Speaker Michael Frendo has re-launched the proposal of a European Congress in which representatives from the national parliaments of EU states and the European Parliament would meet once a year to discuss ‘the State of the European Union’.

Speaking at the annual European Union’s Speakers Conference in the Rikstag, the Swedish Parliament, Dr Frendo, referred to the suggestion for such a Congress made by former French President Giscard d’Estaing.

The proposal had not then achieved the necessary consensus to be included in the final text of the Draft European Constitutional Treaty, most of which found its way into the Treaty of Lisbon that was now in force.

Speaker Frendo´s suggestion was immediately supported by Pierre Lequiller, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the French Chamber of Deputies leading the French delegation, who added that such a meeting should take place under the chairmanship of the President of the European Parliament Jezry Busek.

Dr Frendo also pointed out the challenges the Lisbon Treaty presents to smaller Parliaments in the EU for scrutiny on the issue of subsidiarity to be real and meaningful.

He called for greater collaboration on this issue among smaller Parliaments of the EU so that they could support each other in the strengthening of their infrastructure to meet this challenge.

He also said it was imperative that national parliaments, which retained a scrutiny role as one of their fundamental functions, were not just seen as a counter-balance to the EU but as complementary to other European Institutions in the pursuit of a commonly shared European design.