Brussels, 19/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - Among the Member States which explained in writing their positions of principle on the themes tackled by the Intergovernmental Conference on EU institutional reform, Germany presented a paper which above all shows the link that it establishes between the solutions found to each of the Amsterdam leftovers. Thus, it affirms that, in order for it to agree to renounce to its second Commissioner, it requires that "a satisfactory outcome" be found in other areas, particularly as regards the weighting of votes. It states that "definitive agreement on the extension of majority decision-making is conditional" upon satisfactory results in vote weighting, taking into account "any links to institutional structures". In addition, among the questions that should be added to the IGC agenda, Germany indicates above all the individual responsibility of the members of the Commission and increased cooperation, so that they may be established with a qualified majority decision.
Germany's position on the three Amsterdam leftovers is as follows:
- Commission. The size of the Commission "will no longer be able to grow as it has hitherto", and the 20 current members are "a limit beyond which the efficiency of the Commission's work would clearly start to suffer", it is stated in the document, which notes that, even today, "proper distribution of powers and portfolios within the Commission is already creating serious problems". The German government therefore recommends fixing a maximum limit or, as a second solution, the rule of "one Commissioner per Member State" for all future enlargements (but this, it states, would require that new criteria be included in the treaty on the Commission's internal structure).
- Vote weighting. Germany notes that, during successive enlargements, qualified majority represents an ever smaller proportion of the whole of the EU population and that, if things are left as they are, there will be majorities in the Council representing low numbers of the population which would probably not "suffice to legitimise EU decisions with vast implications and effects for all the Member States and their citizens". For Germany, vote weighting in Council must be revised so that the minimum population threshold for qualified majority remains at about 60%, by choosing between two solutions: new vote weighting or double majority (States and population). The aim of the federal government is at any rate a solution that "is a truer reflection of the demographic differences between Member States" (Ed.: and mainly the effects of German reunification).
- Extension of qualified majority vote. From the 1997 IGC, this extension was a "declared aim of the Federal Republic", states the paper (Ed.: but at the very last line of Amsterdam negotiation, Chancellor Kohl's government had adopted a restrictive position on several cases for going on to qualified majority). The German government indicates that, in order to go further than the advances made in the Amsterdam Treaty, it has adopted a new approach whereby qualified majority would be the rule and unanimity the exception. Thus, unanimity could be maintained only "if a rigorous examination" shows that decisions in this connection are decisions: - subject to ratification by Member States; - of a constitutional kind, without constituting amendments to the Treaty (for example, decisions that call for a transfer of powers pursuant to Article 308 of the Treaty); - for which the transition to qualified majority would constitute a step backwards in terms of integration or acquis communautaire; - concerning military and defence policy.
In its paper, Germany also affirms that "more far-reaching concerns for reform are not to be the subject of this Intergovernmental Conference but could be tabled for future discussions with a clear timescale" (Ed.: some are opposed to the idea of envisaging a new IGC in the short term).