Independent Candidate for European Union Presidency

K. Heinz Duthel, Independent Candidate for European Union Presidency.Independent! Democrat! Social!... Citizen of Europe: Heinz Duthel.

2008-05-01 01:27:15 -

European Union Presidency

Heinz Duthel

'I am the better Candidate and Guarantor as President of the European Union for peace and prosperity, for a real European Union of Citizens'.

"I'am asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Brussels....I am asking you to believe in yours.

'Heinz Duthel is strengthening the Democratic and social movement, young and old, into the process. I believe Heinz Duthel has the best ability to be the first by peoples elected European Union President and lead the European Union forward. 'The Scotsman

"We are at that critical and urgent moment. If Brussels continues policies that work against European's family farmers, our rural communities will fall further behind - and so will Europe. But if we reject the politics that has shut ordinary folks out, we can create a new story for rural Europe ... The dreams of rural Europeans are familiar to all Europeans - to make a good living, to raise a healthy and secure family, and to leave our children a future of opportunity. It's time for real leadership for rural Europe to extend that European Union dream. That's the dream of chance and hope that I've spent my life fighting for. And that's what my rural agenda will do." Sweden's news in English

Heinz Duthel is since 16:35 EST, 30.April 2008 official supported by 22 NGOs in Europe.

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European Parliament

The European Parliament (Europarl or EP) is the only directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council), it forms the bicameral legislative branch of the Union's institutions and has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world.[1] The Parliament and Council form the highest legislative body within the Union. However their powers as such are limited to the competencies conferred upon the European Community by member states. Hence the institution has little control over policy areas held by the states and within the other two of the three pillars of the European Union. The Parliament is composed of 785 MEPs (Member of the European Parliament), who serve the second largest democratic electorate in the world (after India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (342 million eligible voters in 2004).

It has been directly elected every five years by universal suffrage since 1979. Although the European Parliament has legislative power that such bodies as those above do not possess, it does not have legislative initiative like most national parliaments. While it is the "first institution" of the European Union (mentioned first in the treaties, having ceremonial precedence over all authority at European level, the Council has greater powers over legislation than the Parliament where codecision procedure (equal rights of amendment and rejection) does not apply. It has, however, had control over the EU budget since the 1970s and has a veto over the appointment of the European Commission

The European Parliament has two meeting places, namely the Immeuble Louise Weiss in Strasbourg, France, which serves for plenary sessions and is the official seat and the Espace Léopold complex in Brussels, Belgium, the smaller of the two, which serves for preparatory meetings and complementary, non-plenary sessions. The cost of having all MEPs and their staff moving several times a year from one place to another has been of concern to some. The Secretariat of the European Parliament, the Parliament's administrative body, is based in Luxembourg.

The President of the European Parliament (its speaker) is currently Hans-Gert Pöttering (EPP), elected in January 2007. He presides over a multi-party chamber, the two largest groups being the European People's Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) and the Party of European Socialists (PES). The last Union-wide elections were the 2004 Parliamentary Elections, however Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007 and have elected their members in 2007 (see European Parliament election, 2007); the next union-wide parliamentary elections are in 2009


Future of the Parliament

The Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 2007-12-13, largely retains the reforms outlined in the rejected Constitutional Treaty. Overall, powers would be increased. For example, nearly all policy areas would fall under co-decision procedure (now called the "ordinary legislative procedure") meaning that the Parliament would have practically equal powers to those of the Council (now officially the Council of Ministers). In the remaining minority of areas in which the powers remain unequal, the Council must consult the Parliament and/or seek its approval on the legislation. The Parliament also gains greater powers over the entirety of the EU budget, not just non-compulsory expenditure, through the ordinary legislative procedure. In terms of the composition of the Parliament there would be little change, however the minimum number of seats would be increased from 5 to 6 and the maximum number would be reduced from 99 to 96. There would also be basic rules on the distribution of seats in the Parliament, rather than them being negotiated at each enlargement. Decisions about the composition of the Parliament are currently made by the Council, this would remain so but the decision would be made based on a proposal from the Parliament itself.

The European Council would be bound to take into account the latest elections when proposing the Commission President, something that they willingly did after the 2004 election. As currently, the Parliament's consent is needed for the President to take office, however the Treaty of Lisbon now uses the word "elect" rather than "approve" to refer to this procedure. This is an area however in which the Council of Ministers plays no part. It will remain to be seen whether calling it an election will spur political groups to use their power and mandate to force their own candidates upon the European Council in the same way as, for example, the British House of Commons does in its relation to their Queen. There have been suggestions that the parliament's political groups may propose their own candidates before the 2009 election. No major party proposed a candidate in 2004 with the fractious nature of the European-level parties being, in part, why a single candidate has not been proposed. However there are plans to strengthen the political parties before the elections and the European Green Party, the first to have a common campaign, did manage to put forward a candidate. In 2007, Franco Frattini indicated he would like to act as though the treaty was already in force, in respects to the Parliament's powers over justice and criminal matters, in order to inject more democracy and ensure the Parliament had over sight on forthcoming legislation Frattini did not wish to delay until 2009.

In addition to the institutional reforms brought by the Treaty of Lisbon, in 2007 the President set up the Special working group on parliamentary reform to improve the efficiency and image of the Parliament. Some ideas include livening up the plenary sessions and a State of the Union debate.[102] One of the group's key reform ideas, extra debates on topical issues, was rejected by MEPs[103] causing liberal leader Graham Watson MEP to withdraw from the reform group.[104] However MEPs did back a proposal for greater use of the European symbols, following their rejection in the Treaty of Lisbon. It was suggested the Parliament take the avant-garde in using the symbols as it had done in adopting the flag in 1983, which was three years before the Communities as a whole.[105][106] An interim report was presented in September 2007 and proposed cutting down time allocated for guest speakers and non-legislative documents. 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. The group is due to produce a final report in 2008, and put the recommendations into practice by the 2009 elections[102] however Watson has stated that he doubts the left-right coalition in Parliament can pass the proposals due to opposition from more conservative members. Other members such as the co-chair of ID, Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, had wanted more radical proposals. Bonde did however vote for the report, stating that "it is psychologically important to show that we want to become a more political parliament.

Heinz Duthel RSS Feed page at www.dugle.net with daily updates, including PR Inside Feeds.

Heinz Duthel, April 30, 2008
www.europeanpresidency.net