AALEP SUPPORTS EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT TRANSPARENCY REFORM

On 26 April MEPs will vote on whether to open up their own law making procedure. The proposal is tabled in the Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) by Mr. Andrew Duff, Spokesman on Constitutional Affairs, ALDE, President of Union of European Federalists. Mr. Andrew Duff's proposal aims at making all final legislative votes in committee subject to roll call with the result published in the minutes.

AALEP actively backs this reform!

This reform would extend to the committee stage of the ordinary legislative procedure ('co-decision') the same openness as applies in plenary.

Since the coming into force of the Lisbon treaty, more and more substantive votes which shape EU laws are taken at the committee stages of the first reading procedure. Although the committees vote in public session, the question of who voted how is opaque.

It is almost impossible for the media, diplomats, academics, social partners, business, NGOs and other interest groups to follow in committee the voting patterns of the party groups and the personal decisions of Members.

National parliaments are not alone in complaining aboutthe difficulties they face in scrutinizing first reading procedures within the European Parliament.

MEPs worked to secure in the Treaty of Lisbon the opening up of the law--making process in the Council of Ministers, the second chamber of the legislature. The time has come to look to its own affairs.

Transparent voting in committees would enhance the accountability of MEPs to their party groups and to their constituents, and would illuminate the workings of Parliament.

In its bid for increased political legitimacy, the European Parliament should aspire to the highest standards of transparency and democratic accountability. MEPs would be wise to copy the practice of the U.S. Congress, where all votes are nominal and published.

Indeed, AALEP publicly backs this reform!