Draft constitution to win support in spite of strong reservations

Date: 12/06/03

By Dana Spinant

THE Convention on the future of the EU is tomorrow (13 June) set to back a draft constitution that its chairman Valéry Giscard d'Estaing will present to EU government leaders at the Thessaloniki summit next week.

The forum was expected to endorse the four-part draft by what Giscard calls 'consensus', meaning that no faction of the Convention (governments' representatives, members of the European Parliament, of national assemblies and the European Commission) will reject it en bloc.

However, Spain and the UK, as well as the Commission and most of the MEPs, still strongly oppose parts of the draft.

A gathering of members of the European Parliament and of national assemblies were struggling, on the eve of the Convention's closing, to amend the draft to introduce more qualified majority voting in foreign affairs.

The way to an accord was paved by a deal on sharing the power between EU institutions, struck by the Convention's inner circle, the praesidium, over intensive negotiations during the final days.

Under the deal, the European Council will have an elected chairman, but the General Affairs Council - as well as other Council formations - will be chaired by presidents chosen by rotation for "at least one year".

The Foreign Affairs Council will, however be chaired by a future EU Foreign Affairs Minister, who will also be a vice-president of the Commission.

Under the draft, the Commission's size will be reduced to 15 (including its president and the Foreign Affairs Minister) as of 1 November 2009 (when a new Commission team takes office). The European commissioners would be selected on the basis of a system of equal rotation between member states.

However, the Commission president will appoint non-voting commissioners, among candidates put forward by member states that do not have representatives in the group with voting rights (the College).

In addition, the present system of weighting the member states' votes in the Council of Ministers according to their demographic size will be replaced as of 2009 with a simpler 'double majority' system. Under double majority, laws would be adopted if backed by a majority of member states representing at least 60 of the Union's population.

However, the European Council may decide (by qualified majority) to prolong the present voting system for a maximum period of three years after 2009.

Laws and framework laws (which will replace the current 'regulations' and 'directives') would be adopted by a General Affairs and Legislative Council (gathering the foreign ministers). The specialised Council formations (for example Economics and Finance and the Justice and Home Affairs Council) will only pave the way for decisions in future, but will not be allowed to adopt laws.

Despite intensive negotiations, the provisions on the Union's policies, contained in Part III of the constitutional treaty, have not been substantially amended. Thus, decisions in common foreign and security policy will still, as a rule, be taken by unanimity.

However, proposals from the future Foreign Minister would only require a qualified majority vote in favour in the Council, if they are made at the request and on a specific mandate from the European Council.

Decisions on taxation are also mostly set to be taken by unanimity.

However, under the draft, the bulk of decisions in justice and home affairs will be taken by qualified majority voting, except in the case of some highly sensitive issues.

These include operational cooperation between national police forces.

A so-called passage clause would allow the European Council to decide, by unanimity, that more decisions could be taken by qualified majority.

The massive Part III of the treaty, containing around 340 articles, is still to be fine-tuned by Convention members in July.

Giscard will ask government leaders at Thessaloniki to give the forum three or four more weeks to complete work on this part of the treaty.