Towards a Strong Europe of Regions

The European Union has reached a turning point. The Union already has a common currency, common external borders as well as a more and more common security and defence policy. Cooperation in the fields of police and immigration is being intensified. It is clear that the present vague, undemocratic and secretive type of decision-making cannot continue.

The EU has to move from intergovernmental treaties to a process whereby a Constitution of the European Union is drawn up to complement those of the member states. A Constitution would clarify the division of labour between the Union and the member states, guarantee the rights of the citizens and enhance the interaction between civil society and the Union. Agreeing on which issues are to be decided on together and which ones nationally is of central importance.

The Greens call for a greater efficiency of EU action in matters where unhealthy competition between states may harm the well-being of people and the environment. The global market needs a counterbalancing framework of regulation and minimum standards larger than the nation-state. International decisions have to be made on means to curb speculative, short-term movements of capital, e.g. on the Tobin Tax. Environmental problems do not stop at the borders of countries. The Greens think that it is exactly this type of issues on which the EU should be active. Decentralized federalism with regions having a stronger position than at present should be aimed at. Decisions on social, health care, educational and cultural basic services as well as their funding and structure should be made on the national, regional or local level. The member states must be allowed to retain the power to draw up and implement more stringent norms, and the Constitution of the Union may not be allowed to weaken the basic rights guaranteed by national legislation.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU should be made legally binding. Its contents should be open to further improvements. In particular, the provisions concerning the environment as well as equality must be rendered more specific and obliging. The EU should also accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. Within the Union, the police cooperation aimed at curtailing illegal immigration and crime has been stepped up. The intensified collaboration in policed and border control issues needs the counterweight of strengthening the common civil rights.

The EU needs a Constitution defining clearly the roles of the national parliaments, the Commission, the citizens, the Council and the European Parliament. The Constitution would create a transparent framework for the structural reforms to be undertaken in the Union as well as an appropriate procedure for enactment for issues of great importance. Presently, significant structural decisions are made in the last hours of the night in intergovernmental conferences with no kind of public debate.

Stability through the Enlargement of the Union

The enlargement of the European Union is important for the stability and peaceful development of Europe. Economic and political cooperation decreases the risk of violent conflicts. The membership process may in itself have positive effects in the candidate countries aiming to fulfil the criteria of membership. All countries willing to fulfil the criteria must be able to apply for membership. The decision on this should be preceded in each applicant country by a broad public debate about the membership. Referendums stimulate debate and public participation, which is a sufficient reason for organizing them.

Welfare and a functioning economy in our neighbouring areas create stability and collaboration opportunities for Finns as well. Even though the enlargement will bring costs in the short term, peace is the most economical solution in the long term. Regional conflicts, war and preparations for war cost a lot both in human and economic terms. The share of the GNP that the present member states pay may be raised for a transitional period, e.g. for ten years, following the enlargement. The purpose of the economic support for the least developed regions is to enhance structural changes and sustainable development. In this way, it will in time be possible to even out discrepancies in income levels between regions and to guarantee the possibilities of living and making a livelihood also outside the growth centres.

The notion of there being two castes of European countries, manifest in the Nice Treaty, must be done away with. The new member states' status must be equal to that of the old ones when strengthening the integration is debated and decided on. The deepening of the integration cannot be faster than what civil society in the member states is ready for. Otherwise, the Union will face a legitimacy crisis. Therefore, democracy has to be reinforced even before the enlargement.

The enlarging European Union must allow the free movement of people also to the citizens of the new member states. In exceptional cases, this freedom may be restricted during transitional periods.

The EU Needs a Clear and Democratic Structure

The deficiencies of intergovernmental decision-making became flagrantly obvious in the Nice Summit. Important decisions about the future direction of the EU must not be made in a rush. Intergovernmentalism is part and parcel of the Union, but that should not mean acting ruthlessly only in one's own interest. The result may be far from what the majority of the involved states, parties, interest groups and citizens would have wanted.

The present model of intergovernmental conferences is a closed, undemocratic and outdated way of making significant decisions. In revising the founding treaties, pure intergovernmentalism should be abandoned in favour of a Convention model where the national parliaments, the European Parliament and NGOs are also represented.

Decision-making on EU matters in the member and candidate countries should be developed so that the national parliaments are actively involved. In Finland, the Parliament needs to be strongly involved in the issues to be decided on in the Council, and NGOs should be informed and listened to better than currently. It is possible to enhance democracy quite efficiently by increasing openness and giving enough time for the national preparation of the decisions to be taken in the Council.

The European Union suffers from a democracy deficit. The European Parliament is the only democratically elected organ whose main business is to deal with European policy issues. The Council, as a battlefield of national interests, needs to be counterbalanced by a European viewpoint that the European Parliament may be able to offer. That is why the position of the Parliament has to be strengthened by e.g. widening the scope of the co-decision procedure. Those policy issues that are decided on with a qualified majority should generally be subject to the co-decision procedure. The Parliament should have a central role in appointing the Commission.

Increasingly making decisions with qualified majority in the Council of ministers is one way to make the EU function more efficiently. This is particularly important in environmental policy as well as in defining the minimum levels of environmental and capital taxation. Increasing the scope of decision-making by qualified majority has to be considered on an issue-by-issue basis.

The European Citizens

Citizens must be given new kinds of political rights to influence the decision-making in the Union e.g. through citizen initiatives. In Finland, referendums should be held on significant changes to the European structures, e.g. on decisions about a common defence.

Decision-making in the Council, including the preparatory stages, needs to be made more open. Both a strong role of the national parliaments and the co-decision procedure support this goal. Dealing with financial matters must be regulated so that the agendas and records of meetings are public and the issues are brought into an open decision-making process and under the control of the national parliaments.

Publicity of documents in all fields of EU policies is a basic prerequisite for citizens being able to follow the decision-making in the Union and have an impact on it. Therefore, not only the decisions but also the background documents have to be public. The opportunities of citizens to receive information and to exert influence have to be improved by paying attention to the understandability of and the language used in official documents.

EU-related decisions are made both in the national parliaments and in the organs of the Union seemingly separately. For this reason the elections for both the national parliaments and the European Parliament should be held simultaneously in the future, in order that the citizens can effectively have their say in the development of European policies by voting. The change would not exclude the possibility of dissolving a national parliament and ordering new elections for a term extending until the end of the common legislative period. This would enhance a European policy debate. In a situation where the turnout of voters in the European elections is very low in almost all the member states, there should be willingness to enact even radical changes in order to maintain legitimacy.

From Intensive Agriculture to Sustainable Food Production

The food crises have shown that the intensive agriculture in its present form has come to a dead end. At the moment, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union supports intensive production with harmful effects on the environment, the welfare of animals, food safety and on the agriculture of the developing countries. The CAP must be thoroughly revised in order that the citizens are able to enjoy safe, high-quality food and that the conditions of production animals are improved.

The crisis of stock raising offers an opportunity for a large-scale reform of the food production system in the direction of better animal and environmental protection. Animals should be allowed to better exhibit their species-typical behaviour. Agri-ethical subsidies, similar to the agri-environmental ones, need to be introduced to encourage farmers to ethical animal husbandry. Long-distance transport of live animals is a problem, not only for animal welfare but also for the prevention of the spreading of diseases. That is why the transport distances must be cut down and surveillance must be improved. The precautionary principle must be followed in agriculture. For instance, there is not enough information on the effects of genetically modified food on human health.

The enlargement of the EU will lead to a redistribution of the agricultural subsidies. On the other hand, the general liberalization of the world trade poses a challenge to the Common Agricultural Policy. The combination of intensive agriculture and production subsidies based on quantity will work no longer. Instead, the EU has to invest in quality and in food grown near the consumer. Transitional periods may be used to give the member states the possibility of supporting production during the transition.

The agricultural subsidies of the EU should be focused on the environmental support. At the same time, the criteria for the basic measures of agri-environmental support must be made more stringent so as to genuinely reduce the environmental burden caused by agriculture. The support for and the goals of organic farming should be raised significantly, and the marketing and development of organic products should be supported with public funding.

The future of the countryside and of food production lies in supporting "multieffective" agriculture so that subsidies are directed to close-to-organic production that provides employment as well as preserves biodiversity and traditional landscapes of the countryside. This also aids in maintaining the vitality of the countryside.

Towards a Broad Concept of Security

Finland's security policy should aim at promoting the security of the whole continent instead of only emphasising the national defence capability against a hypothetic large-scale attack. The crisis management cooperation of the EU must concentrate strongly on non-military means and preventive measures. The non-allied member states must have the opportunity not to participate and instead act as indipendent mediators. The preventive and civilian crisis management as well as military crisis management should form a whole. In the context of the EU cooperation on crisis management, Finland should concentrate on developing the civilian side and increasing its resources.

With the cooperation on crisis management, the secretive culture of NATO has managed to get a foothold within the EU. The Greens are of the opinion that sufficient openness in and the parliamentary control of the preparation and making of decisions must also cover the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Europe is just one part of the globe. The EU must not be built into a "European fortress" that closes its gates to people from other regions. Every day, there are people dying while attempting to get inside Europe, by themselves or using human traffickers. The EU has to take care that persons in the need of protection but travelling without official documents have an opportunity to enter the Union and seek asylum. It is important to keep refugee policy separate from immigration policy. People from other parts of the world must also have other legal routes to the EU than those available to refugees. Both emigration and immigration have played a significant role in Europe. Even now, tens of millions of citizens of other countries live in the EU.

Civil rights may not be trampled under the pretext of combating terrorism and organized crime. It is important that, when defining the fundamental rights of the EU citizens, also those of other countries are guaranteed sufficient rights. Deportation of women who have been smuggled to the Union and forced to work as sex slaves must be stopped because of the special characteristics of women trafficking. The control of the external borders of the EU should be focused on professional human smugglers instead of individuals crossing borders illegally.

The EU pursues collaboration with other countries and continents. It must not close its borders or selectively "import brains" from developing countries. It must also not protect its trade area from the products of developing countries in a protectionist manner. The EU has to be able to negotiate about global issues (e.g. climate protection) on global forums. A great challenge of the future lies in creating fair rules for international trade and in establishing such a support and funding system whereby international financing institutions and development cooperation can help to create a more just relation between the developing countries and the rest of the world.

Human rights have to be an integral part of the EU's trade and foreign policy as well as development cooperation. Within the World Trade Organization, the main objective of the Union must be to render the WTO decision-making more transparent and just. At the same time, care has to be taken of the strengthening of the position of international environmental agreements. The scope of the WTO treaties must not be widened before those deficiencies of the present treaties that increase global inequality have been corrected.