The experience Mr Lamassoure. A few years ago, Alain Lamassoure had chaired for a certain time the Ministerial body of the Schengen agreement and, over this experience he told me: "those meetings without the European Commission, its appalling. There are no documents ready, we do not know how to give a study or ask for a proposal, they look into each others eyes without knowing how to move forward." Mr Lamassoure (very engaged as MEP in the debates of the EP on post-Nice) recently told me that he had no reservations against my quoting his personal experience. The theoretical analysis of the role of the Commission and its place in the Union's institutional balance are numerous and sometimes very qualified and very intelligent; I most certainly will not add one that would be less qualified and less intelligent. I refer a few direct testimonies.
The fundamental importance of the Commission in the European building process is sometimes challenged or denied by political conviction, or by ignorance. The political reservations are normal from those how oppose the principal of supranationality and the idea of an institution independent from governments. Often, the political forces that defend this position recognise the "technical" value of the Commission. "If is ask Brussels for a study or an analysis under a Community angle, I get it in a few weeks, if I ask my national services it takes several months", confided a Minister. In other words: it is useful to have an effective secretariat and a reliable research office. It is a view in my opinion that is erroneous and dangerous, which must be fought, but completely legal. Different is the case of those who do not have objections of principal, but have not understood the crucial role of the Commission. Some times we have the impression that the experience on the field is irreplaceable. How many political personalities arrive in Brussels with pre-prepared ideas, and then discover the reality! Lord Cockfield had been chosen as a Commissioner by Mr Thatcher, say it in itself, and he became the architect of the borderless great market. Closer to now, Romano Prodi had not as Head of Government the opinions which he has today with such force. And Chris Patten understood when here that the fault of certain failings or delays in aid to third countries was exclusively down to the Eurocrats. It is true that the British press is not the intermediary to forge from afar an objective opinion of the Brussels reality. In my experience, it takes at least on year to become a good European Commissioner and especially a good President of the Commission (unless one has already been a European civil servant, such as, for example, Jean-François Deniau, François Ortoli, Karel Van Miert and others no doubt in the past, Pascal Lamy today). The ideal would be for every Head of Government (and Prime Minister) to undertake a one year internship in the Commission. Sadly, the chances that this modest suggestion be accepted are rather slim.
Base of the edifice. The reality is simple: for all the crucial achievements of Europe, the inspiration comes from the Commission. In the fields were the spark must come from elsewhere because the Treaty has not confided in the Union as such sufficient powers, the governments are forced to turn permanently towards the Commission when the time for firming up arrives. In the sensitive fields, the Commission proposals are sometimes first greeted with screams of fury: "we will never accept this". And we finally see, after months and months of negotiation, that the final compromise is a close sibling to the initial draft by the Commission. It is enough to recall the two "Delores packages" on the allocation of financial responsibility and on cohesion policy, the Agenda 2000, the return to the Commission over Schengen and the "third pillar". As for the management of the Union, it would simply be impossible if the Commission did not have the powers that the Treaty gave it; the fabric of a united Europe itself would not have resisted certain tensions both monetary and health related and others, if the Commission had not been able to impose some fundamental principals. The institutional triangle Parliament-Council-Commission is not a theory among others, which could be replaced by a more modern doctrine and up to date; it represents the basis of the Community construction, the guarantee that the EU does not resemble in no way the previous attempt to unify the Continent. This is why the Commission must maintain its independent nature and at the same time be representational, balanced, but taking into account the realities, in the face of danger denounced yesterday in this same section.
(F.R.)