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1969/69 - III PART
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We are still travelling all over the history of European integration of the 70s. This time we look at this evolution from the institutional strenghtening point of view.There is a first fact to emphasize : the representative function of the European Parliament increase : the decision of 1976 is the act decided by EEC council about direct and universal suffrage election of the European Parliament members, the first election of the European Parliament with the direct and universal suffrage,will take place,as it’s known, in the June of 1979.This event is extremely important ,because for the first time people directly elected by citizens are sitting in the European Parliament. So they were able to interpretate better of European public opinion and somehow weld the development process of the Europe Community institution. I’d like to underline an element : two years before the direct and universal suffrage elections took place in the European Parliament I had the pleasure of meeting Margaret Thatcher.She wasn’t Prime Minister yet, she would be starting from 1979 on May , however she came in Italy two years before to prepare just a little the political field for the presence of the British Tory MP.I had the honour of having a dinner with her in the name of Italian government; this meeting, which she talks about in her memories, was very interesting, because it allowed me to understand what kind og contribution UK could give to EU integration. Of course with the troubles brought by a charachter like Tatcher, in the 80s, but with a big advantage too: Tatcher was convinced that the great market would have be realized through liberalization as well, through deregulation and this will be exactly one of the main components, of the progress that will lead to the Only Market in 1992. The institutions:they are made up of a four-sided institution. They are 4 basic institutions: we have European Parliament, that will increase its law-making powers with time; the Council, representing the Governments, that own an essential law-making power; European Commission, entity for Treaties safeguard, monopoly of the law-making initiative, and so keeper of the destiny of European integration realization; at last, the Court of Justice, which garrison the communitary right. Then we have collateral institutions, the Audit Office, nowadays European Central Bank, and consultativeorgans like the Economic and Social Committee and the Regional Committee. But the most interestin thing to be noted is in the 70s a new reality starts to emerge beside the four-sided institution, which is not an institution yet, we have to wait the 2000s in order to see this new entity institutionally recognized. We’re talking about European Council, which, gathers periodically,since 1975, the States and Governments Leaders of the member countries of European Community and later of the European Union and which is not a law-making organ, but one of high profile and political initiative. This is a basic point of the 70s institutional evolution. But I couldn’t end this part without pointing out the role of the Court of Justice of European communities, as it was called then. The Court of Justice played a great role, the one of fixing some chief-principles of the communitary system. For instance the principle of the direct effectiveness of the communitary codes. It’s the Court of Justice, with a famous sentence in the first years of the 60s, that fix this principle. The principle of the communitary law-making primacy over the national lagislations, in the fields provided for by the Treaty, another chiefly important principle. Other principles as well: the principle of attribution, the principle of proportionality later to be absorbed into the Treaties. This role must not to be forget, on the contrary it must be underlined as one of the factors which increase EU institutional strenght.
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