EUROPEAN CONVENTION: PARLIAMENT FEARS SWINDLE OVER FINANCE TITLE OF FUTURE TREATY.

The European Parliament's delegation to the European Convention fears the introduction of the financial perspective as a budgetary discipline instrument in the future Treaty will turn out to be a swindle. According to a Praesidium proposal for Article 40 of Title VII, it is not taken as read that the European Parliament will enjoy joint decision-making powers with the Council for the medium-term financial perspective. As a result of the May 1999 Inter-Institutional Agreement on budgetary discipline, which provides a framework for the March 1999 Berlin Summit Conclusions establishing the financial perspective for 2000-2006, MEPs carry weight in the financial perspective negotiations and not only their implementation via the annual budgetary procedure. Consequently, the idea of dropping the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory spending, also proposed in Article 40, seems less appealing, even though the European Parliament has long called for this.

"We will have less to say about money matters", said Johannes Voggenhuber (Greens, Austrian), during a meeting of the delegations, on April 8 on the sidelines of the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg. The delegation leader, Inigo Mendez de Vigo (EPP-ED, Spain) recognised that the Council was seeking a "safety lock". The United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands are in favour of dropping the distinction (France is firmly opposed) only if the financial perspective is incorporated into the Treaty and if its structure were subject only to...