The art of political manipulation in the European Convention

Abstract:

We argue that the success of the European Convention in producing a Constitutional Treaty was possible because of the agenda control exercised by the Praesidium and in particular its President. Given that even Intergovernmental Conferences despite months of preparations sometimes fail to produce any results, the failure of negotiations in the Convention was a distinct possibility. Another serious possibility would have been an ‘anarchic’ document, in which different parts would have reflected the prevalence of different majorities. The President of the Convention was able to avoid both of these possibilities. Our argument is that Giscard d'Estaing was able to produce the results through the astute use of three significant tools that he developed. First, he limited the number of amendments from Convention delegates by imposing time limits on the whole process. Second, he created an iterated agenda-setting process in order to modify amendments. Third, he prohibited voting, and produced results ‘by consensus’, defining the meaning of the term himself. Understanding that the European Convention was an exceptional event made possible by the combination of a creative, consistent and overpowering agenda-setting process as well as the impasse created by the status quo (Nice Treaty) explains how we came to the EU Constitutional Treaty and how difficult it will be to move away from this document.