The EPP should think again. The idea of restricting the Council of the EU to a legislative role by making the Commission the "European government" originated in Germany, inspired by their constitutional system;but the European People's Party (EPP) have adopted it as their position and it consequently taken on another dimension. How have the leaders of a political movement to which Europe owes so much been able to lose their way on this point ? And yet, their wording is unambiguous and I quote once again the key passages: "Executive functions should no longer be exercised by the Council. The role of the Council should be one of a chamber representing the Member States and legislating together with the European Parliament. The Commission has to be developed into the real Executive of the Union.", and it should also carry out the tasks currently exercised by the Secretariat of the Council. (see n.2264 of our series EUROPE/Documents). Contrary to appearances and no doubt to the intentions of the EPP, the realisation of this project would in my opinion signal the triumph of the "intergovernmental method" and the end of the "community method", which has been the driving force behind the success of the EU (see this column on December 6, 2001); for two key reasons.
A demagogic and unrealistic construction. The first reason is linked to the composition and functioning of the Commission. Even today, whilst it shares executive power with the Council, most Member States remain fiercely attached to the idea of having one of their nationals in the Commission. If the Commission were to hold all executive power tomorrow (which it has never asked for), no Member State would accept not having representation. Now, in an Institution which deliberates by simple majority and which would expand to up to thirty members and more, the big countries would have negligible influence: Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Poland would together have six votes out of a total of thirty or more. The arrival of the Balkan countries, republics emerging from the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, could add six members if some of the projects for independence take effect: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. The former Yugoslavia would then have in the "government of Europe" the same weight as the six big countries! The same weight as the six founding countries which have been constructing a united Europe for half a century! The result of this demagogic and unrealistic construction would be easy to predict: the Member States would no longer entrust such a Commission with anything other than the daily management of the EU market and some common policies; all the rest, anything new, would be managed by the intergovernmental method. Some Member States, current and future ones, are expecting that. The structure advocated by EPP would automatically lead to the watering down of the Union, whereas the priority aim of institutional reform is precisely to avoid that.
The Commission would not be strengthened, but weakened. The second point that makes the EPP's project unreasonable is that its realisation, far from strengthening the Commission, would remove all its credibility and a large amount of its current influence. The influence of the Commission towards non-EU countries lies in the fact that it generally acts on the mandate of the Council, which means that the Member States are behind it. Of course there are a few exceptions to this rule, in the application of competition policy (which is managed by Institutions independent of executive power throughout the world), in the daily management of the agricultural policy (but on the basis of Council texts), in the financing of regional policy (but the awards and distribution amongst the beneficiary countries is decided by the Council). For the remainder, the Council decides, and is the co-legislator with the European Parliament and the Commission implements those decisions. Even for commercial policy, exclusive responsibility of the Commission, it is the Council which sets the directives for negotiation; Pascal Lamy points this out all the time, because he knows full well that his influence as a negotiator comes from the mandate entrusted to him by the Ministers. In this area the Commission has gone beyond its mandate once, during the Uruguay round (Blair House agreements with the United States), and all the negotiations were in danger of falling apart. Clearly the Commission must retain the right of initiative, a key point enabling Europe to generate results out of these initiatives. But it is the approval of the Member States which gives the Commission to speak with authority.
Several heads of government are already oriented towards the intergovernmental method. Even those who have everything to lose from an erosion in the community method are intoxicated by the idea of European power. And yet this method is the only safeguard against the "big" directories and against the return to the system of alliances. The EPP should think hard before launching into what appears to be more and more supranational power but which would secure the opposite to what it is seeking. (F.R.)