Giscard does the rounds as time runs out for agreement

Date: 05/06/03

By Dana Spinant

VALERY Giscard d'Estaing, chairman of the Convention on Europe's future, is making a last-ditch attempt to gather support for his proposal on sharing power between EU institutions - just two weeks before he is due to present a draft constitution at the Thessaloniki summit on 20 June.

Although keen to get an accord - as presenting a set of options would be considered a failure for the Convention - the former French president is not ready to "sacrifice" his plan for the institutions just to get a deal, one Convention insider said.

He has decided to stick to the draft put forward by the Convention's inner circle, the praesidium.

"I can imagine some adjustments [to the text], but no crucial changes", Giscard told European Voice.

Under the praesidium's revised draft, a future elected president of the European Council would represent the Union in foreign affairs without encroaching on the role of the president of the European Commission - or on that of a future Foreign Affairs Minister.

In addition, the Commission would be reduced to 15 members and 15 deputy commissioners from 2009 - as a concession to the small member states who have fought for the right to appoint a member of the Commission. This means that there will be 25 commissioners until 2009.

However, small countries' representatives led by the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) are against an elected Council president, if the new post is not balanced with more powers for the European Commission.

The Benelux-three propose, as a trade-off, that the president of the Commission chairs the General Affairs Council (which gathers member states' foreign ministers to coordinate decisions taken in Brussels).

"This is the necessary quid pro quo: if they want a Council president, they must accept that the Commission chairs the General Affairs Council," one top Dutch diplomat told this newspaper.

Yesterday (4 June), Giscard held separate talks with the Convention's different factions (national parliaments' representatives, governments' envoys, MEPs and representatives of the Commission) in a bid to convince them to back the praesidium's plans.

According to a Convention official, "it is likely, after today's 'confessional', that the majority trend is to support the praesidium's proposals.

"There will be some changes, but no dramatic ones," he said.

A member of the praesidium said that the key to reaching a deal on the institutions was the "time factor".

"The secret to achieving a compromise on organizing the institutions is to agree now to introduce some of the changes to which some Convention members are opposed, but at a later stage.

"We have already agreed that concerning the Commission, whose composition will only be changed as of 2009. We could do that for the other institutions.

"Between no reforms and reforms at a later stage, I prefer the latter," he said.

Under this scenario, it could be agreed that decisions in sensitive areas such as foreign affairs or taxation could be taken by majority voting five or ten years after the constitutional treaty's entry into force.

The praesidium member believes this time factor could also apply to the voting system used in the Council of Ministers.

A deal could be struck with Spain, he says, to convince Madrid to agree to the introduction of double majority voting (under which decisions are taken if backed by a majority of member states representing a majority of the Union's population) as of 2009.

However, a Convention official rejects the suggestion. "The time factor is useful if people agree on a common vision and want to start applying it at different moments.

"This is not the case. Here, we have a split over the substance, not over the timing."

The President of the European Convention is trying to drum up support for his proposal on institutional reform ahead of the Thessaloniki European Council on 20 June 2003.