Doing away with the six-month rotation. Peter Hain, British Minister for European Affairs and UK representative within the Convention on the Future of Europe, has lost no time. He seized the opportunity provided by his Prime Minister's visit to Rome, last Friday, to predict several stances that his country would take with respect to EU institutional reform, over and beyond the statements of principle supported on this occasion by Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi (no European super-State, reaffirmation of the importance of the nation States, etc.). Peter Hain's first point is that the Council should have the central role in defining how European policy is to be conducted. By this, he means not only the ministerial Council but also the European Council, as the Heads of State and Government must represent leading impetus and the "strategic leadership" of the EU.
His second point is: In order to carry out this role, the Council must be reformed. The six-monthly rotating Presidency does not work and will work even less after enlargement. It is, moreover, difficult, says Peter Hain, to imagine that the small countries like Malta or Cyprus could bear the burden of a Presidency, if only economic (EUR 20 million for each Presidency). The United Kingdom is therefore contemplating the possibility of a Presidency that would remain in place for several years, or at least two, and which would take the form of a triad: one large country, one small country and a new Member State arriving with the latest phase of enlargement. He also spoke of another possible solution: the different Councils (the so-called "General" Council, Ecofin Council, Agriculture Council, etc.) would choose their own presidents, who could belong to different countries and remain in office during a period to be determined, and at any rate for at least six months. Would this mean a weaker role for the Commission? Certainly not, is the reply from Mr Hain, who proposes that its current powers should not be touched, as they are important and specific. He also said he could imagine extending the powers of the European Parliament.
So here we have a first look of the position of the United Kingdom, which hopes to obtain the support of Spain, Italy and essentially also of France for these ideas. It states it is confident it will have the backing of several small countries. There are of course too many elements lacking to be able to assess such a course. No-one wants a super-State directed from Brussels. As for the rest, one must naturally clarify whether the "Community method" is entirely safeguarded or whether the British scheme of things involves a slide towards the intergovernmental method. To avoid this, the European Council should be placed in Community institutional mechanisms and procedures. It is possible that the Blair-Hain team, faithful to traditional British pragmatism, has not yet gone into these aspects in any depth. Things will become clearer during the work of the Convention. The idea of having different presidents according to the Council formations has, moreover, already been discussed and generally rejected, as it would remove all consistency from the Presidency in Office, which would not be able to define a coherent overall programme. As for the problem of Council reform, two contributions remain essential: that from "Notre Europe" and the report by Jacques Poos for the European Parliament, on which we have already been into in some depth.
Clear ideas exposed by Mr Lamassoure. Another famous member of the Convention, Alain Lamassoure, made a key contribution to the work of the Convention even before they began. This was done in the context of his activity as Euro-MP, but changes nothing in substance, namely that his report on the sharing of powers clarifies one of the most complex dossiers of the Convention's programme and puts forward several ideas for a solution. Without giving another summary of a report to which our bulletin of 15 February devoted two pages, I would stress that: a) in rejecting the hypothesis of a "sub-Treaty of Nice", Mr Lamassoure suggests a list of EU powers (mainly calling for external economic policy to become fully under Community competence, burying the limping Nice compromise once and for all); b) he calls for the precious European "acquis" to be preserved, which is represented by the growing habit of national governments to work together within the Council, even in the absence of any formal legal decision, and recommends that this practice be extended to new fields (thus strengthening the argument against the idea of making the Council a second legislative chamber); c) considers it necessary to involve national parliaments in all decisions that extend the Community field of intervention (he calculates that Article 308 has already been used to this effect on nearly 700 occasions), and attribute specific powers, as described in detail in his project, to regions that have legislative powers (an idea mainly rejected by Spain, it is known). (F.R.)