Special working group on parliamentary reform
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In 2007 the
President of the European Parliament President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese f ...
, Hans-Gert Poettering, set up a special working group on parliamentary reform. It was chaired by Dagmar Roth-Behrendt MEP (member for
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
) and was to improve the efficiency and image of the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
. Some ideas included livening up the plenary sessions and a State of the Union debate. It is due to produce a final report in July 2008, and put the recommendations into practice by the 2009 elections.


First proposals

One of the group's key reform ideas, extra debates on topical issues, was rejected by MEPs (mainly from the centre-right) in July 2007 over fears it would disrupt committee work while attracting very few attendees. In response, ALDE leader
Graham Watson Sir Graham Robert Watson (born 23 March 1956) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 1994 to 2014. Watson was the chairman of the Parliament's committee on ci ...
MEP (member for
South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities ...
) withdrew from the group. MEPs did however back a proposal to use the
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more often in the Parliament. This comes after the European Council's agreement for the Treaty of Lisbon dropped the provisions of the Constitution which would have given the symbols official status. Jo Leinen MEP (member for Germany) suggested that the Parliament take the ''
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
'' in using the flag and anthem, the latter being rarely used in Parliament. The Parliament first adopted the
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in 1983, three years before it was formally adopted by the Communities as a whole.


Interim report

An interim report of the reform group was presented in September 2007. It proposes a number of changes to the house, including: Cutting down the debating time for texts with no
legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...
effect. In 2006, 92 "own initiative" reports (commenting rather than legislating) were tables and 22% of debating time was spent debating such reports, while only 18% was spent on legislative bills; it also proposed being more selective about inviting guest speakers to the house, the group stated that the new practice of inviting numerous heads of state to speak at the Parliament interrupted the normal legislative work of the house; a further idea to cap the number of amendments to documents was voted down. It is hoped the changes will make the Parliament more political, however Graham Watson, who earlier left the group, stated that he doubts the grand coalition between PES and
EPP-ED The European People's Party Group (EPP Group) is a centre-right political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent MEPs ...
can get it approved due to opposition from conservative members who voted down the earlier proposals. Other members such as the co-chair of ID,
Jens-Peter Bonde Jens-Peter Rossen Bonde (27 March 1948 – 4 April 2021) was a Danish politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the June Movement. He resigned as an MEP in May 2008. Bonde was elected to the European Parliament in the ...
MEP (member for
Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...
), wanted more radical proposals but Bonde did vote for the report stating that "it is psychologically important to show that we want to become a more political parliament."


Final report

The final report, due to be voted on in the second week of July 2008, is being put forward by
Richard Corbett Richard Graham Corbett CBE (born 6 January 1955) is a former British politician who served as the final Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP), from 2017 to 2020. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Merseysi ...
MEP (PES member for
Yorkshire and the Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York. It is ...
) who aims to gear Parliament's work towards areas where it actually has legislative powers. As described above, time on legislative bills would be increased at the expense of own initiative reports. These reports would be amended and voted on in the
Committees A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
with the plenary having a single vote on the document (plus a single vote for any alternative presented by group, but not line for line amendment). In an effort to liven up debates and make the work more visible, the
rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...
for a legislative report would introduce, respond to and sum up a debate. There would also be new limits on written questions; at present, unlike other parliaments, there are no limits on the questions an MEP can ask the Commission during question time. The Commission has three weeks to respond to urgent questions and six for non-urgent questions but it often has to deal with a great number of questions that deal with issues outside its mandate (past examples include asking the Commission for information about the
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and whether
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uses weight distorting mirrors), sometimes to disrupt the working of the Commission. The new rules would make a question inadmissible if it: fell outside the remit of the European Union, contained offensive language or related to personal matters. If a question was already asked, the author would be informed but they could still maintain their question. This proposal faces opposition from some MEPs who consider it impinging upon their rights. The new rules on questions were approved in July 2008.


References

{{Europarl European Parliament