Giscard ‘Legislative Council’ plan tumbles at first hurdle

Date: 09/10/2003

By Dana Spinant

THE first session of the intergovernmental conference (IGC), that began on Saturday (4 October) in Rome, showed that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's worst nightmares may come true.

Foreign ministers of present and future member states, who are negotiating a final version of the constitution drawn up by the Convention on the EU's future, managed to unpick key aspects of its chairman Giscard's draft in only 30 minutes.

The first item on their agenda, dealing with the proposed 'Legislative Council', did not survive the first tour de table, as all countries bar Germany and Portugal voted against it. Under the Convention's proposal, the Legislative Council, gathering member states' foreign ministers, would have adopted all EU laws in open sessions.

It would have improved, in Giscard's view, coordination and coherence of the European Union's lawmaking processes.

"It is maybe a minor point, as the Legislative Council as proposed by the draft [constitution] was not very strong - it was already the result of a compromise between those who wanted it and those who did not," said one French diplomat.

"But it is, however, striking that the first point on the agenda has already been suppressed.

"The first brick in the wall has fallen, let's see how solid the rest of the wall will be," he added.

Instead of having such a council, the ministers agreed that all Council meetings in which laws are adopted should be open to the public.

They will however still take place in camera when the ministers are preparing legislation or discussing executive or administrative matters.

For Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, one of the European Parliament's representatives on the IGC and a former leading Convention member, the suppression of the Legislative Council is "a very unwelcome surprise".

"The Parliament needs a partner in the legislative process. We have the feeling that there is no partner for us, just a presidency acting with or without a mandate.

"This is no good for the procedure," he said.

"We need to have the Council acting as a legislative chamber."

Méndez de Vigo warns the decision to make the Council's legislative sessions more open does not go far enough.

He will be writing to Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini to urge him to strengthen transparency in the Council.

"What has been decided is unsatisfactory," he added.

On the second subject on the IGC's agenda, the presidency of Council formations, a Commission official said that, not only had "no progress been made", but "worse, ministers became entangled in more confusion".

Several countries have stepped up their campaign for creating 'team-presidencies', ie groups of states chairing different Council formations (Ecofin, justice and home affairs, etc) over a set period of time, say two-and-a-half years.

The Convention draft proposes that each Council formation elects its chairman for at least one year, under a system of equal rotation.

It is still not clear whether team presidencies lasting two-and-a-half years would mean that one country chairs all Council formations for six months, for instance, or whether each country chairs one Council formation for the whole period. It is also unclear what coordination would exist between the countries constituting the team presidency.

Some fear the need to coordinate this teamwork would strengthen the role of the proposed European Council president.

A full-time chair elected for two-and-a-half years would be the obvious "coordinator" of the team, say European Commission officials.

Méndez de Vigo points out that "the team presidency issue is very confusing.

"They [member states] don't know what to do with team presidencies, how to organize them. They mean different things by the term. They are divided and subdivided."

Commission officials say "some countries see the team presidencies as a way of keeping an egalitarian rotation of countries at the EU's helm".

However, others see it as "an instrument to create a chain of command, with the European Council president acting as a counterweight to the Commission".

For the time being, the issue of Council presidencies is wide open, as the opening session in Rome has neither clarified the debate nor narrowed the differences between member states.

A number of officials present at the talks have voiced dismay at the lack of progress.

"We did not even touch the main item on our agenda, the EU foreign minister. At this rate, we will never finish in 60 days," one Belgian diplomat said.

It is widely acknowledged that the IGC may not complete its work by December, as the Italian government had hoped.

The country's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi admitted that talks on the constitution could go on into next spring under the Irish EU presidency.

He doesn't mind, provided the constitution is signed in Rome.

At the first session of the Intergovernmental Conference on 4 October 2003, all countries except Germany and Portugal voted against the proposed 'Legislative Council'.
Under the Convention on the Future of Europe's proposal, the Legislative Council would have adopted all European Union laws in open sessions.