Citizens' Europe Committee

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The Committee for the "Europe of the Citizens" , usually referred to as the Adonnino Committee after the committee chairman , was an ad hoc commission set up by the European Council in 1984 , which was supposed to come up with proposals to overcome the remoteness of the European Communities . It produced an interim and final report, which was adopted by the heads of state and government of the EC at the 1985 European Council in Milan. These reports contained a multitude of partly symbolic, partly political measures, most of which have now been implemented.

prehistory

At the beginning of the 1980s, the process of European integration found itself in a serious crisis, caused on the one hand by the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 and the resulting economic crisis, on the other hand by violent internal conflicts over the financing of the common agricultural policy and Margaret Thatcher's insistence on a reduction due to UK contributions to the EC. This crisis phase, known as Eurosclerosis , was broken at the Fontainebleau European Council in June 1984, at which the European heads of state and government agreed to the British rebate demanded by Thatcher . Nevertheless, the European Council saw further measures to be necessary to revive the integration process. In particular, the institutional structure of the EC was to be reformed and the communities, which until then had been mainly characterized by a technocratic political style, were to be brought closer to the European citizens in order to achieve greater legitimacy for further steps towards integration.

To this end, two ad hoc commissions were set up: the Dooge committee , which dealt with institutional reform, and the Adonnino committee. This comprised eleven members - one representative from each of the then ten member countries and the European Commission - chaired by the Italian Christian Democrat Pietro Adonnino and was supposed to work out proposals for measures for a “Europe of the Citizens” over the next twelve months. An interim report by the committee was adopted by the Brussels European Council in March 1985; the final report was presented together with the final report of the Dooge Committee at the European Council in Milan on 28/29. June 1985 presented and adopted by the European heads of state and government.

Suggested Actions

The proposals put forward by the Adonnino Committee comprised an extensive set of very different measures, some of which had far-reaching political implications, while others remained on a purely symbolic level. In many cases, the committee took up suggestions that had already been made by individual personalities or discussed informally.

The proposals in the interim report of the committee included:

  • a simplification or the complete waiver of identity checks when crossing European internal borders,
  • the rapid introduction of the uniform European passport (previously decided by the Council ) ,
  • the promotion of intra-European tourism ,
  • the avoidance of double taxation within the community,
  • making it easier to work in other Member States through the mutual recognition of university degrees and other professional access authorizations.

The suggestions in the final report related, among other things, to:

  • a Europe-wide uniform voting procedure for European elections ,
  • the introduction of the individual right of petition to the European Parliament ,
  • the establishment of a European Ombudsman ,
  • universal suffrage in local elections also for citizens of other member states,
  • a systematisation and simplification of European Community law ,
  • ensuring consular assistance in third countries also for citizens of other Member States,
  • the continuation of the 1985 election of a European Capital of Culture ,
  • improved communication between the European Commission and EC member states to inform citizens about European integration and its benefits,
  • the expansion of pan-European educational institutions such as the European University Institute in Florence or the College of Europe in Bruges,
  • strengthening foreign language teaching in schools,
  • the establishment of exchange programs for pupils and students and the establishment of a system for the mutual recognition of academic achievements,
  • the promotion of town twinning ,
  • the rapid introduction of the European driving license (previously decided by the Council ) ,
  • the redesign of the Community's internal border crossing points, such as the removal of obsolete signs with the words "Customs",
  • the official introduction of the previously unofficially used European symbols, namely Europe Day on May 9th, the European flag and the European anthem ,
  • the introduction of common European postage stamps .

consequences

After the Milan Council adopted the Adonnino report, most of the proposals it contained were put into practice. Many of them were included in the Maastricht Treaty when the European Union was founded in 1992 - for example Union citizenship , which guarantees all EU citizens the right to vote in local elections, diplomatic and consular protection, the right to petition the European Parliament and the right to complain to the European Ombudsman. The European passport was introduced in 1985, the common driving license in 1991. The implementation of the proposed exchange programs for schoolchildren and students began in the late 1980s with Comenius and Erasmus and the European Credit Transfer System . The proposal for mutual recognition of university diplomas has been implemented in the Bologna process since 1999 by harmonizing degrees. The waiver of identity checks within the Community initially did not find a majority in the EC Council of Ministers ; instead, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Schengen Agreement on June 15, 1985 , which came into force in 1990 and was incorporated into EU law in 1997 by the Treaty of Amsterdam .

Border crossing Germany / Austria with EU sign

At the more symbolic level, too, most of the committee's proposals were put into practice. The information policy of the European Commission was expanded considerably from the mid-1980s, initially with the establishment of a responsible directorate-general, and from 1989 with a separate commissioner for communication strategy . The redesign of the border crossings and the introduction of individual joint stamp motifs also took place over the next few years. Based on the Council of Milan, the European symbols were finally established, but were not expressly anchored in the Maastricht Treaty. It was only mentioned explicitly in the EU constitutional treaty of 2004, but after its failure the Lisbon treaty refrained from naming it again.

In contrast, the uniform procedure for European elections has not yet been implemented. Despite various efforts to standardize, votes are still held in each member state individually and according to national electoral law. Efforts to simplify Community law have so far only been partially successful.

All in all, the Adonnino Report was an early part of the revitalization phase of the integration process, which began in the mid-1980s and culminated with the Single European Act in 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. However, he only partially achieved his real goal - a better identification of European citizens with the integration process. Exchanges between citizens of different EU member states increased significantly, particularly through programs such as Erasmus , and the pan-European public debate about integration also picked up from the end of the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Eurobarometer surveys of the European Commission show that many citizens still experience the EU institutions as bureaucratic institutions that are “remote from the citizens”.

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