43 Amendments of Luke Ming FLANAGAN related to 2014/2248(INI)
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 21 a (new)
Citation 21 a (new)
– having regard to the increasing anti-EU sentiment across the Union, specifically the increase in sentiment against closer union with the concomitant inevitable loss of sovereignty,
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Notes that the Court’s composition and its appointment procedure are laid down in Articles 285 and 286 TFEU; considers that Parliament and the Council should be on an equal footing when appointing Members of the Court of Auditors, in order to ensure democratic legitimacy, transparency and the complete independence of those Members; calls for the Council to respecaccept the decisions taken by Parliament subsequent to hearings of candidates nominated as Members of the Court of Auditors;
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Deplores the fact that certain appointment procedures have resulted in conflicts between Parliament and the Council on candidates; stresses that it is, as stipulated in the Treaty, Parliament’s duty to evaluate the nominees; emphasises that these conflicts might harm the good working relations of the Court with the aforementioned institutions and could possibly have serious negative consequences for the credibility, and hence the effectiveness, of the Court; is of the opinion that the Council should, in the spirit of good cooperation among the EU institutions, respecaccept the decisions taken by Parliament subsequent to the hearings.
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the ‘polycrisis’ currently faced by the Union, including its financial, economic, social and migratory consequences, have all led to the rejection by a growing part of the population of the current European Union, specifically a rejection of ever-closer union, evidenced so graphically in the Brexit vote but evidenced also in the rise of so many radical anti-EU parties in Member States across the EU, evidence it would be foolish now to ignore;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas this problem, coupled with a lack of a common vision on the part of our Member States as regards the future of our continent, coupled also with the headlong rush by a few to full political and financial union, has given rise to unprecedented levels of ‘euroscepticism’ that riskare even now leading towards a return to nationalism and the disintegration of the Union;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas, instead of fostering the Union, the system whereby Member States make progress at different speeds in accordance with their different capacities and circumstances, further reinforced in the Lisbon Treaty, which introduced new formal methods of enhanced cooperation, has increased the complexity of the Union and accentuated its ‘variable geometry’; whereas more and more Member States are declining to agree on the goals and prefer ‘à la carte’ solutions, some of them even unilaterally, an indication surely of the growing unhappiness within many Member States and their democratically elected parliaments with where the EU is currently headed;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas, in the field of the euro and monetary policy, the United Kingdom obtained a permanent derogation from joining (Protocol No 15), Denmark has a constitutional exemption (Protocol No 16), Sweden has ceased to follow the euro convergence criteria and the possibility of Greece leaving the single currency has been openly discussed in the European Council; whereas also in that same field of the euro and monetary policy, five euro countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain) found themselves either bankrupt or on the brink of bankruptcy, a reflection of the almost total absence of even the most basic inbuilt corrective structures needed on the launch of any new currency;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas, since the Treaty of Lisbon, further accelerated by the financial and migration crises, the European Council has widened its role to include day-to-day management through the adoption of undemocratic and unaccountable intergovernmental instruments outside the framework of the EU such as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG or the ‘Fiscal Compact’) and the deal with Turkey on migration;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas, while Article 16 of the TSCG provides that within five years of the date of entry into force (before 1 January 2018) the necessary steps must have been taken to incorporate the Fiscal Compact into the legal framework of the Union, it is clear that the resilience of the euro area, including the completion of the banking union, cannot be achieved without further fiscal deepening steps together with the estan honest and objective examination of the viabilishment of a more reliable, effective and democratic form of governance; whereas this will completety of the euro in each individual Member State; whereas the current Stability and Growth Pact, which, ever since it came into existence, and even after its reform by the so-called six-pack and two- pack, has never been applied for any obvious political reasonsonly against the smaller Member States for obvious political reasons - some Member States are simply too big to be punished;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N
Recital N
N. whereas over the past decade the security situation in Europe has deteriorated markedly, especially in our neighbourhood: no longer can a single Member State guarantee its internal and external security alonethanks in no small part to the actions taken by external forces in the Middle East;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital O
Recital O
Amendment 210 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital P
Recital P
P. whereas these changes in the Union’s primary law have become unavoidable, as regrettably none of the ‘passerelle clauses’ provided for in the Lisbon Treaty with a view to facilitating the reform of the Union’s governance have been deployed, and are unlikely to be so in the present circumstances; whereas this is in sharp contrast with the attitude of the European Council in the matter of the envisaged reduction in the number of members of the European Commission, where the ‘let-out’ clause was used instantly;
Amendment 227 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital R
Recital R
R. whereas, finally, the urgency for reform of the UEU away from the current course of ever-closer union has been dramatically increased by the United Kingdom’s decision, through a referendum, to leave the European Union; whereas it is crystal clear that the negotiations to set out the arrangements for the UK’s withdrawal also need to take account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union, and needs to take account in particular of the UK’s close relationship with Ireland on almost every level, most especially on trade and on free movement of people; whereas this agreement must be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) TFEU and be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament;
Amendment 251 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital S
Recital S
S. whereas the UK’s decision creates an opportunity to reduce and drastically simplify the ‘variable geometry’ and complexity of the Union, while respecting the sovereign rights of Member States; whereas it offers at least the opportunity to clarify what membership of the Union really means and what could be a clear structure in the future for the EU’s relationship with non- members in our periphery (the United Kingdom, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine, etc.); whereas the founding fathers of the Union had already envisaged a type of ‘associate status’;
Amendment 262 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Considers that the time of crisis management by means of ad hoc and incremental decisions has passed, as it only leads to measures that are too little, too late; is convinced that it is now time to address the shortcomings of the governance of the European Union by undertaking a comprehensive, in-depth reform of the Lisbon Treaty, a reform that must also examine and honestly consider whether there needs to be a row-back on many measures taken in that Lisbon Treaty, the full implications of which perhaps many of those who voted in favour had not fully considered;
Amendment 285 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that the direction of the Union’s reform should lead towards its modernisation by establishing new effective European capacities and instruments, rather than its renationalisation by means of greater intergovernmentalisman EU that would be acceptable to the majority of the citizens in each individual Member State, with citizens in each of those states given an opportunity to accept or reject such reforms;
Amendment 294 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Underlines that recent Eurobarometer polling demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, EU citizens are still fully aware of the importance of, and in support of, genuine European solutions19 , solutions which, with the appropriate good will, could be found within the framework of the old EEC, long before the Lisbon Treaty; __________________ 19 Standard Eurobarometer 84 - Autumn 2015 & Special Eurobarometer EP - June 2016.
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Observes with great concern the proliferation of subsets of Member States undermining the unity of the Union by causing a lack of transparency, as well as diminishing the trust of the people but observes also that the EU and its various institutions needs to look at itself and the role it has played in that sense of alienation by those Member States;
Amendment 365 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
Amendment 378 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
Amendment 457 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Is greatly concerned by the lack of economic reform and convergence in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as well as the loss of competitiveness of the economies of many of its Member Statesoss of competitiveness of the economies of many of its Member States, much of it caused by the strait-jacket that membership of the Eurozone imposed, the absence of any tools to deal with a monetary crisis in individual states, a reflection of the poor design of the euro itself;
Amendment 483 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Considers that neither the Stability and Growth Pact nor the ‘no bail-out’ clause (Article 125 TFEU) provide the intended solutions, and that they have furthermore lost credibility in their current form, as the pact has been infringed by several Member States without political or legal consequences, while Greece has’s creditors, especially its foreign bankers, have been bailed out on a large scale on three occasions;
Amendment 492 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 512 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
Amendment 528 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
Amendment 556 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Believes that, in order to reduce the still excessively high debt burden of Member States, such a common debt instrument needs to be established, inspired by the proposal by the German Council of Economic Experts of 9 November 2011, whereby euro-area members would undertake joint and several liability for a sinking fund, with strong individual commitments on structural reforms to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio to the required maximum of 60 %; insists that euro-area members would only be able to participate when they are in compliance with the convergence code, as this will prevent moral hazard;
Amendment 581 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
Amendment 600 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
Amendment 619 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
Amendment 635 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
Amendment 651 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
Amendment 691 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
Amendment 721 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Recognises the geopolitical, economic and environmental need for the creation of a genuine European energy union; notes that this will require the removal of the constraint that EU policy must not affect a state’s right to determine the conditions for exploiting its energy sources (especially the right of individual Member States to ban certain types of energy searches such as fracking), its choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply (Article 194(2) TFEU); calls also for a fair return to Member States from any energy sources discovered within those states;
Amendment 766 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
Amendment 776 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
Amendment 791 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
Amendment 850 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35
Paragraph 35
35. Proposes transforming the Commission into the principlas follow: members should be exlecutive authority or government of the Union with the aim of strengthening the ‘Union method’,ted directly by the electorate in individual Member States, thus increasing transparency and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of action taken at the level of the European Union;
Amendment 941 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Stresses that, following the creation of the role of EU Finance Minister, the Eurogroup should be considered as merely a specialised configuration of the Council with legislative and control functions but no executive tasks;
Amendment 954 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 44
Paragraph 44
44. PRejects the proposesal that, when Parliament and the Council vote on legislation specific to the euro area, only MEPs elected in the euro area and respectively representatives of its member states, can take part in the vote, given that any such decision impacts right across the EU;
Amendment 1011 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
Paragraph 52
Amendment 1039 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 54
Paragraph 54
54. Is of the opinion that the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome would be an appropriate moment to modernise the European Union and to start a Convention with the purpose of making the European Union ready for thereturn to that which was working, the EEC community- based treaty to which the likes of Ireland signed up four decades ahead;go.