Taking the utmost advantage of the rekindling of the "wide-ranging debate". The post-Nice scenario is taking shape along desired lines. Let's first take stock of the attitude taken after the Summit in this section: Nice's institutional reform is pathetic (none for the future European Commission, a backward step for the way the Council works), but the results of Nice as a whole render the rekindling of accession negotiations politically possible, and comprise many positive elements in other fields than the pseudo-institutional reform. The tactic to use should therefore comprise two essential elements: a) resigned acceptance of the conclusions of Nice, to avoid a serious crisis and block further accessions; b) rapid, effective, and, I'd say almost obsessive, action to make something of post-Nice, setting out from the procedures the Summit itself decided upon. Let's take the utmost advantage of the fact that the debate on the goals of European integration has now been officially rekindled, after years of silence, of refusal to discuss them even!
Avoiding the debate on empty words or that may tend toward ambiguity. This general thrust has already been sketched out by the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Giorgio Napolitano (see our bulletin of 10 January, p.4). Over the weekend, the EPP moved clearly along the same lines (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.3 and following), and the President of the Parliament announced the creation of a permanent Parliamentary platform to consider post-Nice. The European Parliament should, therefore, in its stance in March, highlight the shortcomings in the Nice texts and policy errors of most Heads of Government (who created artificial contradictions between national and European interests), without inviting national parliaments of Member States to reject this Treaty but urging them to become actively involved in preparing post-Nice. And, in that context, substantive questions need raising; not so much, in our opinion, over the often empty words and sources of misunderstanding such as "federalism" and "constitution", but over "content" a genuinely united Continent, governed by the "Community method" and not "directoires", capable of acting, of having its voice heard in the world, and of defending its values.
In Northern Europe, there are not only Euroscpetics. It's no coincidence that we turned to the speech by the Belgium Prime Minister dating back to September last, but because, in the second half of this year, Guy Verhofstadt will prepare the "wide-ranging debate" and, in December, chair the Laeken Summit that is to organise work. It was therefore important to get to know his "Vision for Europe" (see yesterday's bulletin, pp.16/17). It no doubt came as a jolt for a certain number of politicians in quite a few capitals (Copenhagen, Stockholm and London, but elsewhere too, no?) in that it unequivocally opts for a solidly integrated Europe, "that has a say and is given a say", with its foreign and security policy, and taking the Community approach. But, in other capitals, they will doubtless welcome the new prospects opened; and not only among a few "older" members of the EEC. In Northern Europe, there are not only Eurosceptics; there is also Finland, whose Prime Minister Paavo Liiponen had also set out his "Vision for Europe" no later than 20 November last (before the College of Europe in Bruges).
While welcoming the rekindling of the debate on Europe's future, Mr. Lipponen expressed his intention of removing abstractions from the debate and providing it with "a more realistic tone", setting out his views on the "radical changes" that would need introducing in the way Europe was managed. He explicitly took a stance in favour of the "Community method", which means a "strong and independent" Commission, an "effective" Council, a "responsible" Parliament. The Community method should be the "basis for all the Union's future actions", as the intergovernmental method "is often ineffective, lacks transparency and provides certain Member States with a dominant position". Mr. Lipponen considers that the European Council may validly insert itself in this orientation, recalling the role it played in the birth of the euro and for the passage of "our old continent into the new economy" (Lisbon programme). When speaking, Mr. Lipponen could not have guessed how the Nice Summit may have turned out: but he was betting on a "certain number of leaders determined to systematically engage themselves in promoting a both balanced and ambitious European integration".
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The most original contribution. Mr. Lipponen's most original contribution to the discussion, however, resides in suggestions aimed at public participation in new developments in European integration, which means altering the working method, exceeding the formula of the classic IGC, idea now largely shared and that the Prime Minister fleshes out (see below for what Lipponen had to say on the subject).
We are now waiting to find out what Parliament will say in March, when voting on the Treaty of Nice and post-Nice, and what the Commission will have to say in its paper on "Governance" and then, more specifically, on the preparation of the "wide-ranging debate" in which the Heads of Government have associated it.
(F.R.)