GERMANY: The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, have called for an overhaul of the EU Council of Ministers to stop decision-making getting "bogged down" with "specifics".
The council, the EU's primary decision-making forum, is too often hampered by overloaded agendas and overlong reports, the two leaders said.
"We need to ensure that we maximise the efficient use of European Council time, keeping our agenda focused on key priorities," the leaders said in a letter signed last Saturday in Stockholm.
The letter was forwarded yesterday to the Spanish Prime Minister and current holder of the EU presidency, Mr José Maria Aznar, as well as the former French president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, chair of the Convention on the Future of Europe that meets on Thursday.
The letter says reform would send out a clear signal that Brussels is capable of serious reform while preparing for an enlarged EU.
A central proposal suggests the council focus less on individual legislative issues but rather "strategic and over-arching issues" such as EU economic reform.
Voting should be streamlined by the maximum use of Qualified Majority Voting, with unanimous votes only taken where specified by treaty. Ministers should spend less time considering the language of draft texts and more time on the issues involved.
The chancellor and the prime minister favour fewer sub-councils and improved transparency in decision-making.
"We believe that both objectives would be furthered by holding council meetings in public when the council is acting in its role as legislator," Mr Schröder and Mr Blair wrote.
They favour abolishing the time-consuming tour de table tradition. Instead contributions should be limited to "member-states with specific points to make".
The initiative marks the latest step towards closer co-operation between London and Berlin after a controversial joint paper by the two leaders in 1998 on economic reform.
It coincides with a difficult time for the Franco-German axis that has long driven EU integration amid concerns in Paris that Germany stands to gain more than France from enlargement.
