Jean-Luc Dehaene, rapporteur. − (NL) Mr President, Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, the approval of the Treaty of Lisbon by the Czech Senate is a further important step towards ratification of the Treaty. It is, therefore, a positive thing that the European Parliament is, this evening, approving a number of reports setting out Parliament’s position regarding the implementation of the Treaty. After all, it is necessary for Parliament to be equally well prepared as the other institutions before entering into talks and negotiations with them on the implementation and application of the Treaty.

This is all the more important for Parliament, given that its powers will be substantially extended under this treaty. Therefore, Parliament has a strong interest in seeing that a) it is well prepared to carry out its new tasks fully – as set out in the reports by Mr Leinen and Mrs Guy-Quint, and that b) it adopts a clear position regarding its relationship with the other institutions, which is the subject of my report.

The Treaty of Lisbon strengthens and clarifies the institutional balance within the Union. The Treaty on European Union, which we hope to see adopted, marks a formal end to the pillar structure. In addition, the European Union will acquire a legal personality; Community institutions will become Union institutions and, under the Treaty, the roles and powers of each of the institutions will be clearly defined. The Treaty will also thereby put an end to the twofold position of the European Council, making it an autonomous institution of the Union.

Although it is still subject to too many exceptions, the application of the codecision procedure, which will become the ordinary legislative procedure and which will also include approval of the budget, will give Parliament a very important role. As a matter of fact, the powers of the Council and Parliament have been formulated identically in the Treaty. The Treaty thereby strengthens the Community method and transforms it into the Union method. Furthermore, that method will be extended to the former Justice and Home Affairs pillar.

In my report, I have emphasised the fact that robust coordination of legislative and budgetary work will be required if the institutions are to operate efficiently. The report calls for programming of the legislative work, including the multi-annual perspective of the budget. The role of the General Affairs Council within the Council of Ministers will be very important, in that it needs to become the Presidency of the Council’s instrument for dialogue with Parliament. The Commission’s role as initiative-taker is also clearly upheld; unfortunately, the plan is to reduce the number of commissioners, so as to arrive at a smaller college. This will require the Commission to strengthen its internal organisation all the more, if it is to function as a college.

One important new feature is that the twin role of the new High Representative and Vice-President of the Commission will be crucial when it comes to foreign affairs, external affairs and security. In my report, I have stressed that it would be very much in his or her interest to work closely with the Commission, so that all of the Union’s foreign policy resources can be mobilised.

I would like to conclude by saying that we will have a very difficult period of transition following the elections, as well as a difficult transition from the Treaty of Nice, which must be applied first, to the Treaty of Lisbon, which will hopefully be approved by the end of the year. I call on Parliament and the Council to once again consider together how we might organise this period and I fail to understand why this has not been more the case already. Otherwise, we risk ending up in a situation after the elections where we do not know what exactly should be happening. Since no one would be served by such a situation, let us agree clearly on that.