Disappointment in store over ‘timid’ foreign policy text

Date: 28/05/03

By Dana Spinant

Defying public opinion, pressure from member states has slammed the brakes on the Convention's ambitions for a robust CFSP.

THE Convention on the future of the EU risks disappointing Europe's public after failing to come up with proposals to enable the Union to carry out an ambitious foreign policy.

That seems to be the clear message from opinion polls commissioned earlier this year by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Convention's chairman. The polls, conducted across member states, found that 67 of EU citizens back a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), while even more, 74, are in favour of a common defence policy.

The revised proposal on CFSP decision-making unveiled yesterday (27 May) by the forum's steering committee, the praesidium, made it clear that no major leap forward in this area is in the offing.

Under the proposal, decisions on CFSP will still be taken as a rule by unanimity in the Council of Ministers, while qualified majority voting will be the exception. Moreover, the role of the future EU Foreign Minister has been severely circumscribed.

Some praesidium members hope the Convention's plenary will argue for enlarging the use of majority voting during its final debates on 30-31 May and 5-6 June.

The praesidium's initial proposal on foreign policy, presented on 24 April, has been significantly watered down due to opposition from two key member states.

"The UK's opposition and France's lack of enthusiasm for a bigger role for the European Commission in CFSP and for qualified majority voting [were to blame]," one Convention official told this newspaper.

Keeping the national veto in foreign policy has always been one of London's 'red lines' - as Tony Blair, the British premier, made clear in lengthy talks with Giscard during the former French president's visit to 10 Downing Street on 19 May.

Under the praesidium's initial blueprint, proposals made by the EU Foreign Minister that were backed by the Commission would have been adopted in the Council of Ministers by qualified majority rather than unanimity. However, this provision has been dropped from the revised draft, due to the British threat to oppose any deal which would have scrapped its veto.

This proposal would have paved the way for eliminating the national veto and increasing the Commission's foothold in foreign affairs. "Peter Hain [the UK government representative on the Convention] was seeing red over it," the Convention official commented.

"He - and Blair too - said that there is no way to 'communitize' the Union's external action."

Instead, the Council of Ministers will only vote by qualified majority on proposals put forward by the EU Foreign Minister "when acting upon invitation by the European Council", according to the Article 9 (chapter 1, Part III of the constitution). In addition, government leaders (the European Council) may decide unanimously to allow their ministers to adopt more decisions by qualified majority.

However, if a member state's representative invokes "vital national interests" to oppose a decision which should be made by qualified majority voting, the matter would be referred to the European Council under the so-called emergency brake procedure. It would require a unanimous vote by government leaders to break the deadlock.

This amounts to only the most timid progress on foreign policy action, argue key Convention figures.

"I really hope that the plenary will fight for and will be able to get an extension of these 'exceptions' from the unanimity voting," one praesidium member told this newspaper.

"The whole battle now is on enlarging the areas of decisions taken by qualified majority.

"They could, for example, introduce an 'evolving clause' stating that after a certain time, say ten years, more decisions will be taken by majority."

The evolving clause principle was successfully used in the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty to give the Commission more say over justice and home affairs five years after the treaty's entry into force.

"This is the minimum we can achieve: if we only go ahead with what the praesidium now proposes, we should not even name it Common Foreign and Security Policy. It would not be worth the name," a Commission official said.

Sources from within the Convention say former Belgian premier Jean-Luc Dehaene, who drafted most of the constitution's articles on CFSP, has given up hope of convincing member states to accept majority voting in sensitive areas.

"He decided not to fight a battle which is already lost, as the Brits, the Swedes and the Danes would be against it during the intergovernmental conference, and the French are not very keen either," said a Convention insider.

"He decided to concentrate on improving institutional arrangements, for example on securing support for the post of EU Foreign Minister, and for placing it within the Commission, although he is accountable to the member states for all CFSP matters.

"Dehaene hopes that this would gradually generate a mood propitious to member states agreeing to drop their veto right," he added.

The ideal way of launching an ambitious CFSP would have been to introduce qualified majority voting as the rule, and define certain exceptional cases when unanimity applies.

The emergency brake would have reassured member states: although a number of sensitive decisions would have still been vetoed through this mechanism, the daily business of CFSP would have been dealt with by qualified majority.

At the same time, public expectations of an ambitious EU foreign policy would finally have been met.

The draft EU constitution fails to provide for an ambitious and integrated EU foreign policy.