EU leaders want to hijack the Convention on Europe’s future. They have to be stopped

Date: 23/05/02

Next month's summit of European leaders in Seville should not 'second-guess' the Convention's conclusions by signalling what Treaty changes they want to see in 2004, writes John Palmer.

NOBODY in their right mind would dispute the need for urgent, radical and sweeping reform of the Council of Ministers, including the presidency system and the way its supreme political body - the European Council - functions.

The system is simply not working. It provides neither an efficient executive nor effective political leadership for the Union. Given the challenges the EU now faces both at home (notably enlargement) and in the wider world, there can be no further delay of fundamental reforms.

The Commission has put on the table its ideas about the future evolution of the EU institutions. So the fact that the Council's Secretary-General, Javier Solana, is also due to present some reform proposals at the Seville European Council next month, should, therefore, be welcomed.

By all accounts a group of the larger member states, led by the UK and France - want to make some immediate and sensible changes to the way the Council works which will not require Treaty changes.

However, they also want to scrap the present system of the rotating six-monthly EU presidency and for EU heads of government to be able to choose a 'President of the Union' for perhaps five years.

These reforms will require changes to the existing Treaties - something not scheduled to be decided until the next Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) in 2004.

At this point, however, a serious warning note must be struck. The Convention on the future of Europe, which brings together member

states, candidate countries, the Commission and both European and national Parliamentarians, is already hard at work on a complete review of the entire workings of the EU.

It is one thing in Seville for EU leaders to make some practical, working repairs to the current system.

But it would be wrong and dangerous for EU heads of government to preempt the work of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's Convention by signalling the Treaty changes they will press for in 2004.

First, they must listen to the Convention and not try to hijack the reform process for themselves.

Some of the larger EU member states do not disguise their real intent: to ensure power moves decisively away from the Commission and the European Community legal process and is concentrated in their own hands. They want one of their own number selected to be 'Mr/Ms Europe' and to block a democratic election of the Commission president.

There is much to be said for scrapping the rotating presidency, for reducing the number of councils and for strengthening the leadership of a smaller number of better managed ministerial meetings. But any move to reduce the Commission to a mere secretariat for EU governments would spell ultimate disaster for an enlarged Union which needs to strengthen, not weaken, its collective sense of its own destiny.

'There are efforts to change the system in a direction where there would be a kind of directorate, and the Commission and small countries would be pushed out of the way,' the Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen understandably complained recently.

The Commission has an essential part to play in the future leadership of the Union. It is charged with promoting the collective interest of the EU, rather than the sectional interests of its member states.

The European Council should play an even more important role in the future and the presidency system should be completely rethought. But the Commission's authority and its democratic legitimacy as a key component of the EU executive must also be strengthened.

As the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan told a recent meeting of the European Policy Centre in Brussels: 'We believe the role of the European Commission should be reinforced, especially its role as an independent guarantor that agreements are respected. We can imagine an arrangement where the president of the Commission is elected by the Parliament, which would raise the prestige of the European Parliament in the eyes of the public and would mean a reinforcement of the status of the Commission president in the scope of European institutions.

'Adding several powers to the European Parliament, especially in the budget sector, would raise its status in Europe.'

Future Commission presidents will not participate in the European Council as political equals of the EU leaders unless they, as well as the heads of government, have a democratic mandate of their own received from the people.

The election of the president through the Parliament - with the parties putting their rival candidates to the voters - would give greater meaning to European elections.

An election process would also stimulate the much-needed emergence of fully fledged European political parties - surely an essential requirement of a serious European level democracy - to give the public real choices about the future.

There is a growing fear among voters that - at the national level - globalisation is stripping the democratic process of too much substance. A European Union of 25 or more states can offer the electorate significant choices about our economic, political and social future - but for that to happen European democratic politics must be given real meaning.

At the Seville summit, the more blatant attempts to undermine the Community method or to move to a de facto political directoire of the big countries can be blocked by the smaller countries. But at present - divided among themselves and outwitted by the bigger member states - they have been unable to put forward a credible reform strategy of their own.

This should involve acceptance that almost all decisions should be decided by a system of majority voting. Decisions under 'Pillar 3' (internal security and justice) of the present Treaty should be moved to 'Pillar 1' (the Community system of decision-making).

It is also essential to strengthen decision-making on common foreign, security and defence policy where the Commission and the member states have important responsibilities.

On taking office, the Commission should present a five-year political programme to the European Council and the Parliament for approval, adapted thereafter annually on the basis of Commission proposals.

It is surely obvious that there should be a clear division between the executive role of the Council of Ministers and its law-making role. When passing legislation the Council should meet in open, public and 'parliamentary' mode.

All member states - big and especially small - should recognise the force in limiting the future size of the college of Commissioners and to giving the president prime-ministerial-style powers over the distribution of portfolios. The European Parliament's co-decision powers should be expanded in parallel with the extension of majority vote decision making.

There is a strong case for giving MEPs responsibilities for raising EU budget revenue - not just for spending European taxpayers' money.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights should be written into what more and more people recognise is long overdue - a real EU constitution.

The Seville European Council should agree some emergency, temporary, repairs to the functioning of the Council system. But any attempt to second-guess the conclusion of the Convention or to put the reform process on a lop-sided and anti-Commission track should be binned until the 2004 IGC.

• John Palmer is director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

Major feature. Author says the forthcoming summit of European leaders in Seville should not 'second-guess' the Convention's conclusions by signalling what Treaty changes they want to see in 2004.