MEP Jean-Louis Bourlanges decried the idea that the IGC posed a threat to institutional reform by continuing along the present road ending in the "birth of a monster". We give the essential passages of his article published in "Le Figaro" on 6 November:
Assuming that the idea of "one Commissioner per Member State" is unshakeable, "access to the Union by the thirteen current candidates would create a situation in which the Commissioners from the States representing 74% of the population would hold only 20% of the seats in the Executive. In a Europe of 35, the Commissioners from the States with less than 10% of the Union's population would hold the absolute majority of votes at the College. With less than 4% of the population, the successor States of Yugoslavia would have as many Commissioners as the seven large States, even though the latter represent over three quarters of the total Union population!
The adoption in Nice of such a system would be: a) historically paradoxical as it would have the effect of amplifying the demographic distortions that reform should be correcting; b) geographically off balance as, through a disconcerting swing of the balance, the former Communist States would have a majority of votes at the Commission; c) operationally absurd as it would transform an executive body supposed to transcend national selfishness in a collegial way into a sort of second government chamber, a doubling of the Council, but voting by simple majority; d) politically suicidal as those who recommend such reform would have everything to fear from the de-legitimisation of the Commission (…). The solution can easily be imagined: it is sufficient not to fix in the Treaty the number of Commissioners and their breakdown between Member States, and to let the normal play of the institutions take effect".