Meps Adopt Package Out Of Political Realism

摘要

It is better to have the package as is, with all its imperfections, than to have no package at all: such is the option chosen by MEPs, discernible as of the first exchanges during the debate, on 16 December, on all the legislative proposals making up the energy-climate change package. MEPs thus clearly made their choice - reluctantly, for many of them - out of political realism, acknowledging in passing that the accelerated procedure that had been imposed upon them had forced them to give up some of their prerogatives. This relinquish-ment is illustrated by the decision taken to vote, on 17 December, on the compromise texts, without amendments, thus blocking in principle any vague desire to amend, even if only by a comma, the compromise negotiated during the last three-way talks, on 13 December. This is an exceptional procedure responding to exceptional circumstances, "which cannot, under any circumstances, be considered as a precedent," warned Avril Doyle (EPP-ED, Ireland) at the close of the vote.