Sir, - In his excellent article (March 14th) on the state of plan at the IGC negotiations, you European Correspondent, Paddy Smyth, made one point which particularly caught my eye. He said that one of the reasons the European Parliament did not use its powers of censure over the Commission for its handling of the BSE crisis recently was because it was not able to "pick off" individual commissioners. I would like to offer a different interpretation.
Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into BSE presented its conclusions and recommendations at the February plenary session. These were accepted by an overwhelming majority of MEPs (422 to 49, with 48 abstentions). The committee concluded that the responsibility for the crisis lies firmly at the feet of the British government for allowing the spread of BSE infected feed, and on the Commission and the Council for essentially refusing to challenge Britain's handling of the problem, particularly between 1990 and 1994.
The committee suggested a large number of policy recommendations to the Commission. These, inter alia, called for responsibility for food safety to be transferred from the Commission's agriculture directorate (DGXI) to a new, beefed up (pardon the pun), consumer affairs directorate (DGXXIV). Responding to the report, the Commission president, Jacques Santer, indicated his immediate acceptance of most of the committee's recommendations.
A number of MEPs from three small groups, the ex Communists, the Radicals, and the Eurosceptic "Europe of the Nations", as well as a smattering of Greens (one out of 25) and Socialists (three out of 214), submitted a motion of censure against the Commission for its handling of the crisis. If passed, this would have resulted in the dismissal of the Commission.
My political group, the Socialist Group, and the other large groups opposed this motion. We considered that firing the Commission at this point would have done absolutely nothing to improve food safety, and would merely have delayed implementation of reforms which Santer had already agreed, to. Furthermore, it would have plunged the EU into our most serious institutional and political, crisis at our 40 year history, something which we felt only the Conservative Party in Britain, which had largely caused this problem in the first place, would have taken delight in. Lastly, we considered it would have been slightly unjust to fire the present Commission for mistakes which the committee of inquiry concluded had mostly been committed by its predecessor. Most other political groups concurred. As a result, the motion of censure was defeated with 118 in favour, 326 against and 15 abstentions.
Not wanting to place too much trust in the speeches of President Santer, however, Parliament believes the entire Commission must be kept on its toes on this issue. We therefore approved a "conditional censure" approach. A special Parliament body has been set up which will closely monitor the Commission's actions on BSE over the coming months.
If by November, we feel President Santer has not kept his word, we will then fire the entire Commission. These, not an inability to pick off individual Commissioners, are the reasons why Parliament did not dismiss the Commission last month.
Incidentally, one of the most intriguing aspects of the entire episode, which led to raised eyebrows in Strasbourg but which went largely unnoticed in Ireland, was the actions of the Green Group in Parliament. Before Plenary, the Greens stated officially that the best way to "maintain pressure on the Commission is to put forward a conditional motion of censure" (i.e. as the large groups proposed). At the same time however, the Greens also said that "there are no reasons to have confidence in this Commission."
Few in Strasbourg were able to make sense of this twin track approach. Either the Greens believed the Commission should be given until November to implement the committee of inquiry's recommendations (they did, apparently, and therefore voted for conditional censure) or they had no faith in its ability to implement the recommendations (they did not, and therefore simultaneously voted for immediate dismissal)! Despite repeated requests from senior Socialist Group officials before the vote, the Greens were unable to say what their real policy was.
The only explanation I could make of the Greens actions was the fact that before the vote, the 214 strong Socialist Group had unequivocally indicated its opposition to immediate dismissal of the Commission. The 25 Greens' therefore knew that without Socialist support, "the motion will get nowhere near the required majority". Thus the Greens, quite cynically in my view, were able to support the most extreme and media friendly stance in the full knowledge that their votes would have been negated by the more, responsible actions of the Socialists. - Yours, etc.,
Vice president of the
Socialist Group,
European Parliament, Avenue de L'Europe, 67006 Strasbourg.