Romano Prodi was clear. The European Commission takes it for granted that in future there will be as many European Commissioners as Member States. In its "opinion" earlier this year, it set out two formulae: either a Commissioner of the nationality of each Member State, or a Commission of twenty member, with egalitarian rotation. But at his latest press conference, Romano Prodi was explicit: it is the first formula that has won the day within the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), so much so that the Commission itself is preparing a paper with suggestions relating to how such an burdensome Commission may work while remaining efficient.
The Commission has not given the impression that it considers that this move is in itself a failure on the path to reform. Mr. Barnier recalled that, at the outset, there was a majority within the Prodi Commission in favour of it. And Romano Prodi himself justified it for reasons relating to democratic legitimacy: how could the Commission take at times very important decisions concerning a Member State without a national of the State being part of it? It is true that a European Commissioner does not represent his or her country of origin (that is the role of the Council and Committee of Permanent Representatives), but it may seem strange - according to the President - that all nationalities, thus, all sensitivities, traditions, mentalities, are not represented within the institution that holds both the right of initiative for preparing all Union laws, and the responsibility for ensuring that they are applied.
The real danger does not lie there. It is possible that appropriate provisions governing the workings of a Commission of some thirty members allow it to avoid becoming a sort of rather ineffective talking shop. We are waiting with some curiosity and a little anxiety the proposal that Romano Prodi has announced he would be making on this subject. Orally, he mentioned a few words over the strengthening of the powers of the president, important element but not in itself sufficient.
Anyhow, the real danger does not lie there. The danger is that an unbalanced European Commission should encourage the tendency of Member States to further opt for the intergovernmental method. A Commission that deliberates through a simple majority and in which Germany would have the same weight as Malta, France the same weight as Slovenia, all the founding members together 6 votes out of 30, will that be balanced? It is true that such a calculation is false. It is false because, ever since it has existed the Commission has never deliberated on the basis of the nationality of the Commissioners. Let's take a field where the Commission has genuine power: competition. Nobody has ever been able to suspect that the Commissioner responsible for this sector - Karel Van Miert yesterday, Mario Monti today - has been influenced by their nationality of origin; and nothing allows us to consider that this will not be the case tomorrow, with Commissioners with the nationalities of the new Member States. But one has to bear in mind that the Heads of Government, who increasingly seem inclined to consider the Commission to be a body at their disposal, certainly useful, essential even, but subordinate. Tony Blair, Chancellor Schroeder, President Chirac, José-Maria Aznar, and so on, nearly all of them; what powers would they be prepared to hand over to a Commission in which their country only had one vote out of 30? Nothing is over yet, and the "Community method" based on the triangle Council/Parliament/Commission may rely on some convinced defenders even within the Council. But the danger is there, in a gradual slide towards the intergovernmental method, slide that would not even be perceived by public opinion. And yet, what's at stake is a backslide of 50 years. Special working rules are therefore required for a Commission with some thirty members. Even Mr. Juncker should understand this; otherwise, how to imagine that the people can?
Each Member State wants to retain its preferred "right of veto"… The same stakes characterize that aspect of the reform which, according to the Commission, is of most concern, due to a backsliding in negotiations in relation to the point that seemed to have been reached in Biarritz. We are speaking of the abolition of the right of veto in as many areas as possible. Most governments seemed aware of the fact that a generalized right of veto in a Council of thirty would mean paralysis, or a continual game of bargaining and at times blackmail. But for each government there is a "veto" it does not want to give up on: regional policy for Spain, certain aspects of trade policy unrelated to goods for ./…
France, and so forth. Their reasons are often understandable; but the refusals mount up and lead to the results denounced by Romano Prodi: a Europe that would not be able to work. From this point of view, the stakes are the same as that of a debasing of the Commission; stepping half a century back in Europe's history.
All is not clear in the chapter where progress is being made. Negotiations, however, seem to be making reasonable headway on another chapter of institutional reform, that of "enhanced cooperation(s)". Both essential elements seem to have been achieved: abolition of the right of veto (no country will ever be able to oppose enhanced cooperation in which it does not plan to participate), eight countries being enough to decide on the creation of enhanced cooperation(s), if the conditions set are met. Of course, there are many aspects to be negotiated and clarified, and which will, at the end of the day, be determining for the significance of this revised instrument, but the two points cited are fundamental in themselves. It is not certain whether all the governments have the same notion of such "cooperation". It is often repeated that the basis of the text being developed is represented by the joint German and Italian document, but can we be sure that the two basic principles of this document are really well understood and accepted? It is perhaps useful at this point to recall what these two principles are. According to the first principle, rather than "cooperations" in the plural one should speak of "enhanced cooperation" in the singular in order to show that the aim is not to have an à-la-carte Europe in which each country takes part in the kind of cooperation that it chooses but rather the creation of a compact group of countries that move forward together. According to the second principle, these countries will thus make up an "open and functional vanguard". Are all Fifteen really in agreement on these two points?
A puzzle to be solved. The fourth fundamental aspect of reform is that of vote-reweighting within Council, a fundamental aspect in itself but also for the direct impact that it has on the other sections: majority vote, of course, but also the composition of the Commission. The Commission president took a stance in favour of the double majority system (number of States and populations), for reasons of clarity and simplicity for the public. Much could be said on this but it is better to wait for the document announced by the French Presidency, which will clarify the concrete and tangible repercussions of the different solutions adopted. This is indeed an essential step in order to know what is being said and to understand certain national positions. Let us therefore wait until next week.
Ferdinando Riccardi