RESULTS OF THE DUBLIN COUNCIL MEETING

by Altiero Spinelli

SUMMARY: The European Parliament hears the statement of the Irish Prime Minister, Garrett Fitzgerald, on the results of the Council meeting held at Dublin on 2 and 3 December 1984.

Among the various matters dealt with by the Heads of Government, the most important is that of further action to achieve European union, after approval of the draft Treaty of 14 February 1984 and Mitterrand's speech of 24 May 1984.

Having regard to Mitterrand's proposals, the EEC Heads of Government had decided at the Council meeting at Fontainebleau to appoint a committee of their personal representatives entrusted with the preparation of proposals to improve the functioning of the Community institutions with a view to achieving European union.

James Dooge, an Irishman, was appointed President of the committee and the committee then instructed Maurice Faure (Mitterrand's representative) to prepare the preliminary report

to be sent to the Council meeting at Dublin.

It is clearly apparent from the difficulties encountered in reaching agreement in the committee and from the content of Maurice Faure's report that there is a risk that the innovative character of the European Parliament's draft will be progressively removed and that there will be recourse to the traditional and (deleterious) procedure of diplomatic negotiation. "Speeches in European Parliament, 1976-1986", Pier Virgilio Dastoli Editor. (EP, 11 December 1984)

Mr President, I am going to propose to this House that, at the end of this debate, it adopt motion for a resolution N 2-1231/84 which our Rules of Procedure, in their mysterious wisdom, require to be tabled with the signatures of 21 honourable Members, but which has been debated by the Committee on Institutional Affairs, which, adopted it by a large majority. It is therefore on

behalf of the Committee that I speak.

Having studied the Dooge report, and learnt of the treatment that it has received from the Council, we have two comments and one formal request to make.

The first comment is that we find it extraordinary that the Council should have taken so long over the transition from the stage of the existing Community to that of a real political and economic Union.

'The house is on fire', one might say, and this morning's debate on the budget provided yet further confirmation of the everwidening gulf that has developed between what Europe needs and what the existing Community is able to do for it. Ten months have elapsed since this Parliament presented our countries with a draft for dealing with this situation, a detailed draft into which it had put a great deal of thought. And when a report which for the most part confirms the ideas contained in Parliament's draft (it has been described as an interim report, but it could more appropriately be called a final report) is submitted to the Council, the Council does not even begin to examine it, but defers it for six months.

Are you not afraid, Gentlemen of the European Council, that the favourable conditions, under which it would be possible to make a start now, will not have disappeared six months hence before we have been able to take advantage of them? We therefore ask that, in six months' time, you will not still be just debating this issue but making up your minds.

The secound comment is that the Dooge Committee, in its majority proposal for an intergovernmental conference to be convened in the near future to negotiate and sign the final draft of the treaty on the Union, defines the conditions for participation in this conference in terms which we find acceptable as long as they are properly understood. Quite obviously, the basis of such a conference must be the overall results achieved to date in the construction of Europe, by which I mean both the acquis communautai re proper and the Stuttgart declaration. Our draft is quite clear on this point, stipulating that the acquis communautaire must be maintained until such time as the Union, once it has come into being, decides to develop or modify it.

This said, the ad hoc Committee proposes that the conference should draw its inspiration from the spirit and method adopted in Parliament's draft treaty. Now these words, if they are to have any meaning, must be interpreted as signifying that the conference will work on the basis of Parliament's draft treaty, proposing modifications where it considers them appropriate, but not changing the spirit or the method. If this prerequisite were disregarded, if all and sundry were allowed to ascribe whatever meaning they chose to the words 'European Union', if the spirit and method adopted in our draft were to be ignored, a ghostly presence left to roam the corridors of the conference centre, it would be a foregone conclusion that the conference would be a failure, producing only semblances of solutions.

In addition to these two comments, our motion for a resolution contains a formal request: to be involved in the drafting of a treaty on political and economic Union - a union capable of meeting the great challenges which neither our States nor our existing Communities are any longer in a position to meet - which cannot be regarded as a routine task for our diplomatic staffs.

While it is true that a treaty must have been negotiated among our governments before they can sign it and propose it for ratification, it is also undoubtedly true that this particular treaty will be one containing the actual constitution of a union of States and citizens. But, as Europeans, our citizens are legitimately represented by this Parliament. Consequently, the European Parliament calls upon the ad hoc Committee to propose in its final report in March, and the European Council to adopt in June, a method of negotiation which does justice to the originality of the construction of Europe, bringing in the intergovernmental conference and Parliament as partners in the drafting of the Treaty. This Treaty should be treated as final and ready for ratification once it has been adopted in identical terms by the intergovernmental conference and the Parliament of all the peoples of the Community.

President FitzGerald has asked us to give the ad hoc Committee sufficient notice of our requirements. Well, as of now, the ad hoc Committee and the European Council know what we require it is contained in the motion for a resolution which I have just presented to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, by voting for this motion for a resolution we shall be reminding everyone that we have been sent here by our fellow citizens to contribute to the construction of a real union of our peoples, not by words but by action.