A dozen EU countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Bulgaria, oppose the launch of a procedure to change the European treaties, as the European Parliament wishes, according to a text seen on Monday 9 May by AFP.
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“We are not in favor of reckless and premature attempts to launchsuch a procedure, write these countries in this note, which could rally other Member States. Its broadcast coincides with the celebrations of Europe Day. They will be marked by a speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg by French President Emmanuel Macron who should advocate a more powerful Europe ready to reform, while the Russian war in Ukraine has revealed the dependencies of the Twenty-Seven in terms of energy.
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A Europe that “works”
This day will also see the official presentation of the proposals resulting from the Conference on the future of Europe, the result of the vast exercise of citizen consultation carried out over a year and born of an idea of the French President. Some of the proposals, such as conferring a right of legislative initiative on Parliament, as the latter demands, or extending the competences of the EU in matters of defense or health, presuppose a change in the treaties.
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The ten countries that oppose this perspective point to the risk of a “loss of energy» and considers that a revision of the treaties «was never a goalof the Conference. “We already have a functioning Europeas demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine andwe must not rush to make institutional reforms“, they warn. Citizens’ proposalsshould not be used“, they add. The text was also signed by the Czech Republic, Slovenia and the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
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