BETA

43 Amendments of Luke Ming FLANAGAN related to 2014/2248(INI)

Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
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,
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
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;
2016/09/13
Committee: CONT
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
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.
2016/09/13
Committee: CONT
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
B. whereas progress towards a Union that can really deliver on and achieve its goals are impaired by a failure of governance owing to a continuous and systematic search for unanimity in the Council (which is still based on the so- called Luxembourg Compromise) and the lack of a credible single executive authority enjoying full democratic legitimacy and competence to take effective action across a wide spectrum of policies; whereas recent examples such as the uncontrolled migration flow, the slow clean-up of our banks after the outbreak of the financial crisis and the lack of an immediate common response to the internal and external threat of terrorism have aptly demonstrated the Union’s incapacity to respond effectively and quickly;deleted
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
J. whereas this new system of governance implies a genuine government equipped to formulate and implement the common monetary, fiscal and macro- economic policies that the euro area desperately needs and must be endowed with a treasury and budget commensurate with the scale of the tasks at hand; whereas this requires, in addition to measures within the existing primary law, a reform of the Lisbon Treaty;deleted
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital O
O. whereas the decline of Europe’s defence capabilities has limited its ability to project stability beyond our immediate borders; whereas this goes hand in hand with the reluctance of our US allies to intervene if Europe is not ready to take its fair share of responsibility; whereas this leads inevitably to the need for more intense cooperation among the Member States and an integration of some of their defence capacities into a European defence community, both in line with a new European security strategy;deleted
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 210 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 227 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 251 #
Motion for a resolution
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’;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 262 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 285 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 294 #
Motion for a resolution
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.
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/16
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 365 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
8. Considers it essential in these circumstances to reaffirm the mission of an ‘ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe’ (Article 1 TEU) in order to mitigate any tendency towards disintegration and to clarify once more the moral, political and historical purpose, as well as the constitutional nature, of the European Union;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 378 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
9. Proposes that the next revision of the Treaties should rationalise the current disorderly ‘variable geometry’, i.e. ‘l’Europe à la carte’, by ending the disruptive practice of opt-outs, opt-ins and exceptions;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 457 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 483 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 492 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
15. Acknowledges the improvements brought by the European Semester, the six-pack and the two-pack aimed at addressing these issues, but concludes that they have not solved the problems; believes, moreover, that they have contributed to making the system overly complex, are not binding with regard to country-specific recommendations and do not cover spill-over effects between one Member State and another, or to the euro area or the EU as a whole;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 512 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
16. Is acutely aware of the need to review the efficacy of the many recent crisis-management measures taken by the EU, and to codify in primary law certain decision-making procedures – such as ‘reverse qualified majority voting’ – as well as the need to entrench the legal bases of the new regulatory framework for the financial sector; agrees with the Five Presidents’ Report that the ‘open method of coordination’ as the basis for Europe’s economic strategy does not function and needs to be elevated into binding legal acts;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 528 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
17. Proposes therefore merging the deficit and debt procedures, the macroeconomic imbalance procedure and the country-specific recommendations into a single ‘convergence code’ of a legally binding nature, setting minimum and maximum standards, where only compliance with this code would allow access to EU funds for investment projects or participation in new instruments that combine economic reform with fiscal incentives such as a fiscal capacity for the euro area or a common debt instrument; the coordination of economic policies as provided for in Article 5 TFEU would therefore become a ‘shared competence’ between the Union and the Member States;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 556 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 581 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
20. Calls for the integration of the Fiscal Compact into the EU legal framework as well as the incorporation of the ESM and the Single Resolution Fund into EU law, with corresponding democratic oversight by Parliament;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 600 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
21. Is of the opinion that, in order to increase financial stability, mitigate cross- border asymmetric shocks and reduce the effects of recession, the euro area needs a fiscal capacity based on genuine own resources and a proper treasury facility equipped with a capacity to borrow; this treasury must be based in the Commission and be subject to democratic scrutiny and accountability through Parliament and the Council;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 619 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
22. Points out that, because compliance with the new code is crucial to the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union, stronger governmental institutions are required than those currently provided by the Commission and/or the Eurogroup;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 635 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
23. Calls, therefore, for the executive authority to be concentrated in the Commission in the role of an EU Finance Minister, by endowing the Commission with the capacity to formulate and give effect to a common EU economic policy combining macro-economic, fiscal and monetary instruments, backed up by a euro-area budget; the Finance Minister should be responsible for the operation of the ESM and other mutualised funds, and be the single external representative of the euro area in international organisations, especially in the financial sector;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 651 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
24. Considers it necessary to endow the Finance Minister with proportionate powers to intervene in the setting of national economic and fiscal policies in cases where the convergence code is not respected, and the power to use the fiscal capacity or the common bond instrument for those Member States that are compliant with the convergence code;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 691 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
27. Calls, finally, for the banking union to be completed as soon as possible on the basis of a fast-track timetable;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 721 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 766 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
31. Regrets, as stated in its resolution of XXXXX on the improvement of the functioning of the European Union building on the potential of the Lisbon Treaty, that the EU has not made more progress in developing its capacity to agree and to implement a common foreign and security policy (CFSP); notes that its efforts in initiating a common security and defence policy have not been particularly successful;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 776 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
32. Is of the opinion, while reiterating that more progress could and should be made under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, including as regards use of the provisions to act by qualified majority voting, that the Vice-President / High Representative should be named EU Foreign Minister and be supported in her efforts to become the main external representative of the European Union in international fora, not least at the level of the UN; considers it essential that, owing to the broad and heavy workload, the Foreign Minister should be able to appoint political deputies; proposes a review of the functionality of the current European External Action Service;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 791 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
33. Stresses that for the Union to strengthen the defence of the EU territory, as a pillar within NATO, which remains the cornerstone of the European security architecture, and to enable the Union to act autonomously in operations abroad, mainly with a view to stabilising its neighbourhood, the Treaties should provide for the possibility of establishing a European defence union;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 850 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 941 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 954 #
Motion for a resolution
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;
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 1011 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
52. Believes, finally, that the current Treaty ratification procedure is too rigid to befit such a supranational polity as the European Union; proposes allowing amendments to the Treaties to come into force if not by an EU-wide referendum then after being ratified by a qualified majority of four-fifths of the Member States, having obtained the consent of Parliament; correspondingly, once this threshold has been met, Member States which still decline to ratify the amended Treaty should decide, in accordance with their own constitutional requirements, whether to start the process of secession or to opt for an associate status;deleted
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO
Amendment 1039 #
Motion for a resolution
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.
2016/11/09
Committee: AFCO