§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to increase the democratic accountability of the European Union. [158614]
§ Mr. VazEuropean democracy is strongest in the Parliaments within the member states. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out in his Warsaw speech a new proposal for the institutional involvement of the national parliaments through delegations to a second chamber of the European parliament. We secured agreement at Nice that the role of national parliaments would be one of the agenda items for the next intergovernmental conference.
At Nice we were also successful in securing the first ever increase in the voting strength of the UK in the Council of Ministers and acceptance of the democratic principle that votes should more fairly reflect population size.