The Fonds of Egon A. Klepsch

Biography

Egon Klepsch was born on 30 January 1930 at the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia in a village called Bodenbach to a trading company employee. After the war he studied in Magdeburg, where he was a member of a resistance group that was part of the 'Freie Deutsche Jugend', then in Rostock and Marburg in West Germany. He was awarded a doctorate in geography and history in 1954 with his thesis on Russian-German relations during Gustav Stresemann's term as Foreign Minister.

From 1959 to 1965, he taught as an expert in international politics at the German army's Centre for Social Research. He worked briefly as Ludwig Erhard's election campaign organiser in 1965. In 1969, appointed by the Bundestag as member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union. After he left the European Parliament in 1994, he became adviser to an insurance company.

Klepsch passed away on 18 September 2010.

Political Posts held

• 1963-1969: Federal chair of the 'Junge Union'.
• 1964-1970: President of the International Union of Young Christian Democrats in Europe.
• 1965-1980: Member of the Bundestag.
• 1973-1994: Member of the European Parliament.
• 1977-1992: Vice-President of the European People's Party (EPP).
• 1977-1979: Chair of the Christian Democratic (CD) Group, and later the EPP group in the European Parliament.
• 1979-1982 and 1984-1992 - Chair of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.
• 1982-1984: Vice-President of the European Parliament.
• 1989-1997: Chair of the Europa Union in Germany.
• 1992-1994: President of the European Parliament.

What's in the Archives

The fonds of Egon Klepsch's Office (1992-1994) contain more than 1,000 files with over 9,000 items. 

Public figure

PE3 P2 100/PERS

This group of series is made up of seven series on subjects relating to the President's role as a public figure. The largest series are those relating to the President's media image, honorary distinctions and defence of human rights.

Presidency of Parliament

PE3 P2 200/PRES

This group of series is made up of eight series relating to the President's political duties:

The first sub-series, 'Exercise of the Presidency', relates to the President's activities as head of the institution and as its representative, whether attending hearings and undertaking courtesy visits, receiving eminent persons and making official visits. The four following series cover the President's relations with bodies and individuals: interinstitutional relations (Council, Commission and other Community bodies), interparliamentary relations (Member States and third countries), external relations (Member States, third countries, international organisations, national political parties and trade unions, etc.), relations with the press, and relations with members of the public (in particular requests for grants, defence of human rights, equivalence of diplomas).

The second-last series contains documents concerning relations with some of the European Parliament's political bodies, such as the College of Quaestors, the parliamentary committees and delegations and the political groups.

The final series relates more specifically to the President's Office, chiefly from the point of view of its organisation, functioning and mail (filed chronologically under incoming and outgoing).

Secretariat of Parliament 

PE3 P2 300/SECR

This group of series presents documents relating to the administrative and legal role of the President's Office, i.e. its relations with the various directorates-general and the Legal Service. The largest series chiefly concern relations with the Legal Adviser, DG Information and Public Relations (in particular the sub-series information policy and press offices) and DG Infrastructure and Interpretation.

Representation of staff and political groups

PE3 P2 400/CPGP

The final group of series contains the series concerning relations with the Staff Committee, the unions and the political group secretariats.

Reflections of Former Presidents of the European Parliament: Egon A. Klepsch

I was president of the European Parliament in the second half of the 1989-1994 term. I held office at an eventful time in which Europe, having emerged from the upheavals of 1989 and the end of the cold war, was striving for a common future. The European Union, still hampered in the 1980s by a widespread feeling of ‘Europe fatigue’, was thus called upon to play a vital new role. Mind you, at the time when I was in office, there was nothing left of the initial euphoria over the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the removal of the Iron Curtain. The immediate priority was to give shape and direction to the arduous process of bringing Europe as a whole more closely together. The people of central and eastern Europe, who, impelled by their urge for freedom, had dared to enter a new era, were pinning their gazes and their hopes more than ever on the EU. The Community of twelve, as it then was, acted like a magnet for countries wishing to join, but I was aware that the magnet in question in many ways still lacked inner strength. The momentum generated by the historic transformations had to be channelled on ordered political paths. Widening and deepening of the Community were both on the agenda. These were the two reference points that served to define the landmark European events of the years from 1992 to 1994:

The Maastricht Treaty establishing European Union was signed on 7 February 1992. I was there in Maastricht and on behalf of Parliament I signed this ground-breaking Treaty, which led to economic and monetary union and the advent of the euro. The treaty was ratified after tempers had blown hot and cold when the Danes first said ‘no’ (in June 1992) and then changed that vote to a ‘yes’ (in May 1993).

In late 1992 and early 1993 the single European market came into being in its completed form. Even though its area of responsibility was still too modest, Parliament brought considerable influence to bear in shaping this European economic powerhouse with its freedoms for persons, goods, services, and capital. By capitalising on the reputation which it gained at that time it later managed to consolidate its powers.

The decision to admit Austria, Finland, and Sweden to the EU was taken on 1 March 1994 with strong backing from Parliament. That set the seal on the enlargement of the then Community of twelve to include those three countries.

Plenary session in Strasbourg - Vote on the enlargement of the European Union for Norway, Austria, Finland, and Sweden. Egon Klepsch EP President (C), Enrico Vinci EP Secretary General (R) © European Union 1994 – European Parliament

Meanwhile there were increasingly insistent calls for the EU to be enlarged eastwards. The Copenhagen European Council laid down the requirements in June 1993 in the form of the ‘Copenhagen criteria’. By the spring of 1994 Hungary and Poland had already applied to join.

At the June 1994 European election Parliament was able to present itself to the voters as a body exercising the greater responsibilities that the Maastricht Treaty had conferred on it. Unfortunately its wider powers failed on that occasion, as they have done at subsequent elections, to persuade voters to turn out in higher numbers.

When I assumed the presidency of Parliament expectations were high that Parliament would decisively influence our continent’s progress towards a new future. Having chaired the Group of the European People’s Party (EPP), I realised that that the key to success lay in mobilising majorities across party boundaries and, on that basis, seeking to talk to Council and Commission as an equal partner. In retrospect it can be said that Parliament succeeded in doing this because it managed to consolidate and utilise its powers. As well as providing the road map for monetary union and the euro, the Maastricht Treaty also – and this is something which quite a few people have forgotten about – greatly expanded Parliament’s sphere of responsibility. It was at this point that the mainly advisory role of Parliament was replaced irrevocably by legislative codecision, confined at that time to selected areas, including the single market, consumer protection, and the environment. As president I was anxious from the outset to make a practical success of codecision and hence, after a time, to encourage stronger pressure for the necessary powers to be extended. Given that codecision has now become the norm for European legislation, the only possible conclusion is that the thinking behind my strategy at that time helped to produce the desired result. Not only did I follow general guidelines, but I also paid heed to smaller points, lessons that I had learnt from my wealth of experience in Parliament. At part-sessions, for example, I regularly brought together senior leaders of the Council, the Commission, and Parliament in what is termed the trilogue. To elude the pressures of tight schedules, I would often invite everyone to lunch, that is to say, not just the Presidents, but also the heads of their private offices and the Secretaries-General. The discussions focused equally on matters of principle and current problems with the aim of reconciling the two at the practical level. This cooperation worked very well throughout my presidency and also extended to other bodies, for example the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. It sometimes happened that in budget discussions the other bodies would attempt to agree on a common approach aligned with Parliament – and this often provided a decisive counterweight to the Commission where substantive issues were concerned. Today this would be described as exerting influence through successful networking. The grand design of giving Parliament a greater say in legislation and the budget had to be managed by making a number of minor changes to political practice. Cooperation with the political groups and the committees had to be adapted to the new procedure.

European People's party (EPP) group meeting in Luxembourg - Designation of Egon Klepsch as the party's candidate for the next presidency of the EP © European Communities

The originally informal cooperation between the Council, the Commission, and Parliament was gradually placed on the more solid footing of interinstitutional agreement. The practical improvements made to the budget procedure at that time seemed small in the overall scheme of things, but were nonetheless important in that they helped ultimately to make Parliament the powerful budgetary authority that it is today.

Apart from the budget and legislation, Parliament acquired the right under Maastricht – and hence during my presidency – to say yes or no to the accession of new members. This right was exercised when the number of Member States rose from 12 to 15, enabling the broad mass of the public to understand what was involved. A decade later, when the time came for the eastward enlargement, Parliament’s right to give its assent was turned into a historic first step in a new direction.

When I attended EU summits as president of Parliament I was able to put Parliament’s case. Even apparently trivial gestures are significant to the extent that, in protocol terms, they denote enhanced status. As a result of a custom introduced during my presidency, the President of Parliament is not only allowed to speak at the start of a summit, but also photographed with the Heads of State or Government and the Commission President. Since the autumn 1992 Birmingham Summit the President of Parliament has appeared in every official photograph of the participants or ‘family portrait’. What really mattered, of course, was not gestures of this kind, but the policy directions charted at the summits held during that period. An opportunity to set a new course arose two months after Birmingham, at the Edinburgh Summit, at which I put forward a new scheme to the assembled Heads of State or Government laying down how seats were to be allocated in Parliament. As a result of reunification Germany was given 99 seats, and in general the numbers of seats were based more accurately on the size of the Member States – as democracy demands. The proposal was accepted and implemented.

Egon Klepsch meets with visitors group from former German Democratic Republic (GDR) © European Communities 1993

One event that stands out is the 1993 summit in Denmark, which opened up a genuine prospect of accession to the central and eastern European countries in the process of reform. The firm promise was, however, made subject to binding conditions known as the ‘Copenhagen criteria’. The stages to be completed on the way to the EU were thus clearly marked out: formerly Communist regimes had to be transformed along democratic lines, in accordance with the rule of law; erstwhile command economies had to be converted into socially tempered market economies; and candidates had to take over Community law. When I represented Parliament at the Copenhagen Summit I maintained that the point to bear in mind was not just the ability of the candidates to join, but the ability of the Union to absorb them. Whether the then Community of twelve could accept new Members while keeping up the momentum of European integration was a question that had to be taken into account. The seed of Copenhagen sprouted up in the years after, and the fruits were reaped a decade later when the biggest single enlargement was achieved in 2004.

During my term of office from January 1992 to the 1994 European election Parliament advanced quite a long way towards the goal of becoming a Europe-wide democratic representative body adopting laws and the budget on an equal footing with the Council and hence controlling the destiny of some 500 million people. At that time my attention was often focused on the gradual progress of European unification in parliamentary work. But the memory of the ‘daily grind’ is eclipsed by Parliament’s ‘moments of glory’. Two examples which, to my mind, belong to the latter category are the splendid European speeches by Queen Elizabeth II and Vaclav Havel in the Strasbourg Chamber, testimonies to pan-European unification that are still worth reading!