Prodi ‘playing with fire’ in IGC plea, warns Dehaene

Date:18/09/03

By Dana Spinant

JEAN-Luc Dehaene, vice-president of the Convention on the future of the EU, has accused European Commission President Romano Prodi of "playing with fire" by demanding changes to the Convention's proposals on the composition of the Union's executive.

Speaking to European Voice, the former Belgian prime minister said Prodi's call for every EU state to have a full voting member of the post-enlargement Commission risks scuppering the Convention's deal on institutions.

Under the compromise reached in June, the Commission would comprise of one member from each state, but with only 15 commissioners entitled to vote.

The main reasoning behind this was that the biggest member states (which currently have two commissioners) could find themselves in a minority in the Commission when the Union expands to take in ten new countries next year.

Dehaene warned that the stance taken by Prodi and his colleagues, in calling for member states to reject the Convention's proposal, risked wrecking the whole "institutional package".

This would lead to a "grande bataille" during the intergovernmental conference (IGC) on treaty reform, which will be launched on 4 October in Rome. Its mission is to settle on a final version of the European constitution drafted by the Convention, hopefully before the end of this year.

Dehaene said that the Commission's position, presented by Prodi yesterday (17 September), went back on previous agreements.

"We can discuss the Convention's results, but these proposals do not even take into account the results of [the 2000 European summit in] Nice.

"At Nice, we said we would reduce the number of commissioners. These proposals are a step backwards."

Dehaene, who was close to becoming president of the Commission in 1995 (his candidacy was vetoed by the then UK premier John Major), said Prodi's proposals actually risk weakening the Commission, echoing concerns voiced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Convention chairman.

Giscard reiterated yesterday in Brussels his opposition to a one state/one commissioner principle, saying that "the College of commissioners is not a representation of the member states, but the expression of the European common good".

Previously, Giscard had warned that if large member states were left in a minority in the Commission - as they would be if each member state gets a voting commissioner - they would lose both trust and interest in the EU executive. Dehaene agrees with this view.

"When the EU had six member states, there were twice as many commissioners from large states than from the small. Now, there are 50-50.

"But with 25 members, the Commission risks losing its credibility," he said.

In a news conference yesterday, Prodi criticized the Convention's proposal for a "two-tier" executive. He said the system of "first-class and second-class commissioners" would destroy the institution's current collegial nature.

However, Dehaene said, on the contrary, this risk stems from Prodi's proposal to divide the Commission into "groups of commissioners put in charge of certain areas".

"I have some difficulties understanding what Prodi's game is," he added.

Another leading Convention member, Spanish MEP Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, described Prodi's proposals as looking "a bit like gerrymandering".

"He wants to keep everybody happy but he'll end up with something that does not work properly," he said.

Méndez de Vigo, who was a key member of the Convention's praesidium, agrees that the president's proposal would weaken the Commission.

"The creation of a stable president of the European Council entails that you have to strengthen the Commission to keep the balance of powers. Otherwise, with a weak Commission, the president of the European Council will become the president of the EU.

"But a strong and efficient Commission is, for me, a small Commission," the MEP said, adding that the optimum number of commissioners would be 12 to 15.

Méndez de Vigo said he was "totally against the nationalization of the Commission". Giving each country a full-voting Commissioner is "a complete failure of the meaning of the Commission".

"We have the chance to go back to the origins [of the Community] and have a Commission that does not represent member states, but the European interest," he said.

Sixteen small and medium member states and accession countries support the Commission's call for each member state to have one full commissioner.

Report of an interview with Jean-Luc Dehaene, Vice-President of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Mr Dehaene believes that by asking for amendments to the Convention's proposals on the composition of the European Commission, Romano Prodi (Commission President) is 'playing with fire'.