal wording according to our own lights, but that which is likely to meet with the widest approval, since European unity cannot be partisan in its inspiration. It has to be the expression of a very broadly-based consensus cutting across national frontiers and political alignments.

I would ask you to bear this aspect in mind when voting on the amendments. Some of these amendments add important concepts which not only enhance the significance of the part of the text to which they refer but also help to make the motion for a resolution more widely acceptable. Our committee will be proposing adoption of such amendments.

Others, however, in seeking to be too specific, reopen a debate on a reasonable but complex balance achieved by the Committee after long and arduous discussions. Even where I or any one of you may be personally in favour of the wording of such amendments, I shall be asking you, on the committee's behalf, to reject them, because their adoption would undermine the consensus. For instance, it really is not reasonable to put down amendments concerned with a formulation of the legislative procedure the essentials of which have already been accepted and incorporated into the text, a formulation ' which is basically very similar to the procedure called for in the existing text. One can only conclude that the author of these amendments has simply failed to appreciate that the motion for a resolution has been drafted in this way in order to take account of requirements stated by other political groups.

Finally, the committee has had to set its face against amendments which are manifestly contrary to the overall philosophy not only of the motion for a resolution but also of Parliament itself. For instance, it is inconceivable that this Parliament, which has been protesting for a quarter of a century against the need for unanimous voting in the Council, in other words against the right of veto accorded to a single government, should now accept an amendment attributing .this right for an indefinite period to any Member State whenever the need arises to give the Union's common action greater depth in a field which is within its competence. I would urge those who have put forward such amendments to be mindful of the frustration of years that we are trying to bring to an end and, rather than ask us to prolong it indefinitely, to devote themselves to bringing home to their governments and parties what is really meant by building the European Union.

When the time comes to vote, I shall be stating the committee's position on each of these amendments, but I should like at this stage to urge all those who have tabled amendments to ask themselves, once the debate is over, whether it would not be preferable to withdraw as many as possible of them, bearing in mind the complexity of the discussions in committee which brought the text to its present form.

I now come to the fifth feature of this motion for a resolution. We are forever reading in the newspapers or in statements by ministers and other politicians that the best solution to our economic, external policy and security problems would be the European solution, that to fail to go through with the effort of European unification would amount to exposing our peoples to disastrous effects on their economies and their independence, but that the necessary European political will is unfortunately lacking. Proof of this is found in the pitiable meetings of the Council, not least the most recent, which was supposed to have been a first step towards implementation of the solemn committments entered into at Stuttgart, while the Genscher/ Colombo report could be described as a great deal of effort for precious little return. Further evidence is found in the temptations to succumb to protectionist introversion which are seen on all sides.

It would admittedly be very ingenuous to expect a European political will to spring from the action of national ministers with an interest in making their national political will prevail, to expect these ministers to entrust their civil servants, whose function is to give concrete expression to the national will, with the task of drawing up plans for European initiatives, or to expect these procedures to provide the springboard for the development of a European political will.

National governments and ministers are put in office by free national elections, and their displays of misgivings in regard to the idea of Europe are accounted for in terms of the misgivings that their electors themselves feel. Once again, how ingenuous and, in many cases, how insincere.

National elections, and indeed the whole of national political life, conditions the electorate's reaction by concentrating exclusively on national problems and offering exclusively national solutions.

Even if the distrust shown towards the idea of European development was not a consequence of the conditioning of national political life and even if it really did reflect the opinion of our countries' citizens, these citizens have nevertheless freely elected this Parliament and it should therefore adopt the same attitudes and express the same misgivings as their ministers. Consequently, any attempt made by the Parliament to progress beyond the Communities in their present state would suffer the same fate as the Genscher/Colombo initiative. In that case, it would have to be acknowledged that the will for unification of Europe does not exist.

The facts of the situation are otherwise, however: the progress of the debates and voting in Parliament, between July 1981 and July 1982, and more recently the discussions and voting in the Committee on Institutional Affairs have demonstrated beyond doubt - and there will be further confirmation if, as I confidently expect, tomorrow's vote is strongly in favour of this motion for a resolution - that the European political will exists and that it is in this Chamber that it finds expression.

Admittedly, it still remains for us to show consistency and determination in our actions, but we shall have an opportunity to discuss this in a few months.

For the time being, though, let us concentrate on the demonstration that we have given - and are going to give today and tomorrow - of the existence of a political will to build a united Europe which is more effectual, more democratic, and more confident in itself.

Of course, you will be told, and will have been told time and again over the years, that you really count for very little, but I say to you that if you acquiesce in this scornful denigration of the European elections and your own status, if you settle for seeking only those things which tally with your governments' current wishes, then in that case, Ladies and Gentlemen, you really will be politically weak and insignificant and you will be dominated by those who make national policy, since those who show themselves to be weak are always imposed upon. But if you are conscious of the dignity vested in you as members of the European Parliament and aware of the political responsibility that you carry as the representatives of Europe's citizens, you will find the courage for the effort needed to make your parties, your national parliaments, your governments heed this shared European will as expressed by you.

Tell yourselves that, however much they may conceal the fact, they all have uneasy consciences and are therefore very unsettled in their attitudes to Europe, since on the one hand they know what will happen to our peoples if the European venture fails and yet, on the other hand, they are stifling efforts to promote it.

The sixth feature of this motion for a resolution is its timeliness. Scepticism about the future of Europe is spreading dangerously and the Council, which has hitherto been the sole repository of real power in Europe, is doing nothing to allay it, in fact it is doing quite the opposite. The political and economic outlook for our countries looks bleak and will become even bleaker if the prospect of the gradual unification of Europe recedes. In the prevailing confusion of the situation, our action is the one beacon discernible on the European horizon, the only source of hope. The importance of this debate and the vote to follow cannot be overstated, because, once this motion for a resolution has been carried, the next stage will be the preparation of a preliminary draft treaty to be drawn up in proper form by the Committee on Institutional Affairs with the assistance of eminent jurists, which will then be submitted for your approval in January or, at the latest, February 1984. That will be the signal for comme

ncement of the political battle to secure approval by our national governments and parliaments. We can worry about that during the intervening months. At this stage, let us begin by fighting the beacon.

In view of these six features of the motion for a resolution, Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask you, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, not only to approve it but to do so by a handsome majority.

With your leave, there are two further points that I should like to mention briefly before concluding. The first is merely a point of information that I should like to pass on to you on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs. You will note that the motion for a resolution contains no reference to the final and transitional provisions, to revision of the Treaty, to the question of the seat, of to the action to be taken by Parliament once the draft of the Treaty has been settled.

These are not oversights. The Committee on Institutional Affairs will be tackling these problems over the months ahead and will bring forward proposals when presenting the draft Treaty.

The second point is in the nature of a political observation which I offer to all groups, but especially to those in which adoption of our draft met with most difficulties and differences of opinion. I address myself in particular to members of the Socialist Group and the European Democratic Group, both of which have made important contributions to the drafting of this text, notably in the persons of the rapporteurs. I am aware that there are members of these groups, and of others also, who are quite opposed to any further development of the Community and would even like to see a reversion to the level of intergovernmental cooperation. I respect their views and do not propose to try to win them over now. I merely express the hope that they will one day realize that they are wrong, as have many of their colleagues over the past few years or decades.

A word now for those who are in favour of progress towards unification, but would perhaps prefer to see greater emphasis on such and such an objective or would like to see one institution or another performing a different role. I appeal to these Honourable Members to remember that we are not engaged here in a purely academic exercise, but in the process of carrying out political action. The fact that the Socialists and Conservatives, two essential constituents of democratic political life in Europe, have made major contributions to this action is of the greatest importance.

Their contribution is important because even though socialism and conservatism may not be alone in providing fertile soil for development of the European venture, they certainly are among the political philosophies which do provide fertile soil. Ladies and Gentlemen, the essential requirements for which you argued during the long preparation of this text have been taken into account. Some of your requirements could not be incorporated, and you know that this is not because you were defeated by your adversaries, but because your allies in the battle for the construction of Europe - your allies, I repeat - were unable to reconcile them with their requirements. I therefore invite you to come to terms with the full importance of the commitments that you are about to assume, I urge you not to stand aside in a mood of mistrustful churlishness, refusing to take part in the battle for the European Union which this Parliament must wage with determination if it is not going to sink into oblivion. Let Pascal's wager be

an example to you, since it his venture - the most important of the first elected Parliament - should founder, you will have lost nothing for having supported it, but if battle is joined, it would be very sad if one day you had to say: 'We were there when it started, and we were expected. There was in important part for us to play, but we stayed away for no very good reason'.

I would invite those of you who have not yet made up your minds to reflect, before making your decision, that this message comes to you not only from the rapporteur of the Committee on Institutional Affairs but from every supporter of European unity in this House and throughout the Community.