IN THE CHAIR: MRS FONTAINE

Vice-President

(The sitting was opened at 4 p.m.)

President. - I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 11 March 1994. (1&footref;)

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Wijsenbeek (LDR). - (NL) Madam President, on the subject of the way in which this sitting is organized, i.e. with regard to Rule 19 of our Rules of Procedure. I would like to point out that in the agenda published at the beginning of this week, PE 180.011, when the speaking time was being divided up for Thursday's sitting, 60 minutes was allocated to the Members and that the modified agenda, PE 180.011/PDOJ only sets aside 30 minutes of speaking time for the Members. What does the Presidency and the Conference of Chairmen actually take the lowly Members of this sitting for? For speaking machines, for totally inconsequential people, for people whom you can deprive of half their speaking time without any consultation while they must have already prepared their debates?

Madam President, I protest most vociferously against this. I say that this is no way to carry on. We are not being taken seriously. A total of 30 minutes speaking time for a Parliament comprising 518 Members, with a number of items on the agenda - 1, 2, 3, 4, plus all the votes, cannot be taken seriously and I would like to see this remedied.

President. - Mr Wijsenbeek, I would draw your attention to the fact that the Vice-Presidents do not take part in the Conference of Presidents. They regret this fact because they think that, as they are called upon to chair the plenary sessions, it would have been desirable for them to at least repeat the extremely pertinent observations which you have just made. Having said that, the plenary session did not wish this to be the case. You are well aware of this, Mr Wijsenbeek. Like you, I can only deplore and acknowledge the existence of this situation which I cannot remedy. Thirty minutes is, indeed, very little.

As for the substance of the matter, let me say this. You know that we must vote at 11 a.m., because we were unable to vote on a number of reports at the last part-session. They will therefore be added to those which are to be voted on during this mini-session.

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Andrews (RDE). - Madam President, I am glad to have an opportunity to draw to your attention the continuing and growing concern in Ireland, and in particular in my Dublin constituency, about the operations of THORP, and Sellafield in general. I referred to this at the last part-session in Strasbourg and I would ask the presidency to urge the Commissioner responsible to respond in detail to the growing national and international concern about these environmentally disastrous developments.

We were denied a public inquiry on THORP. Through the presidency, I wish to call on the Commission to come out from behind closed doors, be more transparent and let us know what the Commission is doing about THORP. The people of Dublin and Ireland are viewing with increasing alarm the operational status of THORP, especially given the appalling safety record of Sellafield. The news of an earth tremor in Wales in recent days, no matter how small or insignificant it may appear to some people, disturbs and upsets the people of my constituency.

It is time for honesty about THORP. It is time for transparency. It is time that the wishes of the people were respected. If we are to have a transparent Europe, if we are to have a Europe of cultural diversity, if we are to have an environmentally friendly Europe, if we are to have a decent Europe that respects the wishes of the people, THORP should not be allowed to continue and the Commission should say exactly what it intends to do about it.

(Applause)

President. - Mr Andrews, we cannot get into a debate on this issue. However, we are taking note of your statement, and the Presidency will contact the Commission.

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Napoletano (PSE). - (IT) Madam President, I would like you to take a stance on what happened a few days ago. Last week, a delegation from the European Parliament - not an official one, but one nevertheless comprising six female Members of Parliament went to Jerusalem at the invitation of Israeli and Palestinian women where they held a series of meetings - some of which were official - in the Knesset. Our request to visit Hebron - the site of the massacre - was met with an outright refusal: the Israeli authorities refused to grant authorization. This is very serious, especially since at the same time authorization was granted to various fundamentalist movements not so different from the one responsible for the massacre. In view of this, it seems truly incredible that the representatives, who were there in the name of peace and dialogue, were refused such authorization.

Now, I hope that this can be attributed solely to a certain attitude on the part of the security forces, one of which the Israeli government was perhaps unaware. Nevertheless, I feel duty-bound to point out what happened and to ask you, Madam President, to pass on our protest to the parliamentary bodies of the Knesset.

President. - Mrs Napoletano, I understand your views completely. We have contacts with our colleagues in the Knesset, who should be coming are to the European Parliament during the April part-session. I think that will be a perfect occasion to raise these issues with them.

Díez de Rivera Icaza (PSE). - (ES) Madam President, as a member of the delegation of women who, at the invitation of Jerusalem Link, took part in the meeting in Jerusalem and in the attempted trip to Hebron, I fully support what our colleague Mrs Napoletano has just said. We would very much appreciate it, Madam President, if you would look into this matter.

President. - Of course, as I said to Mrs Napoletano, we will look into this with our colleagues from the Knesset during the April part-session in Strasbourg.

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Fitzgerald (RDE). - Madam President, last week I brought my family to visit this building for the first time. It was empty at the time and when they began to take photographs, they and I were pounced on by a security man. I fully accept that the security man was acting in according with instructions, but could I ask if the authorities are ashamed to have this building seen throughout Europe or if they do not want communities far removed from Brussels to know what the building looks like? Could we have some application of common sense from the powers-that-be in instances of this nature.

President. - Mr Fitzgerald, I am just as surprised as you. I do not think that our Hemicycle is such a secret place that it should not be possible to take photographs. We shall look into this with the security services. (1&footref;)

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Titley (PSE). - Madam President, on a point of order. I understand that the Commission is going to talk to us about the state of negotiations on enlargement. It seems entirely inappropriate that the Commission is going to make that statement alone, without any Council representative. I understand that Mr Pangalos is in the building. Surely the Council should be here as it is that body, rather than the Commission, which is doing the negotiating. I would like to ask that the Council be present.

President. - Mr Titley, I can confirm that the Council was invited to take part in our debate, but it did not deem it necessary to respond to our invitation. As you can imagine, we regret this as much as you do.

The next item is the communication from the Commission on urgent political questions of major importance.

Van den Broek, Member of the Commission. - (NL) Madam President, since I last addressed Parliament on 9 March, it can be reported that the negotiations on enlargement, as you no doubt recently learned, including the negotiations with Norway, were recently successfully concluded. In other words, all 28 policy chapters could be provisionally concluded with the four candidate Member States. To this extent, we succeeded, the Council with the help of the Commission succeeded in fulfilling the deadline obligations that were originally taken on. In fact, it took us only 13 months to reach agreement with three of the candidates and less than 12 months with Norway.

These negotiations were not easy. In fact, they were more complicated than had been the case with previous enlargements of the Union, but they went more quickly. The content of these agreements is substantial and we thought that all the parties involved were happy with the outcome. So, although I am very satisfied with what has been achieved, you should also understand that we are also extremely concerned.

Unfortunately, due to the delay in reaching agreement on the one chapter that is still open, i.e. the chapter concerning institutions, the future of the provisional agreements is now up in the air again. Whatever happens, the Commission is of the opinion that this situation cannot be allowed to continue. With every day that passes, the risk increases that these carefully balanced and negotiated agreements will be unravelled or undermined. Now is the time to bring the process of enlargement to a favourable conclusion. However, that chance is growing slimmer day by day and if the chance is missed altogether the consequences will be felt both in the candidate Member States and in the Union.

All the effort made yesterday in the Council was made in vain, and did not result in the institutional problem of the qualified majority, or blocking minority - if you prefer to call it that, being solved. This delay means that Parliament runs the risk of lacking enough time for an adequate debate on the subject of the Treaty of Accession. Of course, as Mr Titley quite rightly pointed out, the Council is responsible for ensuring that agreement is reached on the institutional chapter. However, that does not mean to say that the Commission has less of an interest or is less closely involved. Because the Commission, too, will not look favourably upon its right of initiative in an enlarged Union being rendered null and void by the acceptance now of crippling decision-making procedures.

The Commission has already done what was expected of it to help break the existing impasse. Following the three resolutions on enlargement adopted by Parliament in July and November of last year and February of this year, we knew that the institutional question is of the very greatest importance to Parliament. You asked for solutions that constituted no hindrance to efficient decision-making in the Union. Yesterday, together with the troika, the Commission participated in drawing up the compromise solutions which we presumed to be acceptable. However, this appeared not to be the case. Now it is the intention of the President-in-Office of the Council to continue the discussions in the so-called `Gymnich consultation' involving the ministers of foreign affairs that will be held in Greece this coming weekend, in the presence of the Commission.

The Commission hopes that this very thorny institutional issue will not prevent the committees of this Parliament from carrying out their work on the negotiating results that the Council and Commission have presented to it, with a view to building on them after all. We are aware that in so doing we are putting a difficult and delicate request to you, but we consider it to be of extremely great importance.

The Commission remains convinced that it is of eminent political importance to stick to the date set for enlargement, meaning that the candidate Member States should join the Union on 1 January 1995. We do not know - and it is difficult to say - what damage today's impasse is causing to public opinion in the candidate countries, which for the first time seem to be reacting favourably to the positive outcomes of the agreements, but which are now threatening to lose momentum if the current problem concerning the institutional issue is not speedily resolved. It is also an extreme burden on public opinion in the candidate Member States to clarify exactly what is at stake here. It comes as a great disappointment, especially for the governments of the candidate member States, that this impasse has arisen.

We thought that the success of the negotiations, the conclusion thereof, had injected new dynamism into the Union. However, I fear that this new dynamism will peter out if the schedule for enlargement cannot be respected. I am afraid that we might well then have missed a historic opportunity. That is what I wanted to say to you to begin with.

Green (PSE). - Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for the frank way in which he has put his case to Parliament today. On behalf of the Socialist Group, and also as leader of the British Labour Members of this House, I wish to put on record my shame at the disgraceful behaviour of the British Government on the issue of the blocking minority. How can any government which claims to be fighting to protect the national interests of its people choose to misrepresent to its people the facts of the case.

In Britain, unbelievably, the British Government is saying that it wants to retain the status quo and that the other Member States are fighting to change things. Can anyone really blame the British people for their failure to understand what is happening when they are told such downright untruths by their own government. Labour Members, together with our partners in the Socialist Group, support the need for a change in the blocking minority to at least 27 to genuinely preserve the status quo and at least ensure that there is no institutional deterioration in decision-making in the European Union.

I know the Commissioner realizes that by its unprincipled and blatant party political obstruction on this issue, the British Government is putting in jeopardy the whole process of enlargement. We know that the enlargement agreements are a delicate and carefully constructed package. By opening up this whole question at the end of eighteen months of careful negotiation, a question to which they had already given their support at the Lisbon Summit in June 1992, would the Commissioner not agree that the British Government is making it extremely difficult if not almost impossible, for Parliament to give its assent to the enlargement package by the end of our parliamentary term. In so doing they are also putting at risk the whole package which stands to be unravelled simply as a result of the disgraceful behaviour of the British Government and its desire to influence and hold together its own party in the run-up to the European elections.

(Applause)

Langes (PPE). - (DE) Madam President, anyone who has followed the debate here in Parliament on the accession of the four candidate Member States over the past months will probably agree with the Commissioner's assessment and welcome the fact that a result was reached. We are happy to now have a chance of carefully examining this result, which is based on bitterly fought-over compromises. My group has always been in favour of the accession of these democratic countries. However, Mr Commissioner, you rightly described it as cause for dismay that the Council, which bears the responsibility for the negotiations, failed to resolve one quite essential point over the last year or so and that it will only get round to doing so after the event, i.e. some time after next Saturday, we hope.

The vast majority of the members of my group - and even my British colleagues join me in this - believe that these 27 votes are of fundamental importance to this Parliament.

(Applause)

We ask the representative of the Commission to make this clear once more when he goes to Greece. Parliament has raised other questions, too. Here, too, a signal from the Council is expected, especially with regard to the Maastricht treaties. For me it is quite out of the question that the Maastricht treaties should be changed again in one way or another. Anyone striving to achieve this cannot be in favour of the accession of these four candidate Member States. We should be totally frank with ourselves in that respect!

Consequently, we must emphatically reinforce the call for 27 votes, and - I repeat - my British colleagues support this. On this particular question our Parliament is largely in agreement, with the exception of a few colleagues, who believe that some kind of intermediate solution could yet be found.

Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the vast majority of our group. Like you yourself, everyone is aware that there is a minority in our group which is of a different opinion. If we deliberate now, then we will see what result we arrive at. Whatever happens, one thing should be clear to all of us: We may be wasting a historic opportunity here if we do not give our approval.

(Applause)

Galland (LDR). - (FR) Madam President, I too would like to thank the Commissioner for his words which are trenchant for their frankness, compared with the rather soothing words we have heard so far on the subject of enlargement.

Mr Commissioner, you talked about 13 months for reaching an agreement. We still need to put the word 'agreement' between inverted commas. Is it an agreement? It would appear that an essential element is missing, namely the institutional element. In this respect, we must express our surprise. You mentioned the three resolutions by the European Parliament. All of them placed the emphasis on the institutional problem. How could we, for 13 months, have developed the enlargement process and these negotiations without at the same time having settled the institutional question? And then voilà, all of a sudden, it turns up just before we hit the tape and creates a serious crisis within the Union.

Mr Commissioner, the problem posed now is knowing whether a compromise is possible in Ioannina, Greece. We would like to tell you one thing. No compromise is possible on an institutional step backwards.

(Applause)

You said this problem fell within the Council's field of competence. It also falls within your field of competence. The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties - do not forget that.

(Applause)

And it is to the Commission - the guardian of the Treaties - that we are turning.

Mr Commissioner, let it be known - the press has said it, the Council knows it, you know it, our colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Peoples' Party have just said it - that as regards an institutional retreat and as regards 27 votes or a conditional 23 votes you will not be able to obtain the assent of this House, because a vast majority is against it. On that sort of basis, it is not worth the trouble to suggest that we hold a vote.

(Applause)

Please be kind enough, Mr Commissioner, to say in Ioannina and pass on to President Delors that we do not want hypocrisy; we want clarity. We say yes to enlargement, and we also wish to know - this is a question I am asking you - if you are in a position to tell us when Parliament will have the treaties of accession in all the languages so that we will know - and here we are showing our flexibility - whether or not we will have the opportunity to study them.

So, yes to enlargement, but certainly not to the weakening of the Union's decision-making abilities. The responsibility is yours. We hope you will be successful with enlargement, but we must be clear in Ioannina and not let an artistic fuzziness take root, letting Parliament have responsibilities which do not belong to it, but to other institutions.

(Applause)

Boissière (V). - (FR) Madam President, my question to the Commissioner is the following: Do you not think, as our group does, that this issue of a blocking minority of 23 or 27 votes is not the main issue, although we must not, of course, neglect its importance? In this respect, I believe there was an exaggerated attempt to limit the approach by concentrating on the issue of 23 or 27 votes. It is not a matter of avoiding a retreat on the institutional aspect. What we have been saying for months, indeed years, is that progress must be made, and that enlargement would only be possible if we undertook a wide- ranging review of the institutional question, namely the question of the co-legislative procedure. So is it not time, Mr Commissioner, to envisage a dual majority system? And is it not time to review Article N - which we feel to be the minimum reform within the context of the treaties of accession - so that this enlargement can be sustainable and durable, and to even do so before 1996, so that the 1995 timetable is actually respected?

My second question, Mr Commissioner, is the following: Are you prepared to support us in not following the procedure of the Committee of Wise Men which, for us, will remain an intergovernmental committee. Should we not accordingly promote a different formula, namely an interinstitutional conference with the Commission, and Council and - of course - our institution? Indeed, the intergovernmental conference will not allow us to ensure good participation and avoid the pitfalls of the Maastricht Treaty, since this solution, of course, is a stop-gap measure compared with a genuine co-decision ability in institutional matters.

de la Malène (RDE). - (FR) Mr Commissioner, my question is addressed to you in your capacity as the guardian of the Treaty. You just said - and several speakers have taken up the theme - that we are living in rather difficult times. We hope we can find a way out, but we have some questions about the procedure. Article O of the Maastricht Treaty stipulates that, in response to applications for accession, the Council should bring the matter before the Commission, ask Parliament to give its assent, and then make a unanimous decision. The second paragraph targets the agreements and the adjustments. This is what we are discussing in the negotiations.

However, I wonder, Mr Commissioner, why the Council did not ask Parliament to issue a decision in the form of an assent on the accession application for any of the four candidate countries. I have no recollection of this; I wonder what stage we are at in the accession procedure. You, Mr Commissioner, are the guardian of the Treaties. So, since we are in the middle of negotiations, and as long as we have not voted - as required by the Maastricht Treaty - I would like the guardian of the Treaties to enlighten me on this point.

Bjørnvig (ARC). - (DA) Mr Commissioner, since the negotiations can end by falling into place in spite of everything, I would like to know the following: Can the candidate Member States be certain of being able to retain their high environmental standards, even beyond the transitional period of four years by invoking the environmental guarantee enshrined in Article 100 a, paragraph 4, in the event that the EU has not approached their higher standards by that time? The question can be answered with a simple `yes' or `no'.

Blot (DR). - (FR) Madam President, dear colleagues, is it not shocking, so shortly after the rigged adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, to call into question the institutions as they stand, by trying to change and weaken the blocking minority? Is it not shocking to call into question past agreements - i.e. the word we gave - with the four candidate countries of the European Economic Area, for reasons which are totally independent of the problems linked to their accession, and primarily for internal institutional reasons?

Is there no legislative stability in Community matters? Is institutional law therefore to be dependent on the policies of the moment, outside any hierarchy of standards? This is legal barbarism. In order to wipe away this horrid impression, should we not definitively separate the debate on enlargement from the institutional debate?

Van der Waal (NI). - (NL) Madam President, in the press the Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs has rightly pointed out that the current institutional debate revolves around no less than the fundamental question of which direction Europe should move in. However, that being the case I am amazed that such a fundamental question must be decided within the context of this present enlargement - and especially at such a late stage. I know that in the past the proportions of votes within the Council were also adjusted, but now that the Union's areas of policy have been extended in the wake of the Treaty of Maastricht, it does not go without saying that the Member States want to relinquish more sovereignty in these areas - all the more so since the Treaty of Maastricht has made it clear that there is great trepidation among our citizens regarding any further centralization of authority.

In 1996 the institutional structure of the union will come up for review anyway. So why can we not wait with the institutional question until the new Member States can also have their say? After all, the future structure of Europe is well worth a separate, thorough debate.

I am of the opinion that we cannot allow ourselves to put enlargement at risk for the sake of this issue. Enlargement merits a high priority, not least as a signal to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the interest of their own development, but also for the sake of stability in Europe, these countries should know that they will now be the next candidates for accession.

Woltjer (PSE). - (NL) Madam President, I have two clear questions that leave no room for misunderstanding about my dismay at the egoism and disdain for the European Union that is now being so shamelessly displayed by individual governments within the Council.

Firstly, does the Commissioner not agree with me that the enthusiasm of the United Kingdom for the accession of the EFTA countries directly after the approval of the Maastricht Treaty is exclusively, and I repeat, exclusively prompted by its endeavour to undermine decision- making within the Union and the achievements of the Maastricht Treaty again as soon as possible rather than by its long-standing friendship with these countries, as it has suggested?

Secondly, the Commissioner has already pointed out the potential negative consequences on public opinion of today's problems and the Member States. So I would like to ask the Commissioner to be a little clearer and go along with me in saying that such a shameful attitude not only has a negative influence on public opinion in the countries joining the European Union, but also in our Member States themselves, and that this could work like a boomerang and plunge the Union into a deep crisis. Yes, even if a solution is found this coming weekend there is a great danger that the citizens will yet turn away from such horse trading, thoroughly sickened.

Let us show our determination that Parliament will not play along with such horse trading!

Bourlanges (PPE). - (FR) Madam President, the Council is absent. We are therefore addressing our remarks to the Commission, in accordance with the custom of reproaching those who are here for the absence of those who are not here. However, we would like the Commission to be our proxy, our ambassador, and tell the Council that Parliament is irritated at seeing how the Council, for months now, has erected a wall of condescension, silence and absence in response to our demands and legitimate questions - when the Treaties give it specific authority regarding the issuing of assent. We are fed up to our back teeth; the Council's performance is not convincing us of its efficiency. So go and say that in northern Greece next Saturday, Mr Commissioner. We would be greatly appreciate it.

The second problem is this: The Commission devotedly proposes compromises ad infinitum on the application of the blocking minority, calling - in particular - for extra deadlines in these compromises. When will the Commission and the Council stop messing about? We know that the compromises submitted are incompatible with the letter of the Treaty, and especially with the co-decision procedure set out in Article 189b, paragraphs 5 and 6, which encloses the Council's decision-making procedures within strict deadlines and which are incompatible with the proposals you are making. We appreciate Mr Delors' courageous gesture of yesterday, but I entreat you to be loyal to it. Stop messing about, stop proposing cock-and-bull compromises which serve no purpose, and which - why, you seem surprised Mr Commissioner! The President-in-Office of the Council told us this morning that during the night you and he concocted a compromise which we feel to be totally unsatisfactory. Perhaps the President-in-Office of the Council was mistaken. Tell us that is so, we will be mighty pleased. In any case, we ask you to demonstrate the same rigour tomorrow and the day after tomorrow as you demonstrated yesterday.

Lastly, after what the Council has done, or not done, is there a single Member who might believe that this Council - which is incapable of moving a chair from one place in a room to another, which is incapable of agreeing on a blocking minority - can in less than two years assume the crushing responsibility of reviewing the Treaties at the intergovernmental conference? What is currently happening shows, in an absurd manner, that this Parliament is right when it says there can be no enlargement without deepening. What is currently happening shows that, if we do not all react and, in particular, if the Commission does not raise all the institutional problems - and not only the problem of the blocking minority - then the future intergovernmental conference will be condemned to an impasse and paralysis, and Europe will be condemned to failure.

(Applause)

Ewing (ARC). - Madam President, I understand that the Commission must be even-handed in the dispute about qualified majority voting and blocking minorities following enlargement. Nevertheless, I would ask the Commission to remind the UK before the next round of negotiations that they are putting enlargement at risk for the apparent motive of appeasing their anti-market rump in Westminister. I am not attacking the Tory MEPs here who are pro-European but I think the tail is wagging the dog in this instance.

Is the Commissioner not aware of the hypocrisy of the UK which seeks harder voting on enlargement and yet accepts easier voting on fundamental alterations to the common fisheries policy and on questions of Norwegian access to fishing where, legally, Britain could have insisted on unanimity. Yet, in this case, they are asking for harder voting. Is it not notable that Germany, France and Italy trust the future enlarged EU to be fair. Why cannot the UK?

Puerta (NI). - (ES) Madam President, I agree with those colleagues who have made it clear how the Council - which is absent today, even though it was certainly present this morning in the Committee on Foreign Affairs - `has put the cart before the horse', as they say.

The Council has turned a deaf ear to Parliament's entreaties, and especially to its resolution of last November, in which we demanded an interinstitutional dialogue. There can be no enlargement under these conditions. Moreover, we must take into account the problem of public opinions in the countries which want to accede - but this is not being done either - especially in Norway.

I would like to express full support for Parliament's position, and, with the authority that I have due to the fact that I belong to a political party which does not support the Spanish government's policy on home affairs and which is not linked to the main opposition party, I must endeavour to draw a clear distinction between the British position and the Spanish one. They cannot be considered to be similar. It must be made quite clear that the Spanish position is to advocate a double blocking minority, which will probably neither demand the reform of the Treaty nor eliminate the institutional acquis. However, account must be taken of the repercussions of enlarging North-South relations within our own Community. I must lend my unyielding support to the fact that there must be flexibility and dialogue in the next two years, before the Treaty is reviewed in 1996.

Lastly, I would ask the President-in-Office of the Council to adopt a calm approach, rather than a dramatic one. He must help bring these negotiations to an end and he must endeavour to understand the legitimate reasons of the various components of the Community.

Dury (PSE). - (FR) Madam President, the enlargement process is under serious threat, but even more serious is the fact that the future of the European Union is also threatened. I would remind the House that each time new countries have joined us, the number of votes needed to block decisions has increased. Indeed, at the time, Mrs Thatcher accepted this. Quite frankly, and like some other Members, I would say that even if a compromise is found in Ioannina, it will still be a lame compromise and a compromise which we find impossible to accept.

Several Members have repeated our position taken in November. I will read it to you: `The European Parliament is of the opinion that enlargement must under no circumstances harm the cohesion of the Union and its ability to take action in those areas where its competencies have been confirmed or established by the Treaty on European Union.' On several occasions, we have informed the Council and Commission of our positions. We made ourselves absolutely clear. We wanted an interinstitutional dialogue and we wanted to be assisted by a Committee of Wise Men which could give us ideas on how to operate better and more democratically. As the Council is not represented here, we are giving the Commission the task of passing on the message, and also the task of telling Great Britain we knew that initially it was in favour of enlargement because enlargement would better dilute the Union. However, we know that it now no longer wants enlargement so that it can more easily block the Union. The message must also get through to Spain. We know that there the motivations are different, but you must not play with fire.

You are Europeans, so be our allies in carrying out more in-depth institutional changes. In my opinion, we will not find 260 votes in this Parliament if we continue down this path. So you have been warned, but you must also alert public opinion in the four countries to your own responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Council.

Bonde (ARC). - (DA) Madam President, will the new law provide for 23 or 27 votes as the blocking minority? Yes, either 23 or 27, although my answer is neither/nor. Every Member State should have the right to impose a veto against new laws, as provided for in the Luxembourg Agreement dating from 1966. When debates on voting rules are held without mentioning voting rules, then I become nervous. I become particularly nervous when two compromise texts are debated in which two large countries and one small country, possibly numbering 100 million citizens, can demand that the negotiations be continued for a few months. Can a single country no longer demand that the negotiations be continued? Will the Commission confirm that the Luxembourg Agreement continues to apply and that any Member State will continue to be able to implement it even in an enlarged EC? Or is it the case that an adoption of new voting rules will also eliminate the right of veto enshrined in the Luxembourg Agreement in practice? The right of veto is the key to deciding whether the EC is a Union of individual states or a new state, so I hope that the Commissioner can confirm the continued existence of the Luxembourg Agreement even if he personally regrets so doing.