Voting reform tops wish-list for bosses’ union

Date: 18/04/02

By Peter Chapman

UNICE, the union of industrial and employers' confederations, says it will campaign for the Convention to push for the EU to shake off its law-making 'strait-jacket'.

Secretary-General Philippe de Buck told European Voice that reforms were needed to boost qualified majority voting in order to unblock draft laws in many areas hamstrung by the need for unanimity - such as tax and the controversial EU patent.

Without these reforms, the addition of new members to the EU club - each armed with vetoes across whole swathes of policy making - would risk totally blocking progress.

'What matters for us in the enlarged Union is that we continue to have ambitious projects such as the community patent.

'But the way the decision-making is organised now can't continue in the future,' he said. De Buck also said the EU should have its own 'legal personality', allowing it to sit on world bodies such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

This would go hand-in-hand with granting the Commission a general mandate to negotiate more international treaties on behalf of the member states.

'Each time there is an international trade discussion the Commission must ask member states what is its mandate. This is very burdensome. They have to get unanimity - of course it is an obstacle,' said de Buck. Such changes must be accompanied by a re-drafting of the EU's Treaty to make the Union easier to understand for business and citizens alike, he said.

'The Maastricht and Nice Treaties are unreadable,' he continued, adding that it was vital to clarify the complex balance of powers between the European institutions.

UNICE has special observer status in the Convention, allowing it to participate in discussions but not to vote.

'We are organising ourselves to be able to participate actively,' de Buck said, adding that it was vital that observers are allowed to 'play a role and are taken seriously'. He said UNICE was also hoping to wield influence through a new forum of civil society players convened by Jean-Luc Dehaene, one of the Convention's two vice-chairmen.

Report on the views of UNICE on the issues to be discussed at the Convention on the Future of Europe.