EU Reform

What chance is that there’ll be a convention and that the TEU will be amended progressively?

Today

The Parliament is calling for a convention.

As far as I know, this is the AFCO position, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2023-0337_EN.html#_section1, again AFAIK, the committee member amendments were not considered. 16 Nov 2023 This is a summary by the EP Research Service https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_ATA(2023)754593, its brevity is very useful.

I also found these

• An EU Parliament press room statement, EU treaties reform, MEPS submit-proposals-to-strengthen-eu-capacity-to-act
• https://emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/emeeting/committee/en/agenda/202310/AFCO, the Agenda of the AFCO meeting that developed the EP proposals, a draft report, proposals from MEPs and opinions from other Committees. Is this the proposal by the rapporteurs to the AFCO, or the Parliament?
• I was also pointed at, https://www.foederalist.eu/2023/10/compilation-reform-proposals.html

While examining the AFCO Agenda, I made the following comments,

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There were many amendments defending the status quo about the EU as an alliance of nations not citizens, also much opposition to extension of competencies and ending the veto. There were proposals to reverse the roles of the Parliament and Council in appointing the President of the Commission, and extending the role of the President in Commission construction. There were also proposals to introduce expulsion rules.

There were proposals to expand the role of social partners to include worker’s organisations, and the Regional and Youth Committees, mandating consultation in the legislative process.

There was at least one proposal for a referendum, together with a rejection of citizen’s assemblies. There were some quite critical comments on CoFoE.

There was a proposal for a bigger parliamentary role in article 7 process, (the Suspension Clause) enabling commencement on the petition of a minority of MEPs. There was a proposal for QMV in the Council on sanctions and some of the early “accession decisions”.

The issue of a defence union is controversial, with some arguing to make military co-operation easier and some arguing against any extension in the fields of external relations and military affairs.

I also observed, that there were proposals from other committees of the EP. I made further notes, although not complete,

1. amend the treaty to ensure that EP supremacy over the Council in the ‘discharge’ process; audit as far as I can see.
2. include the social pillar in the Treaties
3. the EU should be empowered with tools allowing it to act on important transnational challenges, inter alia, in the fields of health, climate change and environment, stressing that Treaties changes should be based on the need to live well within the planetary boundaries,
4. also and extending the competencies of the EU to include healthcare and adding forestry, biodiversity and carbon capture and climate protection.
5. a common energy policy

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I need to work out what made it through. From the Press Summary, it seems that unsurprisingly, the agenda of increasing the parliament’s power have been sustained, those that suggest leaving it with the council or enhancing citizen’s power have been discarded. But I must read the final text.

AFCO Conclusions

This is what I have found, ,

1. MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION on proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (2022/2051(INL))
2. An EU Parliament press room statement, EU treaties reform, MEPS submit proposals to strengthen EU capacity to act explaining the Motion

The Plenary Debate

This was held on the 22 Nov, the Parliament asked for a convention.

1. The Plenary Home page and its news page.
2. Debates and Videos page, links to videos, the debate was on Tue 21st and votes on 22nd.
3. The Plenary’s text adopted index over the week, and the Wednesday index, which at this time of day, was incomplete and does not have a link to the carried resolution, nor an English language version. 🤯 It does now!
4. The Plenary’s text submitted page index, and complete list of documents.

European Policy Centre View

This extensive EPC commentary by Andrew Duff is, I am advised, a fairly good summary on where we stand overall in the EU in terms of the pressures from enlargement, deeper integration, foreign and security policy, strengthening the European Parliament powers and – the key unknown – chances of significant treaty changes. It is dated 31 Oct 2023, before the AFCO and EP vote. I have annotated Duff’s paper.

Andrew Duff is an Academic Fellow of the European Policy Centre. He was a Member of the European Parliament (1999-2014), President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) and President of the Spinelli Group. He tweets @AndrewDuffEU.

I précis the EPC report on my “Sailing the High Seas” page.

The EPC report, also references VDL’s State of the Union address 2023.

Elsewhere on this wiki

I have also made the following pages

1. https://davelevy.info/wiki/sailing-the-high-seas-reforming-and-enlarging-the-eu/
2. https://davelevy.info/wiki/subsidiarity-and-proportionality/
3. https://davelevy.info/will-cofoes-democracy-come-to-be/#comment-2994
4. https://davelevy.info/sptitzen-kandidaten-the-rule-of-law-and-the-eus-cofoe/
5. https://davelevy.info/democracy-and-the-rule-of-law-first/
6. https://davelevy.info/wiki/cofoe-panel-2-recommendations/, this is the nearest I have to a democracy précis from CoFoE.
7. https://davelevy.info/wiki/von-der-leyen-again/

Andrew Duff wrote a paper on enlargement and reform, which I read at verfassungsblog.de, entitled sticking to the rules

Duff, Andrew: How to Avoid Another Botched EU Enlargement by Sticking to the Rules, VerfBlog, 2024/3/22, https://verfassungsblog.de/sticking-to-the-rules/, DOI: 10.59704/d115d589d677e820