EU expansion puts Council of Ministers in reform spotlight

Date: 04/02/1999

By Rory Watson

MEPs are calling for a root-and-branch overhaul of the Council of Ministers, insisting that radical reform is essential if the Union is to cope with the strains of enlargement.

A report prepared by French Christian Democrat MEP Jean-Louis Bourlanges criticises the way the Council currently operates and calls for the abolition of two of its most secretive committees: the political committee and its sister body, the K.4 committee which handles justice and home affairs issues.

MEPs accuse both committees of bypassing normal EU procedures and of lacking the "communautaire philosophy" needed to provide ministers with genuine joint proposals. They insist that the work of both can be successfully handled by EU ambassadors.

Bourlanges' report, which has already won the support of the European Parliament's institutional affairs committee, also calls on EU leaders to abandon their relatively new practice of meeting every two to three months.

It argues that the very frequency of the meetings - particularly the growth of informal gatherings - robs summits of the authority they would otherwise enjoy.

It insists that summits should be run with clear rules, agendas and formal proposals so that EU leaders can fulfil their responsibility for setting guidelines and injecting political impetus into the Union's policy-making process more effectively.

At the same time, each top-level meeting should be "of sufficient duration so as to allow time for in-depth exchanges of views among the members - and encourage them to conclude substantive agreements", argued Bourlanges.

He insists that summits have an increasing tendency to bypass normal ministerial meetings by handling issues which should be dealt with at a lower level and by entrusting their preparation to a network of personal aides rather than the relevant EU institutions.

"The result is the European Council functions as the Tour de France broom wagon of the Union and interferes with the normal operation of the Community institutions," he complained.

This criticism is unlikely to be heeded by EU leaders, who feel that their intervention is becoming increasingly necessary to provide the lubricant to oil the wheels of day-to-day Union business.

Just two months after their last gathering in Vienna, heads of state and government will meet in Bonn at the end of this month and again in Berlin four weeks later to nail down reforms of the EU's finances and its agricultural, regional and social policies - revisions which they believe their subordinates could not achieve - before holding their regular bi-annual summit in Cologne in June.

But the MEPs' criticism of the way the Council of Ministers operates, and in particular meetings of foreign ministers, will fall on more fertile ground. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos has long argued that current procedures must be improved and that he and his colleagues should be given far greater authority over all Council business.

Bourlanges' report, which will be considered by the full Parliament at a plenary session in Strasbourg next week, argues that the General Affairs Council (GAC) should consist not of foreign ministers, as at present, but of those senior ministers most closely involved in the coordination of national policies.

They would be responsible for agreeing the institution's work programme and setting the calendar of meetings of the more specialist Councils, and would determine what work the GAC would handle and what it would delegate.

Such an all-embracing role would, say supporters of reform, ensure greater coordination and consistency in Union activities.

As governments themselves consider ways of ensuring the Council functions effectively after enlargement, MEPs are adamant that all member states should retain the right to run the EU's rotating six-month presidency. They reject any ending of the rota system, but suggest governments should be EU members for at least three years before being given the task.