The Hague, 25/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - "The Pros and Cons of 'Closer Cooperation' with the EU - Argumentations and Recommendations": in a working paper bearing this title and drawn up for the WRR (the very influential Scientific Control for Government Policy, in the Netherlands), Eric Philippart and Monika Sie Dhian Ho analyse the arguments for and against strengthening the provisions of the EU Treaty on closer cooperation, making a clear choice in favour of such a strengthening, while suggesting safeguards of a new type that should be of interest to the negotiators in the IGC, who now seem inclined to deal with this issue in the ongoing review of the Treaty (see EUROPE of 19 April, p.3).
In their conclusions, the authors consider that "it is very difficult at this stage to demonstrate that the first round of enlargement will no require the use of closer cooperation" and that the "IGC 2000" offers a "unique" window of opportunity to review the Treaty's provisions on this subject; according to them, it is therefore "preferable (in terms of risk management) and easier" to do so before the first new accessions. The review of these provisions should therefore be on the current IGC's agenda, they say (you may recall that these provisions are currently both in the Treaty on the EU - Articles 40, 43, 44 and 45, for the third pillar - and in the EC Treaty - Article 11 for the first pillar -, whereas in the Dinitrakopoulos/Leinen resolution, the European Parliament proposed gathering them under a single chapter). The main recommendations contained in this report concern:
- Procedure for triggering closer cooperation. The veto provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty should be abolished, but the unanimous decision of the European Council "should be replaced by another type of "emergency brake", i.e.: A Member state would keep the right to suspend the vote for a limited period of time, explicitly referring to important reasons of national policy that the Commission would have to examine within, for example, three months. For the first pillar, the Commission would, on the basis of its own evaluation, decide if the procedure should resume or not, whereas, for the third pillar, it would only provide an opinion and the Council would decide through a qualified majority.
- The minimum number of Member States needed to launch closer cooperation. As we do not know how many members the EU will finally have, percentages are preferable to absolute figures, say the authors, making a distinction between what they term closer cooperation aimed at developing "regimes which could eventually be of interest to the entire Union" (to ensure its legitimacy, there would have to be the participation of at least a majority of Member States) and cooperation focusing on a topic interesting only a group of Member States, like specific environmental problems, for example (here a third of the Member States would be enough).
- Coordination between different groups of States cooperating more closely among themselves. The authors note that the fact that certain Member States will probably take part in all closer cooperation should prevent major problems of cooperation, and note that the Commission would necessarily be involved in all cases of closer cooperation, and that this could be considered as being part of its general coordinating mission within the Union.
- The extension of closer cooperation to the second pillar (Cfsp). The report notes that there are arguments both for and against, but that "the possible benefits of closer cooperation in armaments could be seen as a decisive argument in favour of the extension".
- Inclusion of solidarity mechanisms in the provisions on closer cooperation. The authors note that the absence of such a mechanism has contributed to creating the impression that closer cooperation is an "instrument of exclusion", and consider that general commitment to help, there where it is possible, Member states which are willing but unable to participate in closer cooperation should be inserted in the Treaties (you may recall that Greece has expressed itself along these lines).
- The definition of the status of the acquis resulting from closer cooperation. This question will become more urgent once the first authorisation for closer cooperation will have been given, the authord note, stressing in particular that the Union will then have to tell the applicant countries whether or not this acquis is part of what they have to accept to join the Union.
(Address: WRR, Plein 1813, 2-4, P.O. Box 20004, 25 EQA The Hague. Website http: //http://www.wrr.nl )
