MEPs fight to keep budget powers

The European Parliament will not approve a European constitution that dilutes its coveted budgetary powers, senior MEPs warned on Tuesday.

With just days to go before crunch talks to finalise the constitutional text, complete deadlock continues between the parliament and the council over who has the final say on the spending of the annual €100 billion budget. 

German MEPs Elmar Brok and Klaus Haensch – the parliament’s representatives at the intergovernmental talks on the constitution –  have stepped up their rhetoric against moves to curb the parliament’s budgetary and financial powers. 

In their firmest message to date, the MEPs warned of the wider implications of the parliament’s refusal to endorse the new EU constitution. 

Although MEPs cannot veto the text, Haensch cautioned that “the opinion of the European Parliament will have an impact on decisions by national parliaments and the referenda that must be carried out in some member states.”

“The issue will in many ways be the line in the sand,” added his colleague Elmar Brok.

And as the Italian presidency attempts to find a suitable compromise on the issue, Haensch made it clear that “there is practically no room for manoeuvre.”

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini insisted on Monday that the presidency was seeking to “find a solution that will avoid the negative effects of a clash between the European Parliament and the Council.”

“Of course we will take account of what the parliament is saying,” he argued.

But Rome will have difficulty in convincing many national parliaments to drop their bids to reduce MEPs’ influence over EU spending. 

A number of member states have firmly rejected the proposal laid out by the architect of the draft constitution Valery Giscard d’Estaing giving the parliament more clout in approving the entire budget.

Currently MEPs have a say over just 50 per cent of the budget but are excluded from “compulsory expenditure”, which includes farm spending.

The loudest protests have so far come from the UK and France, but their view is also supported by Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland.

Only Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg support the parliament’s viewpoint, with Germany willing to seek the middle ground.

UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw told reporters on Monday that the “paradigm of national parliaments” did not apply in this area. 

“The European Parliament is a very worthy body but it does not sustain a government and it is not answerable for taxes,” he argued.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin agreed that budgetary powers should be determined by the co-decision procedure, which would give an equal say to the parliament and the council.

“We think this is necessary to maintain an institutional balance,” he argued.

A new “tie-break” system may be proposed which would force council and the parliament to broker a deal over disputed budget lines. If agreement was not possible then the budget for the issue in question would be set at the previous year’s level.

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