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by Keith Vincent
Council court out?
'THE NEWS THAT the European Parliament has threatened to take the EEC Council of Ministers to Court because of slow progress on the Common Transport Policy has made little impression in Britain.
Quite apart from the generally low level of interest in EEC matters, the fact is that such an action has no conceivable parallel in the British system of Government. It is therefore difficult for a Briton to comprehend what is involved. The absence of a written constitution in this country means that the law is rarely called into play in British political life.
Yet the threatened action by MEP's has implications going far beyond that.
The facts are quite simple. The Treaty of Rome, which is the constitution of the EEC, has a whole section devoted to transport. This is one of only four sections grouped under the heading "Foundations of the Community"; the others are free movement of goods, free movement of persons, services and capital, and agriculture. So tie founding fathers of the EEC saw transport as being in the big league right from the start.
Substantial progress has been made on the other three points. Goods, persons, services and capital move freely between member States. And while the Common Agricultural Policy may be absurd, it is undoubtedly fully developed. All this emphasises that transport is still stuck in a dead-end.
An examination of the duties laid on the Council by the Treaty of Rome begins to shed light on the problems faced. The first task was to adopt "common rules applicable to international transport" between or across Member States. Immediately this spotlighted the basic conflict between those countries who favoured freedom and those who were more restrictive. This in time turned into the argument about whether "harmonisation of conditions of competition" leg, on taxation, or on weights and dimensions) should be achieved before greater freedom of movement is permitted, or whether liberalisation and harmonisation should go forward hand in hand.
This argument persists, and will be rehashed yet again when the Transport Ministers meet in the middle of this month to discuss, among other things, a miniscule increase in the Community Quota, the admission of duty-free fuel, and the future of international road haulage tariffs.
Meanwhile Britain's sorely tried international hauliers need no reminding of how little progress has been made in the development of the common rules demanded by the Treaty. Far from permit restrictions being abolished. Ministers have not even been able to agree whether these unloved documents, when used by articulated vehicles, should apply to the tractor or the semitrailer. This would be lamentable lack of progress after five years; after more than 25 it is a disgrace.
It is therefore not surprising that during the debate not a single MEP, from any country, defended the Council. The German President of the Parliament's Transport Committee, Horst Seefeld, admitted that taking the Council to court would be seen by some as a last resort. However, he argued that the Council should not be given a blank cheque for inactivity, and only 12 MEP's disagreed.
So what, if anything, will happen? And does it matter? There are a number of possible answers.
First, the case may never come to court. The Article of the Treaty of Rome under which the Parliament has acted gives the Council two months in which to remedy the complaint. If this is not done the legal action must go ahead within the following two months.
On the very last day of the two-month period the Council submitted a long memorandum to the Parliament, attempting to justify its actions in the light of the duty laid on it by the Treaty. It was able to draw attention to a large number of Regulations and Directives which it had adopted. But it scarcely acknowledged the weaknesses of much of that legislation, both in its contents and the varying ways in which it is interpreted and applied in different Member States. It is doubtful whether this will satisfy MEP's. It tells them nothing that they did not already know.
But the threat of legal action may act as a spur to further progress when Transport Ministers meet in the Council later this month. Certainly they will not want to provide MEP's with even more ammunition.
Even more welcome is the prospect of progress on the admission of duty-free fuel. The ludicrously low limits applied by some countries are bad enough. The associated delays in border crossings caused by the procedures to dip tanks, assess the duty payable and complete the relevant paper-work are even worse.
Britain has long pressed for the Community to legislate for the free admission of all fuel in vehicles' normal tanks with, as very much a second best solution, a realistic limit — say 200 litres instead of the 50 or 100 imposed in some countries. This has been consistently refused until now, and was among the dozens of proposals which had more or less disappeared from view. Suddenly it has appeared on the agenda for this month's Transport Council. Its fate might well be regarded by MEP's as a litmus test for a change of attitude by the Council.
However, the primary interest of most MEP's is not transport but politics. They are struggling to assert themselves, and above all to gain for the European Parliament much more influence over Community legislation. There will be a strong tendency for many MEP's to feel that they have the Council on the run over this issue, and to keep up the pressure by letting the matter go to court.
If this happens the 10 judges can hardly fail to find that the Council has not carried out its duty under the Treaty. But the Court has no practical power to enforce its judgments. There is no EEC police force to surround the Councuil's Charlemagne building in Brussels and hold the 10 Transport Ministers hostage until they make satisfactory progress.
But this does not necessarily mean that, even if it wins the court battle, the Parliament's action is inevitably doomed. The judges could point out that the Council has not been using the qualified majority voting system specified by the Treaty. They have been applying a system of unanimity, which gives any one country a veto. The court might demand that in future the Council should adopt new legislation by majority voting.
Such a system would have consequences reaching far outside the transport field — for example in the vexed question of Britain's budget contribution.
But Britain is not alone on this issue. Very few EEC governments would be happy at losing the power of veto. However, such a ruling by the court might lead Ministers to use the veto much more sparingly in future. This would undoubtedly accelerate progress, especially when the accession of Spain and Portugal brings the number of Ministers to a round dozen.
One thing is certain. By taking this action MEP's have suddenly put life into a body which was becoming increasingly moribund. This should result in the adoption of more European transport legislation. Whether it will be better legislation is more doubtful.