Presentatie van Zweedse minister voor EP-Commissie van Juridische Zaken over Stockholm programma (en)
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Mr Chairman,
Honourable members of the Committee on Legal Affairs, Mr Chairman,
I would like to begin by extending my warmest congratulations to you on your election to the European Parliament. I especially want to congratulate Herr Lehne on his appointment as Chairman of the JURI Committee. I look forward to a period of close and fruitful cooperation with you.
Today, I would like to touch on a few of the priorities of the Swedish Presidency.
The Committee’s visit to Stockholm at the end of September will give us a further opportunity to hold informal discussions of mutual interest.
Honourable members of the Committee,
One of the overarching objectives of the Swedish Presidency is to help achieve the Union’s goal of enhancing the security of its citizens. We want to make it easier for people to travel, to move, build families or work across borders.
In the last ten years, the European Union has made significant strides in the judicial sphere. The coming years will now be our concern. The Tammerfors and Hague Programmes, our ‘road maps’ for dealing with justice and home affairs matters, will shortly have a successor. As you know, a new programme is to be adopted at the summit meeting of heads of state and government in December.
In the coming years, the Stockholm Programme will be the most important policy document setting the direction of EU undertakings in the fields of justice and home affairs. The Swedish Government regards adoption of the Programme as one of its most important tasks.
The Presidency’s objective is to ensure the ratification of a new Programme that is ambitious, long-term and balanced.
– Ambitious in the sense that it must reflect the growing importance of EU cooperation on justice and home affairs in recent years, and set up a real political framework for what we aim to achieve in this area.
– Long-term because the goals we establish must lay the foundation for continued, effective and strengthened cooperation during, and hopefully beyond, the Programme’s formal five-year span.
– By balanced we mean that the Programme must seek a middle way between measures that may be perceived as intrusions on personal privacy, and measures which are designed to protect that very privacy, as well as our basic human rights.
Our point of departure is the Commission’s Communication of June this year, discussed for the first time by ministers at the informal JHA Council in Stockholm in July. The impression that emerged from the discussions in Stockholm is one of general agreement on the main features of the Communication.
The citizens’ perspective, on which the Communication is based, is, in my view, fundamental. Future cooperation must be aimed at measures that bring real added value to EU citizens. The civil law issues deliberated by this Committee are of immense significance in this regard.
Other issues being addressed include the need to improve our analysis and evaluation of the need for legislation at EU level, and of the effect of pre-existing legislation. These aspects found broad support among the ministers. Another matter raised at our informal ministerial council was the need to improve the quality of EU legislation and make it more comprehensible and accessible to the general public and professionals.
Mutual trust in one another’s judicial and administrative systems is a prerequisite for successful, effective cooperation. The Commission points to the need for confidence building measures such as expanded training and exchange programmes for professional people. I share that view.
The Swedish Presidency will for its part, do its utmost to ensure that the Stockholm Programme meets the needs and wishes of EU citizens. We want an ambitious, concrete programme with clearly defined priorities. If we are to achieve this, we must strive for an open, transparent process involving the active participation of Member States, institutions and key actors.
We are of course hoping for constructive discussions with the European Parliament. Your contribution will be of great value!
Honourable members of the Committee,
Cooperation on civil law is of course a key component of the Stockholm Programme. A specific and already widely discussed issue in this connection is the question of a review of the Brussels I Regulation – one of the EU’s most important civil law instruments. The Regulation – as we know – lays down uniform rules to settle conflicts of jurisdiction in civil law cases where the parties reside in different Member States. It also contains provisions to facilitate the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgements, court settlements and authentic instruments within the EU in civil and commercial matters. While all this may sound highly technical, these rules are of considerable importance to individual citizens.
The Green Book and the Commission's report on the Brussels I Regulation contain a number of proposals. One of the most important concerns the abolition of the Exequatur Procedure. At present, a party wishing to have a judgement enforced in another Member State must first apply for – and be granted – an enforcement order by a court in that country. This has implications for individual citizens in terms of time and cost. The Commission proposes that the Exequatur Procedure requirement be abolished.
I hope that the Committee will support continued efforts to implement the principle of mutual recognition and simplification of procedures in accordance with the Brussels I Regulation. The Commission is expected to put forward a specific proposal for changes to the Brussels I Regulation towards, or just after, the end of the year. The Swedish Presidency will do all it can to ensure that the Council is able to provide the Commission with a solid basis for its coming deliberations.
Another civil law issue, also vitally important – and which I understand will be addressed by the Legal Affairs Committee – has to do with a forthcoming proposal for an EU regulation on successions and wills.
There have long been calls for a Community instrument on successionsand wills. The issue was addressed already in the Hague Programme. There is a pressing practical need for an instrument in this sphere. The number of transborder succession cases is growing as more and more people move across borders and settle in other EU countries. According to estimates published in 2002, we are looking at over 100,000 cases per year – and the number is rising. An EU citizen affected by the many transborder successions and wills issues – and there are many, as I have said – faces a number of problems today. For example, parallel proceedings in more than one Member State are common. This is both time-consuming and costly.
I know that the European Parliament shares my view regarding the urgent need for a Community instrument on successions and wills. The Parliament urged the Commission to put forward a proposal as long ago as 2006. In talks with Vice President Barrot, I requested that he give this issue the highest possible priority, and I now understand that a proposal may be forthcoming in the autumn. I look forward to the opportunity to begin negotiations and pave the way for continued work during the Spanish Presidency.
Another important project, which has been ongoing for a number of years, is the creation of a Common Frame of Reference for European contract law (CFR). This is an important undertaking, aimed at facilitating future legislative work in this area. A major and vital research project has also been carried out under the CFR umbrella. We are now awaiting a background report from the Commission, due later this year, before embarking on the necessary further deliberations. Pending this, and in order to lay the groundwork for a broad discussion of the project, the Swedish Presidency will host a conference in Stockholm on 22–23 October 2009. If I am correctly informed, the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs will be one of the speakers on that occasion. This is highly gratifying news since I know that Mr Lehne for a long time has been deeply committed to this issue.
An other issue related to the Stockholm Programme is the ongoing work with the E-Justice project. This is a matter of major relevance to the individual citizen; the aim is to improve access to the judicial system and to rationalise and simplify judicial procedures.
It is high time we begin to think about different ways to make use of modern information technology, among other things to help people navigate between the many different European legal systems. This is a complex task, but by moving forward step by step we will gain the necessary experience. The Action Plan adopted by the JHA Council in November 2008 provides a sound platform for continued work in this area.
An important first step is the launch of the E-Justice portal. The portal will serve as a one-stop-shop, featuring direct access to information about legal systems and judicial procedure. If all goes according to the plan, the portal will be inaugurated in Stockholm in the middle of December this year. It is essential that citizens and practitioners are informed about the portal and its purpose, and we will do our best to ensure that the launch receives wide attention.
Honourable members of the Committee,
The world economy is currently facing the gravest crisis in modern times. The GDP is plummeting in many countries, businesses are going under, and people are losing their jobs. Europe, too, has been hit hard. Though global in its causes and character, the financial crisis has also exposed weaknesses in the European economy.
If the EU is to improve its competitiveness in the international arena we must create a better climate for innovation.
The introduction of a Community Patent and a Unified Patent Litigation System is probably among the most important measures we can adopt to promote growth and innovation in Europe. This much needed improvement of the patent system has remained unresolved for far too long. We must be honest and chalk up a major political failure, namely the fact that after so many years of negotiation, this issue – one of the most important in the Lisbon Strategy – which is so highly prioritised by our small and medium-sized enterprises, has yet to be resolved.
The negotiations on the Community Patent and the Unified Patent Litigation System are without a doubt among the most important issues in the area of the internal market during the Swedish Presidency, and we intend to do our utmost to move this dossier forward.
I am of course aware that the patent issues are extremely complex. Even though a number of outstanding issues are yet to be resolved, there is a significant political momentum in the negotiations and a strong support for the main structure of the current proposal. The Council’s decision to request an opinion from the European Court of Justice on the compatibility of the envisaged litigation system with the EC Treaty must be regarded as a major step forward in the negotiations.
It now remains to be seen how soon the European Court of Justice will deliver its opinion. We hope that it will do so as soon as possible. The Swedish Presidency will in any event make use of the coming months in order to move the negotiations forward as far as possible.
This is not the time nor the place to go into detail on this complex legislative matter. The JURI Committee is well aware of the existing problems. The Council will of course be noting the views of the European Parliament, as expressed in the resolutions adopted in 2006 and 2007for instance. I look forward to close and constructive cooperation with the Committee on this important issue.
There is also an issue on the Council’s agenda with a bearing on copyright protection. I am referring to the Commission's proposal to extend the term of protection for sound recordings. This is also a politically complex matter that has occupied numerous people and stakeholder organisations.
The European Parliament took up a position on the proposal on its first reading. The Council agrees with the Parliament's assessment of the importance of ensuring effective protection of the rights of performers and of promoting artistic expression. The Council also agrees on the need to improve the financial circumstances of the least privileged members of this group.
However, it considers that efforts must be made to ensure that the proposed directive actually achieves the desired result. We have not yet reached agreement on this point.
The Presidency does not at present see any prospect of movement in this matter. If the Member States’ position changes, we will of course take up a position once more and steadfastly carry forward work on the proposed directive. Until that time we will give precedence to negotiations on other legal instruments, primarily patents and related issues, which must take overall priority.
Another key issue for the Union in the coming years will be to create a better climate for enterprise, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises.
One important way of achieving this is to seek to reduce the administrative burden on enterprise. The importance of the stated target of reducing this burden by 25 per cent by 2012 has been accentuated by the financial crisis. The Swedish Government has a similar objective, except that in our case the target year is 2010. I am not sure that we will succeed in meeting it. Having said that, I am convinced that regulatory simplification is urgently needed.
The proposal presented by the Commission in February this year to exempt micro-enterprises from EC accounting directives is aimed at resolving an important and urgent issue: the need to simplify accounting rules for micro-enterprises. However, negotiations in the Council testify to the difficulties that often arise when it comes to achieving ambitions in this area. What I am referring to here is the need to simplify and deregulate while establishing a set of common rules guaranteeing comparability and transparency. During the Swedish Presidency, we will try to find a way out of the present deadlock in the Council. We also hope to develop a close working relationship with the European Parliament on this issue.
The Council is currently engaged in negotiations on the Commission’s proposal for a new European form of business association the European Private Company (SPE).
This proposal, which forms part of the Small Business Act, is aimed at boosting the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises by making their establishment in the single market easier. Another aim is to reduce the costs of complying with widely differing regulatory systems across the EU governing the formation and operation of business enterprises..
As the Presidency Country, we will strive to create an EU-wide legal instrument that can be practically applied by businesses in accordance with the Principles of Better Regulation. In March this year, the European Parliament was consulted on the matter.
A number of other, outstanding issues will require further discussion in the Council. These include the question of whether there should be provisions on cross-border requirement to start an SPE, agreeing on the minimum permitted level of share capital of an SPE as well as the question of employee participation in the management body of the European Private Companies.
I am convinced that we can reach solutions acceptable to all parties. As we know, Mr Chairman himself has been actively involved in this area.
Mr Chairman,
Honourable members of the Committee,
It has been a pleasure to have been able to share with you some of the ideas and priorities relating to the important issues you will be addressing this coming autumn.
We will be meeting again in Stockholm at the end of this month, when we will have an opportunity to continue this exchange of views in a less formal setting. In the meantime, I am at your disposal should you have any comments or questions you would like to put. Thank you for your attention.