Dehaene challenges Giscard on 50-year treaty claim

Date: 03/07/03

By Dana Spinant

JEAN-LUC Dehaene, number two on the Convention on the future of Europe, has rejected Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's claim that the constitution drafted by the forum will last for half a century.

Speaking exclusively to European Voice, the former Belgian prime minister said the text could come up for revision as soon as 2006, the year when the constitution is set to enter into force - if ratified by all member states.

"I do not share [Convention] President Giscard's opinion: this is not a text unchangeable for 50 years," he said.

The first thing that may be changed would be the EU's financing system.

"We did not change the system to finance the Union - this is the first proof that the treaty will not last for half a century," the Convention vice-chairman added.

Therefore, he believes the draft constitution, a final version of which will be negotiated by EU governments this autumn, may need to be amended as soon as it enters into force.

"I predict the first revision rendezvous will be in 2006 - the rendezvous of all accidents for the Union."

To back up that statement he warns that, if member states' negotiations over a multi-annual EU budget, due to take place in 2006, become deadlocked - as under the present rules the budget is adopted by unanimity - the procedure in place to approve the financing of the Union would have to be changed.

Dehaene insists the EU needs genuine "own resources" to fund its actions, as opposed to relying on contributions from member states.

As the Convention failed to agree on such clear-cut own resources (an EU tax, for example), or on scrapping the requirement for all national parliaments to approve the Union's sources of cash, the constitution will need to be revised, to introduce a more sustainable financing system, he believes.

The second element which "is not going to last for 50 years" is, according to Dehaene, the treaty ratification procedure, which at present requires the unanimous accord of all member states (through parliamentary vote or even referenda).

"My bet is that one of the first questions to be tackled by a future intergovernmental conference will be ratification."

The Belgian deplores the Convention's failure to agree on a "lighter" system to change the more technical parts of the constitution (for instance, Part III of the proposed constitutions on EU policies).

A "European ratification", which would only require agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers (and would not involve national parliaments) could be sufficient to approve changes to Part III, he suggested.

"The need will soon be felt to introduce a lighter procedure of ratification, a European ratification, of changes to this part [of the constitutional treaty]."

The Convention's vice-president predicts the two most powerful jobs in the Union, that of president of the Commission and the newly created post of European Council president, will be merged, sooner or later.

"The double presidency will one day end up in a single presidency, with one person wearing the two hats," he said.

Such a plan is strongly backed by Romano Prodi, the Commission's chief, and representatives of small EU countries, who had proposed, in amendments to the Convention's draft, that the Commission president should chair the European Council.

Dehaene declined to speculate over when the merger of the two posts may happen. "It is a question of political evolution. It sometimes depends on accidents of history." But he thinks the decision that one person should chair the two institutions will come naturally.

The Belgian told an audience at Brussels' Madariaga Foundation on 1 July that the same evolution took place on foreign affairs.

The Convention proposed that the jobs of external relations commissioner and of high representative for foreign affairs should be merged into one: the EU Foreign Minister. Member states look set to unanimously back the proposal, while a couple a years ago the move looked unlikely.

"In the end, six years after the post of high representative for foreign affairs was created by the Amsterdam Treaty, it was obvious that the two posts have to be merged," he said.

However, the emergence of a single top job in Brussels may take more time, he admitted.

Jean-Luc Dehaene, Vice President of the European Convention, has criticised Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's claims that the EU's draft constitution could serve for fifty years.