European Parliament reform must be bottom-up not top-down

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 28th Jun 2006

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe opened the debate on European Parliament internal reform to all its Members at its meeting yesterday in the Åland Parliament in Mariehamn, Finland where the ALDE Group is meeting the incoming EU President in office, Finnish PM Matti Vanhanen.

"This is not an issue for the Conference of Presidents alone. There should be a full and open debate amongst all MEPs on how to improve our proceedings. The reform questionnaire which I suggested to President Borrell should have been sent to all Members" said ALDE's Leader Graham Watson. "It is not the Conference of Presidents but the back benchers that will bring about the reforms which will make this Parliament work. This has to be a bottom-up approach if it is to succeed and be accepted," he added.

ALDE proposals for reform would improve the quality of plenary debates by allowing 'catch-the-eye' interventions. A special hearing would bring The President of the European Commission to the Parliament every Wednesday to report on the College's decisions and reinforce the link with democratic scrutiny.

"We should capitalise on the fact that we have a reform-minded President which is not always the case. The pressure is on Hans-Gert Pöttering who is preparing his candidature as Parliament's next President in January to commit to a reform agenda even more ambitious than the present one" said Andrew Duff.