The advantage of being a small country. The balance sheet of the Belgian Presidency of the Council has been widely publicised to the European Parliament and public opinion and there is no need to go over the details, especially since the Presidencies are not uniquely responsible for either the positive impacts or the failures; I prefer to put forward various ideas, starting with a common-or-garden comment - the Belgian Presidency proved that there is no relation between the size of a country and the success of a Presidency. A small country can make a great contribution to how the Union operates and its success, if it is motivated by a genuine "Community spirit" and a strong political will to make progress. Various factors contributed to the overall positive result of the past six months:
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister (and other Ministers) were able to devote a great deal of time and energy to Europe compared with their counterparts in the bigger countries. What with their visits to Member States and their missions in third countries, Guy Verhofstadt and Louis Michel were constantly travelling on Europe's behalf so that the EU could be present everywhere it was needed. Mr Verhofstadt spent a great deal of time preparing the Laeken Declaration after being equally assiduous in his study of European issues. The united Europe project was not one of his political passions beforehand and at times he gave the impression of a shaky European foundation and being over-influenced by Eurosceptic opinion in the British media, the Santer Commission crisis and the myth of dishonest and incapable European bureaucrats;
The relatively smaller weight of national interests in European issues (a question of dimension) helps small countries in their role as mediators and seekers of compromise solutions;
The positive impact of the learning curve in terms of awareness of European issues, which did not only help improve how the issues are managed, but also helped national positions progress in some areas. Examples of changes in policy? Two pretty spectacular ones are:
Louis Michel's conversion with regard to the European Commission. Towards the end of his term in the EU Presidency, the Belgian Foreign Minister said in an interview with the Libre Belgique of 10 December that it was impossible to consider a mega-Commission after enlargement. It is difficult to organise the College's daily work with so many decision-makers and there is a contradiction in every Member State having its own member of the Commission - the Commission is not a reflection of governments and it is a misunderstanding to imply that a Commissioner represents both their country and something transcending that.
In the Nice negotiations, however, Belgium (with other small countries) had subscribed to the idea of an extra-wide Commission! Louis Michel's response: Anyone can make a mistake. I sincerely believed it was a guarantee states needed (implying "I no longer believe it'). Louis Michel has become wiser and more "Community" oriented here than the Commission itself which did not decide between the formula "one Commissioner per country" and an upper limit on the number of Commissioners (most Commissioners support the first).
Clearly, for Louis Michel, the confused, playing for time and horrendously complicated solution in the Nice Treaty is not the final decision and the Convention can re-open the debate. Which means the Convention will not be restricted to the narrow scope of the Laeken mandate. He was open about this since the journalist asked him whether the Convention could discuss what it wanted or whether it would be bound to the Laeken Declaration. He replied, one cannot imagine forces from the outside applying pressure on the Convention - it will decide for itself what it discusses and will have its own dynamic.
The end of the six monthly changeover? The second example of Louis Michel's change of heart concerns the six monthly rotation of the Presidency. In another interview (in Le Soir of 14 December) he said the question first had to be raised of whether a six monthly rotating Presidency has more disadvantages than advantages for European coherence. If Javier Solana were the head of the Foreign Affairs Council, for example, he would represent Europe's international image. As far as I know, the only person to have so openly criticised the six-monthly change is Jacques Delors, who called it "unrealistic and stupid" (see this column on 14 November).
Which brings us neatly back to the Convention, the big European event of the new year, which deserves supplementary analysis. Watch this space tomorrow. (FR)