It's not the time. That's my conclusion over whether or not we should start work, at Community level, on two issues European institutions are wondering about, which are:
A. Beginning the debate on the future funding of the Union. The current regime will expire in 2006 and negotiations over renewing it will doubtless be difficult and at time unpleasant, as those that preceded it. Difficulties are already being anticipated by some preliminary stances. Some of the most powerful German Laender have come down in favour of sweeping re-nationalisation of the common agricultural policy (and the expenses stemming from it) and a radical reduction in ambitions (and of the budget) of the structural policy. A Dutch Memorandum, concerned at the cost of enlargement for the CAP and regional policy, reaches the more or less similar conclusions. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, on the other hand, considers it obvious the current size of the EU budget to be inadequate to meet future challenges, and the President of the Commission and several Commissioners say nothing other; the person responsible for regional policy, Michel Barnier, has even indicated a percentage that he considers to be an essential minimum for the cohesion policy of the enlarged EU.
Clearly, we shall not be able to avoid a bitter confrontation in which not only the financial concerns of Member States but also the psychological reactions of public opinion will play their role, heated by the excessive, and to a large extent unjustified, polemics of the past few years over the "net contributor" countries. If I believe that the debate on these matters has not to begin now, it's not to delay a confrontation that will in any case be unavoidable, nor is to simply to allow for its being better prepared, in a more serene atmosphere, but for a reason of substance: as far as I'm concerned, the amount of "financial solidarity" between Member States must depend on the type of Union that will emerge from the forthcoming Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference to follow.
We sometimes read comparisons between the federal budget of the United States and the EU budget, to criticise the latter's exiguity (the more severe sometimes being the very ones who are against the EU being a Federation!); in fact, the European budget will never reach the level of the federal budget of the United States as it's not the EU's goal to be a super-State. The link between the nature of the EU and the size of its budget will nevertheless, when the time comes, have to be recognised, as the word "solidarity" cannot only cover the financial aspect. Thought will have to be given to this both in Member States (in Ireland, for example) and candidate countries (Poland, for example). The budgetary debate should thus begin once the outcome of the reflection and negotiations over the future ambitions of the future Europe is clearer.
B. The political colour of the President of the European Commission. The idea of linking the appointment of the President of the Commission to the outcome of European elections is making headway, so as to enhance the institution's democratic legitimacy and visibility amongst the public. But, in this hypothesis, other questions immediately arise: if the president comes from the majority political group in the EP, will he or she have to act in accordance with this group's political programme and doctrine? Will the Commission as a whole have to belong to the same colour? And should there then, faced with the majority, be an opposition within Parliament?
For the moment, my answer is no, as this scheme of things seems to me incompatible with the concept of a Federation of Nation States and with the rejection of a super-European State. In the perspective of increased integration (that is to say a gradual increase in competencies "placed in common" in the European context), Member States governed by a majority of the opposite colour would be sidelined. How would a politically committed Commission define the "European interest"? According to Michel Barnier, it would even have to renounce taking decisions in matters of competition, which would then be delegated to an autonomous "authority". Politically, in case of majorities being overturned in large Member States on the occasion of national elections, the situation would be unsustainable: the "politicised" Commission would, within the institutions, find itself faced with a majority of governments of the opposite colour. It thus seems to me indispensable that the Commission retain within its composition a balance between the different political persuasions and that its guidelines not be dictated by the political colour of its president (even though it is impossible to make an abstraction of this), but by the fundamental principle of European interest. Is it appropriate today to overburden the institutional debate with elements that are not yet topical? (F.R.)