Charlemagne: The tyranny of the majority

Arguments over majority voting in the European Union

FAIR-MINDEDNESS and a willingness to acknowledge both sides of the argument are grave defects in a columnist. So it is with extreme reluctance that Charlemagne has concluded that, when it comes to the most divisive issue left in the draft European Union constitution, both sides have a point. The dispute is about how far the EU should take decisions by majority vote (a related dispute on voting weights that upset Spain and Poland last December is moving to a deal based on some form of “double majority” of countries and populations). The discussion is urgent, since the aim is to finalise the constitution next month. As ever, a camp led by France and Germany on one side is pitted against one led by Britain on the other. The Franco-German duo argue that, now that the EU has 25 members, allowing individual countries to veto decisions is a recipe for paralysis. The British respond that certain subjects are so sensitive that individual countries must retain the right to say no. Both sides are right.

It sounds like an insoluble dilemma. But it need not be. The obvious answer would be to agree that all EU decisions should be taken by majority vote, but to define what falls under the control of Brussels tightly. The constitution-makers have flirted with a solution of this sort. The “Laeken declaration” of December 2001 that set up a constitutional convention promised that the distribution of power between the centre and the member countries would be re-examined from first principles. It raised the possibility that powers could flow in both directions: the EU might gain authority to act in some new areas, but other powers could be repatriated. But it did not happen. The draft constitution does not contain a single proposal for the EU to cede a policy area. The flow of powers is all towards Brussels, even if it is more of a trickle than a flood. The proposed expansion of the EU's powers may be modest compared with the federalists' wish-list, and countries retain a veto in over 40 policy areas, against some 153 provisions to be decided by majority vote. But significant new areas will move to majority vote under the draft constitution - decisions on corporate taxation, on EU foreign policy following a proposal by a new EU foreign minister, on some aspects of court procedures and the criminal law, and even on bits of social-security law.

The British government has declared that all such changes must be struck out of the constitutional text, or Britain will refuse to sign. These areas are so central to national politics, it argues, that no sovereign government can accept that its own voters should lose the right to control them. The federalist response to this is that the British are living in the past (the 19th century is often mentioned). In the modern world, nation-states are too puny to handle many of these challenges alone. The EU is proposing to act only on questions that have cross-border implications.

The trouble with this argument is that it is possible to find a cross-border angle to almost everything. Foreign policy - obviously. The environment - clearly. Social security in an EU where there is free movement of labour - probably. Even taxation meets the test. The draft constitution refers only to taxes that affect the operation of the EU's single market, such as corporate and sales tax. But there is no reason why this definition should not be extended even to personal taxation. Highly paid bankers often make decisions about where to live and do business partly for income-tax reasons - might that be a distortion of the single market? Identifying a cross-border element is the easy part. Balancing it against the democratic legitimacy and accountability of the nation-state is the real challenge.

Defenders of the constitution say that this is precisely what they have managed. The new areas for majority voting are pifflingly insignificant, they complain, precisely because national sensitivities have been taken into account. At times, efforts to satisfy all parties have tied the draft into logical knots. Thus European governments will decide a tax issue by majority vote only if they have first unanimously agreed that it relates to the single market or to tax evasion. How, groan the federalists, can Britain object to this? Quite easily. The British suspicion is that, once you half-open the door to majority voting on such a sensitive issue as tax, there will be further federalist shoulder-charges until the door is hanging off its hinges. For evidence, consider the report of a panel set up by the European Commission and chaired by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, which argued this week for a big increase in the EU budget, to be financed by the first directly imposed EU tax. Mr Strauss-Kahn calls the constitution only “a first step”.

An inability to act

On one big point, however, the federalists have a very strong case. Demanding that the European Union act in certain fields and then giving all 25 member countries a right of veto is a recipe for paralysis, bad policy, or both. The EU's current inability to amend the stability and growth pact, which sets budget rules for the 12 euro-area countries, is a case in point. It is now clear that these rules do not work. More and more countries are brazenly breaching the budget-deficit ceilings of 3% of GDP. If a change could be decided by majority vote, the pact would be swiftly reformed. But because unanimity is required, nothing can be done. Indeed, the basic provisions of the pact are being incorporated unchanged into the constitution.

This kind of absurdity is likely to multiply once the constitution is in force - because the British will in the end get most of their red lines. The result will be a constitution that claims a power for the EU to act in almost every area of public policy, from tax to foreign policy to social security, but simultaneously makes it almost impossible to make sensible decisions in the many fields in which member countries retain a veto. Apparent power combined with actual immobility: it could be a dangerous cocktail for the EU's credibility.

Commentary feature looks at the vexed question of voting rights in the Council and of majority voting in the negotiations in the IGC on the proposed European Constitution.

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