§ Mr. SpringTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the rights of national parliaments to(a) hold up and (b) veto proposals from the EU Commission, as contained in the report of the Convention on the Future of Europe. [129129]
§ Mr. MacShaneThe proposal in the draft Constitutional Treaty, to introduce a mechanism to enforce the subsidiarity principle, represents a significant step forward in the role that national parliaments will have in EU business. It provides, for the first time, a Treaty-based power for national parliaments to question EU legislative proposals on the basis of subsidiarity. If more than a third of national parliaments considered a proposal at odds with the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission would have to review it; and would in practice find it very difficult to ignore those parliaments' views.
This proposal will help to ensure that the EU only legislates when it adds value to the actions of the individual Member States.
§ Mr. SpringTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visits there have been to the Government's website regarding consultation on the future of the EU; how many have responded with comments; and what percentage have expressed support for an EU constitution. [129130]
§ Mr. MacShaneThe Government's online consultation on the draft EU Constitutional Treaty has received over 27,000 readings and 985 contributions so far. The consultation does not aim to measure support for the592W draft EU Constitutional Treaty but to enable discussion of the main policy issues we expect the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to address.
§ Mr. SpringTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how far the Government's objectives for the EU of(a) simplification of the Union's instruments and (b) more democracy, transparency and efficiency in the EU have been met by the proposals of the Convention on the Future of Europe. [129132]
§ Mr. MacShaneThe Convention's draft text meets most of the Government's objectives. It succeeds in simplifying the Union's instruments by streamlining them and defining them more clearly.
The Convention's draft also proposes more democracy, transparency and efficiency by, for example: making it clear where the Union can and cannot act; reinforcing the role of national parliaments in policing the principle of subsidiarity; providing for greater openness in the meetings of the Council of Ministers; replacing the Maastricht "three pillars" system with a single Treaty structure: and setting up a Chair of the European Council.