The role of Parliaments in negotiations on international Treaties

Dear Colleagues,

Distinguished guests,

Governments negotiate and conclude international treaties and, when the work is done, Parliaments ratify them. That is the classical division of labour.

But things have changed. In today's world, parliaments don't stop their work at the national borders anymore. Parliaments have to think about the consequences of international events on their work.

Because the borders between what is decided nationally and internationally are blurring. Whether they are about trade, data exchanges or strategic partnerships - many international treaties have consequences on national policies and practices. They should therefore be a concern for parliaments from the moment negotiations start until their final conclusion and implementation.

Therefore I find it right that the title of this working session is "the role of parliaments in negotiations on international treaties" and not only on the ratification of those treaties.

The European Union can negotiate and conclude international treaties that bind its institutions and the Member States in fields for which the EU is competent. If the competence is shared with the Member States, we speak of "mixed" agreements.

Since the Treaty of Lisbon is in force, the Council must ask the European Parliament's consent to conclude an EU agreement, once the Commission has negotiated a draft text. This means strictly speaking that the draft agreement which has been negotiated will be brought to the Parliament for a simple “yes-or-no” vote at the end of the process. But to avoid a “no” vote, the Council and the Commission are well-advised to find out in advance what the wishes and sensitivities of the European Parliament are.

That is why our Treaties also provide that the European Parliament must be "immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure" (Art 218 TFEU). This means in practice:

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  Firstly that the European Commission comes regularly to the relevant parliamentary committee to update its Members on the state of play of negotiations, and
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  Secondly that draft negotiating texts can be consulted by Members of Parliament under condition of confidentiality.

The Commission had to learn this new way of working. As you will remember in 2010 the European Parliament rejected the TFTP Agreement (Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme, known informally as the SWIFT Agreement) on the transfer of banking data to the United States. It was quite a shock for the United States to learn about the new competences of the European Parliament - and perhaps for some in the European Commission too.

It was the expression of the fact that in today's world executive powers, be it a national government or the European Commission, must take into account the will of the elected representatives of the people when concluding international treaties.

In 2012, for the EU-US PNR Agreement on aviation passenger data, consultations with Parliament reached a new level, and after taking some genuine concerns into account, a rejection of the treaty could be avoided.

A few months later, the Parliament rejected ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) which had been signed by the EU, Member States and ten other countries. That decision was not taken lightly. It followed an intensive, inclusive and transparent debate with civil society, business organisations, national Parliaments and many other stakeholders. ACTA was negotiated by a group of industrialised countries in a process that provoked complaints for its lack of transparency. The European Parliament tried to redress this shortcoming. We organised workshops, seminars and other meetings with representatives of civil society and all others involved in the debate. We wanted to listen and to learn. I myself talked on several occasions with activists and in online chats.

At the time, I noticed something fascinating. The debate on ACTA was demonstrating the existence of a European public opinion that transcended national borders. All over Europe, people were engaged in debates and protests. The mobilization of public opinion was unprecedented. And so things started changing.

For negotiations on EU trade agreements, it is now standard practice that the Commission shares information with the Committee on International Trade on a regular basis. For very complex negotiations like those on TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), written information is even accessible - under certain conditions - to all Members of the European Parliament.

Here I want to commend the transparency shown by the current Commission, for instance in obtaining the declassification by the Council of negotiating mandates and directives for TTIP and TiSA (the Trade in Services Agreement), and in publishing textual proposals.

Given the intense, sometimes passionate, public debate, this helps people to judge for themselves based on facts what is going on.

Apart from being informed, the European Parliament has also developed the possibility of making recommendations to the negotiators. For important and complex negotiations, this can even be done several times. For the TTIP negotiations, the European Parliament first gave recommendations at the beginning of the process, before the Commission even received its negotiating mandate.

And, now that negotiations are well underway since yesterday in New York for a ninth round, the EP is about to come with further recommendations in June.

The TTIP example also shows how important it is to keep information flowing between national Parliaments and the European Parliament. Because in some Member States the public debate on TTIP is particularly intense and national Parliaments have adopted positions regarding the negotiations.

If TTIP turns out to be a mixed agreement, both national Parliaments and the European Parliament will have to scrutinise it, each according to our specific constitutional roles. In such a case it is important that parliamentarians from all over Europe stay in touch with each other and base their positions on the same facts and information - even if they may draw different conclusions from those facts. In doing so, parliaments can show that they can convey the will of their electorate - the European citizens - in a responsible and constructive way.

We in the European Parliament take extremely seriously the responsibility and the expectations resulting from the Treaty of Lisbon and intend to develop our role in international agreements to the full. And we look forward to enhancing the parliamentary dimension together with all of you.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the President of the European Parliament, I am committed to dialogue with citizens and to making Europe more democratic and understandable.

Today's economy is a global economy. Flows of information, capital, services, goods and persons do not stop at national borders anymore. Rules agreed internationally increasingly affect what we find on our plates, our fundamental rights, our legal systems or the standards according to which we produce goods or provide services.

Our job is to ensure that democracy and accountability grow in step with this globalisation. A growing role of parliaments in negotiations on international treaties to me is an expression of this necessary globalisation of democracy.

And whether or not our executives like this, it has already started to happen.

Thank you for your attention.