Before other steps

From Strasbourg to Brussels: after the packed session at the European Parliament (11-14 December), the spotlight has shifted to the Belgian capital for the EU Council of heads of state and of government of the 25 (14-15 December). The EP has sent a clear message to the summit: the Union cannot proceed to any further enlargement before it has shown itself able to fully integrate the new members through radical institutional reforms and the approval of the Constitution. NO ENLARGEMENTS WITHOUT REFORMS. The session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg presented a packed agenda: the approval of the Directive on chemical substance (REACH), that on “TV without frontiers”, the debate of the December summit, the confirmation of the Commissioners to represent Romania and Bulgaria in the Executive, and the Budget for 2007. During the session MEPs adopted two reports – the first presented by the Finnish ALEXANDER STUBB , the second by the German ELMAR BROK – that ask the EU to proceed “to the necessary institutional reforms to improve the system and the ability to integrate new states in the EU”. According to the Parliament, the Union is unable “to honour the commitments it has assumed towards the countries of south-eastern Europe” because “its current institutional, financial and political structure” is no longer adequate. The “magic formula” repeated several times in the debating chamber is “capacity of integration”, conceptually different from the “capacity of absorption” hitherto used by Council and Commission. It maintains that the EU must be able to “function in an efficient and democratic way”, to properly fund its own activities “with sufficient resources” and to “develop the Union’s political objectives”. There is a return to the concept – fundamental for the future of the Community though neglected in recent years – of “deepening”: integration must go hand in hand with the dimensional growth of the EU. As part of this approach, “a constitutional solution must be found before the next European elections in 2009”. CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES UNDER CONTROL. The REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) Directive was approved by the EP after three years of haggling between Commission, Council and Parliament, with 529 votes in favour, 98 against and 24 abstentions. The rapporteur, the Italian GUIDO SACCONI , is delighted by the go ahead to the Directive. Talking to SIR he confirmed his intention “to describe in a novel these years of study, discussion and political negotiations”, and also the strong pressures exerted by the various lobbies active in Brussels, both industrial and environmental. “We have reached – says Sacconi – a result that is so important both for the security of citizens and the environment” and “for the competitiveness of the European economic system”. The regulation will come into force on 1st January 2007 and enter into full regime in 2018: firms in the sector will have to register all the chemical substances they produce or import (some 30,000 of them will be monitored), demonstrate they do not constitute any hazard and, if they do, substitute them with other molecules. The Directive, opposed by the Greens and by many ecological associations, is the result of a compromise that in the end obtained the backing of almost all the political forces. According to Commissioner GÜNTER VERHEUGEN , who holds the portfolio for EU industrial policy, REACH “will offer citizens better health protection and better ecological safeguards, without thereby penalizing firms operating in the sector”. But, he warns, “its effective and proper implementation will have to be closely monitored”. TV, MORE SCOPE FOR ADVERTISING. The EP also voted in favour of the much-contested Directive “TV without frontiers”, which goes back to 1989, and which aims to create a proper framework for technological progress in the sector. It effectively amplifies the scope for advertising on TV, which could now become even more intrusive. The EP also voted by a large majority in favour of the nomination of Meglena Kuneva and Leonard Orban, who will both enter the Commission as representatives of the new accession states Romania and Bulgaria at the start of the new year. The Parliament then welcomed ALEXANDER MILINKEVICH , leader of the democratic forces of the opposition in Belarus, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize for 2006 (in defence of human rights and fundamental liberties). “I am confident about the return to democracy in my country”, said Milinkevich, repeatedly interrupted with bursts of applause from MEPs. He described the situation of the former Soviet republic in terms of human rights, and also at the social and economic level. Milinkevich dedicated the Sakharov Prize to the former candidate in the presidential elections, Kazoulin, currently in prison, and expressed the hope that “the European future” of his Country would be recognized.