Hold the IGC talks in ‘broad daylight’

Date:25/09/03

By Stanley Crossick

IN LESS than ten days' time, yet another Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) begins, this time in Rome. But this is an IGC with a difference. For the first time, a single, comprehensive, draft constitutional treaty agreed by consensus at a Convention composed of representatives of member state governments and parliaments, the European Parliament and the Commission, will form "a good basis" for the conference (as decided at the Thessaloniki summit in June).

It is also the last IGC before the biggest-ever enlargement of the European Union.

So, will this conference, culminating in another Treaty of Rome (47 years on) be worthy of its name and reverse the descending order of effectiveness of the past four IGCs and subsequent treaties?

The Convention's draft disappointed integrationists, but is as progressive a text as was politically achievable and struck a fair balance between integrationist and intergovernmentalist views.

The €64,000 question is therefore: will the IGC broadly maintain the agreed text or render the Convention's work ineffective by reopening a wide range of issues?

The six founding members (France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux three) are willing to adopt the text in its present substantive form. All member states have declared the text satisfactory, but for one or two issues. The text has already been endorsed by Parliament.

However, the Commission's statement of 17 September unfortunately seeks to "improve" the text in relation to four points and to reopen the highly sensitive issue of the Commission's composition. Although stating firmly that "it will be essential for the IGC not to disturb the overall balances built into the draft constitution and not to start rediscussing all the questions that the Convention has already looked at in detail and on which it has reached a consensus", the Commission suggests that it is possible to adopt the amendments "without upsetting the general balance".

As Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the Convention, pointed out at the joint European Policy Centre/Royal Institute of International Relations (Belgium) conference on 18 September, "everything which is balanced is fragile".

The consensus achieved in the Convention was a "fragile but well-balanced outcome" which "should not be tipped one way or the other, because doing so would jeopardize the project completely".

Giscard concedes that the provisions governing the Commission composition are not satisfactory, but they were fully discussed and represent, when taken together with other interrelating provisions, a reasonable compromise. The other major controversial issue is the abandonment of the "Nice formula" for qualified majority voting, vehemently demanded by at least Spain and Poland.

The IGC text has to be adopted, not by consensus, but by unanimity. What will happen if a minority of member states reject one or more articles and the rest refuses to adopt the text without them? There are only two solutions: either the minority gives way or the conference fails and the Nice Treaty remains the governing document for a Union of 25. It will take considerable obduracy and scant regard for democracy were the minority not to give way. All member states agreed that a new treaty was needed to govern the enlarged EU and all agreed to establish a democratic, representative Convention, of which more than two thirds of its members were directly elected by the citizens (being MEPs or MPs).

The member states should reflect now on that eventuality, and not "paint themselves into a corner" by taking strong public negotiating positions - unless they are sure that they will not be in a minority. This would make it more difficult to concede their positions later and could affect public attitudes towards the ratification of the new Treaty. Unless all 25 member states ratify, the enlarged Union will remain governed by the hopelessly inadequate 2000 Treaty of Nice, which dooms it to failure. As Giscard stressed at the conference, "member state government representatives now and after the IGC will have the responsibility of taking the debate to their citizens".

Previous IGCs were held behind closed doors. The 105-member Convention, whose plenary meetings were held in public, proves that this need not hinder achieving consensus. Indeed, member states would be obliged to justify their opposition to an individual provision when meeting in public, whereas they are not subject to the same pressure behind closed doors.

It seems incongruous that the new draft treaty requires all legislative meetings of the Council of Ministers be held in public, and yet the supreme law, the constitutional treaty itself, is to be agreed behind closed doors. Indeed, it would be one of the very few international treaties which is negotiated without plenary meetings held in public.

The Declaration of Laeken (2001) called for a public debate on the future of Europe: so far, there has only been a debate in public. A public IGC would help stimulate a real debate and facilitate the monitoring of the conference by both the European and national parliaments.

The constitutional treaty was agreed by consensus in a democratic and representative process. The public has a right to know in what respects and for what reasons member states may wish to make significant changes to the Convention's proposals. Giscard himself hopes the IGC will be "similarly inspired by transparency and argued in broad daylight. The European constitutional project should not be taken further away from the European citizens".

At stake are two important issues: the future effectiveness of the Union; and the role of democracy in its affairs. The member states should think very carefully before deciding their opening positions at the IGC.

• Stanley Crossick is the director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. www.theepc.be

Preview of the Intergovernmental Conference which opens in Rome on 4 October 2003. The author is Director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.