Europees Parlement heeft 'niks te doen' (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is facing a shortage of big legislative projects in 2007 due in part to a "better regulation" drive by the European Commission, with some MEPs worried the house could lapse into risible declarations on exotic problems instead.

"It's not about keeping [parliamentary] committees busy. But if 'better regulation' means doing nothing - and this is the impression that we have at the moment - then it will be left to us to drive forward new initiatives," socialist group leader Martin Schulz said.

"I'm worried about parliament having nothing to do. We have so few legislative proposals from the commission...a lot of people might ask themselves - what am I doing wasting my time in Brussels?" liberal group leader Graham Watson added.

The statements echo the feeling of many rank-and-file parliamentary officials, if not the more politically-correct voice of the new conservative group leader, Joseph Daul, who predicts "a busy year for parliament with some major...pieces of legislation."

But even though the importance of any bill is in the eye of the beholder and the simple number of dossiers foreseen for 2007 does not show a massive drop-off, the fact remains there is nothing to compare with the REACH chemicals law or the services directive on the horizon.

The European Commission predicts 2007 will see 76 co-legislative projects fully involving parliament and EU states - a figure lower than the 114 co-decision acts of 2003 and 112 of 2006, but not too far off the 92 average since 2000.

The most politically-sensitive bills in 2007 will cover CO2 emissions, the energy single market, anti-terrorism, immigration and mobile phone roaming, with the commission saying 45 percent of its current work is preparing legislation, just 5 percent less than in 2000 to 2004.

But the "big-ticket" items this year will be the revival of the EU constitution, the creation of a common energy foreign policy and Kosovo - areas in which MEPs will play third-fiddle to EU member states.

Housekeeping work

Meanwhile, a large chunk of the 2007 co-decision programme will be "housekeeping" work such as bundling-together existing laws, an area which typically sees committees table far fewer amendments than political bills and which doesn't get MEPs' names into the papers.

In a heavy legislative agenda, such as the pre-enlargement year of 2003 or the REACH and services directive year of 2006, parliament introduced between 16,000 and 18,000 amendments. In a light year such as 2004, the figure dropped to 4,700.

Part of the problem is the commission's plan, unveiled by industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen in 2005, to "simplify the EU rulebook" by focusing on cutting back 1,400 old laws by 2009 and in future using more "soft-law" instruments such as "recommendations" - which bypass MEPs.

But the situation is more complex than that. "It's true the commission wants to cut red tape. But it's also just an accident of history that when people look back on 2007 they will remember issues like the constitution and Kosovo," a commission official said.

"Don't just blame the commission - there was a big push to clear masses of legislation before the new member states joined the EU in 2004, so we wouldn't have to re-negotiate it," a parliamentary official said. "The same was true of REACH and Romania and Bulgaria."

The question now remains what parliament will do in the coming year, with Mr Schulz' idea - to create political pressure for new laws - problematised by the commission's exclusive right to propose new EU legislation and a track-record of jealously guarding its turf.

The post-legislative phase

"Now that we are in the post-legislative, implementation phase, some people are asking if the committees should change from having a legislative role to an oversight role," the parliamentary official said.

But liberal leader Mr Watson outlined a danger that MEPs could get increasingly caught up in obscure or irresponsible "own-initiative reports," especially in the glamourous field of foreign affairs.

"I've seen one report on Dalits [the lowest caste in India], calling on the council and commission to review its strategic relationship with India," he said. "You're taking a small issue and making a potentially major political statement because there is nothing serious to do."