By Daisy Ayliffe - 17th February 2006
National parliaments should control ongoing EU entry talks with Turkey and Croatia, French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy declared on Thursday.
Calling for “super qualification” of the would-be entrants, Sarkozy said member states should be granted more power to stem EU expansion.
"I would like to organise a reinforced control of national parliaments on the accession negotiations which have just opened with Croatia and Turkey," the French presidential hopeful insisted during a trip to Germany.
Sarkozy said a strengthened "absorption capacity" principle would reassure citizens that enlargement could not take place without their say so.
"The fiasco of the French and Dutch referendums has partly been provoked by hostility to a Europe without borders," he stated in Berlin.
According to the right-winger’s plans, national parliaments would "control the EU every time it wants to close one of the 35 chapters of the acquis communautaire in its negotiations with its candidates."
"I note that the rule of unanimity in the accession negotiations is a false guarantee, because the practice demonstrates that no member state wants to appear to be the one that makes a blockade vis-a-vis a candidate state," he added.
For his first international trip of the year, Sarkozy chose to visit Germany - where his opposition to Ankara has been echoed by chancellor Angela Merkel.
Sarkozy and Merkel have long been friends and their opposition to Turkish EU entry has served to strengthen ties.
Consitutional crisis
But there are differences - and finding a way out of Europe’s constitutional crisis is one of them.
Berlin has insisted the constitution is non-negotiable. Contrast this with Sarkozy’s fatalistic evaluation following French rejection of the treaty last May.
“The constitution is dead,” he declared. Unlike Valery Giscard D’Estaing, Sarkozy does not wish to see France forced back to the polls to answer the same question twice.
“It is not for me to tell the French they have misunderstood the referendum question that was put to them,” he signalled last year.
Mini-treaty
Speaking on Thursday, Sarkozy called for a slim lined alternative to the EU constitution.
Sarkozy said a “mini-traité” could be swiftly put in place before considering fundamental questions on financing and future borders.
Outlining a three stage plan, Sarkozy said the EU could immediately move to full transparency of EU ministers' meetings and lift the national veto in penal matters.
In a second stage, he said Brussels should put in place those constitutional proposals that enjoyed "large consensus” such as voting weights, limiting the national veto and creating an EU foreign minister.
"These reforms could take the shape of a limited text of 10 or 15 important articles, which could be negotiated as fast as possible with the aim of giving the union the means for achieving efficiency," he explained.
And as part of a third stage, Brussels should address fundamental questions on the size and shape of the EU.
The Turkish mission to Brussels said they had not responded to similar comments from Sarkozy in the past and were unwilling to make a statement on his latest proposal.
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