10.Insists that Parliament’s legislative powers and control rights must be guaranteed, consolidated and strengthened, pari passu with those of the Council by an inter-institutional agreement, and through the use of the corresponding legal base by the Commission;

11.Considers it necessary for the European Parliament to reform its working methods in order to cope with the challenges ahead, by using its control over the Commission, including in relation to the implementation and application of the acquis in the Member States, by limiting first-reading agreements to exceptional cases of urgency, and by improving its own electoral procedure through the revision of the 1976 Electoral Act in line with Parliament’s proposals contained in its resolution of 11 November 2015 on the reform of the electoral law of the European Union[5] or as a future step through the adoption of implementing measures in application of Article 14 of the Electoral Act;

12.Encourages meaningful political dialogue with national parliaments on the contents of legislative proposals; insists, however, on a clear delineation of the respective decision-making competences of the national parliaments and the European Parliament, where the former should exercise their European function on the basis of their national constitutions, in particular via the control of their national governments as members of the European Council and the Council, which is the level where they are best placed to directly influence the content of and exercise scrutiny over the European legislative process; is therefore against the creation of joint parliamentary decision-making bodies for reasons of transparency, accountability and ability to act;

13.Stresses the importance of cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments in joint bodies such as the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC), and the Inter-parliamentary Conference on Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP-IPC), and in the framework of Article 13 of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union on the basis of the principles of consensus, information sharing and consultation in order to exercise control over their respective administrations; underlines the need for stronger cooperation between the specialised committees of the European Parliament and their national equivalents;

14.Encourages the exchange of best practices in parliamentary scrutiny between national parliaments, such as the holding of regular debates between the respective ministers and the specialised committees in national parliaments before and after Council meetings, and with Members of the European Commission in an appropriate timeframe;

15.Insists on curbing the interference of the European Council in the legislative process as it goes against the letter and spirit of the Treaties;

16.Notes that it is possible within the Treaties to merge the function of President of the European Council with that of President of the European Commission; and that the European Council, by means of an Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA), could engage itself politically to appoint as its President the Commission President, who should be elected by the European Parliament on a proposal by the European Council on the basis of the European election results, as was the case in the 2014 European elections;

17.Calls on the European Council to start activating the ‘passerelle clause’ (Article 48 (7) TEU) in order to switch from unanimity to QMV voting in the remaining policy areas where this is not yet the case;

18.Insists that the European Council publicly explain and motivate its policies before the European Parliament, including by presenting its intentions in advance of its meetings;

19.Proposes that the Council be transformed into a true legislative chamber by reducing the number of Council configurations by means of a European Council decision, thus creating a genuinely bi-cameral legislative system involving the Council and Parliament, with the Commission acting as the executive; suggests involving the currently active specialised Council configurations as preparatory bodies for the legislative Council, along the lines of the Committees in the European Parliament;

20.Insists on the importance of enhancing the transparency of Council legislative decision-making and the access of Parliament representatives as observers in meetings of the Council and its bodies in cases of legislation;

21.Calls for the creation of the position of European Finance Minister, combining the roles of a permanent President of the Eurogroup and Commission Vice-President (VP) for Economic and Financial Affairs, through an Interinstitutional Agreement between Parliament, Council and Commission;

22.Demands that the Council switches completely to QMV voting and that it abandons the practice of transferring contentious legislative fields to the European Council, as this goes against the letter and the spirit of the Treaty, which stipulates that the European Council can only decide unanimously, and should only do so, on broad political goals, not on legislation;

23.Is determined to implement fully Treaty provisions on enhanced cooperation by committing not to give its consent to any new enhanced cooperation proposals unless the participating Member States commit to activate the special ‘passerelle clause’ enshrined in Article 333 TFEU to switch from unanimity to QMV, and from a special to the ordinary legislative procedure;

24.Is determined to strengthen the role of Parliament in the election of the Commission President by reinforcing the formal consultations of its political groups with the European Council President, as foreseen in Declaration 11 annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, in order to ensure that the European Council takes full account of the election results when presenting a candidate for Parliament to elect;

25.Suggests, on the basis of Article 352 TFEU, the creation of an EU Fiscal and Treasury Administration, with a role similar to that of the Congressional Budget Office in the United States, in order to support the European Finance Minister;

26.Insists on ensuring a single representation of the EU/eurozone within the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other international financial institutions (Article 138 TFEU) by its Finance Minister/VP of the Commission and the President of the European Central Bank (ECB);