Veuillez trouver ci-joint une contribution à la Convention européenne sur l'élection du président de la Commission européenne co-signée par M. Jacques Santer, représentant du chef du gouvernement luxembourgeois à la Convention sur l'avenir de l'Union européenne.
After three months of intensive discussion in the Convention, the general debate is nearing its end. We agree with the many speakers who have demanded that we should strive for further integration in areas which Europe can only together tackle effectively. But when discussing possible further competencies for the Union we have to simultaneously address the question of how the European institutions will carry out these tasks.
We should not address the different aspects of the necessary reform of the Euro-pean Union in a piecemeal approach. We have to weigh the impact of each aspect of reform on the whole institutional architecture. A wider debate on institutional re-form has already begun, with President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Prime Minister José María Aznar having made an interesting proposal to elect a President of the European Council. It is time to carry this debate into the Con-vention, where it belongs.
We need to increase the effectiveness and democratic legitimacy of the European institutions. In order to achieve this goal we have to make the work of the Council and of the European Council more effective (i.a., by extending qualified majority-voting), increase the role of the European Parliament (i.a., by generally using the co-decision procedure), and strengthen the executive role and increase the de-mocratic legitimacy of the European Commission.
In order to achieve the latter, we propose that the President of the European Commission should be elected by the European Parliament. Our aim is to strengthen the political accountability of the European Commission. We strongly believe that the President of the Commission needs to have a stronger democratic legitimacy.
The different aspects of this proposal need to be carefully thought through and have to be seen in relation to each other. Our goal should be to create stronger, more democratic, and more effective European institutions within a balanced archi-tectural system. We believe that it is urgent that the Convention starts debating these issues.
Peter Altmaier, Paraskevas Avgerinos, Peter Balazs, Irena Belohorska, Pervenche Beres, Maria Berger, Elmar Brok, Lamberto Dini, Andrew Duff, Olivier Duhamel, Ben Fayot, Karel de Gucht, Peter Glotz, Klaus Hänsch, Pavol Hamzik, Sylvie-Yvonne Kaufmann, Piia-Noora Kauppi, Jan Kavan, Kimmo Kiljunen, Alain Lamassoure, Anne Van Lancker, René Van der Linden, Luis Marinho, Jürgen Meyer, Hans Van Mierlo*, Marie Nagy, Josef Olesky, Elena Paciotti, Gunter Pleuger, Reinhard Rack, Proinsias de Rossa, Jacques Santer, Wolfgang Senff, Valdo Spini, Jozsef Szajer, Erwin Teufel, Frans Timmermans, Edmund Wittbrodt, Joachim Wuermeling, Pal Vastagh, Meglena Kuneva
*The Netherlands' government representative adds that for the future the possibility of direct elec-tions by the European citizens may not be excluded. The Netherlands' government representative considers an election by the European Parliament for the moment as an important first step.