Think-tank calls for rethink over ‘summit circus’

Date: 26/07/01

By David Cronin

EU leaders should meet more often but without the "circus" that has surrounded recent summits, recommends a leading Brussels think-thank.

The European Policy Centre (EPC) is arguing that the massive EU summits held every six months should be replaced with "undramatic, workmanlike" meetings once a month. The thousands of officials who attend should be replaced with far smaller delegations, according to EPC director John Palmer. "There is an advantage to regular meetings in Brussels because frankly I think it's unfair that this enormous, gargantuan circus should be every now and then dropped on a city like Göteborg or Genoa, that's not equipped for it," he said. "It should be much more business as usual, not secrecy."

Former humanitarian aid commissioner Emma Bonino has also weighed into the debate, lambasting the "vicious circle of meeting and counter meeting, summit and counter summit".

But the Italian Radical Party leader accepted that EU gatherings have greater democratic legitimacy than G8 talks: "This G8 meeting ... has no treaty and no transparency. Nobody knows what they stand for, which makes them quite different, from the institutional point of view, to the meetings of heads of state and government of the European Union."

Meanwhile, EPC chief Palmer has also advocated that the next European Commission chief should be elected, rather than simply appointed by member state governments.

His call was echoed by Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler, who has proposed an election through the European Parliament to make the EU executive more accountable.

EU leaders should meet more often but without the 'circus' that has surrounded recent summits, recommends a leading Brussels think-tank.