The number of different texts and stances is growing all the time: - contributions by the Members in the work of the Convention; "external" stances from the European Parliament, the European Movement, political parties and non-governmental organisations; contributions from academic circles or seminars; and individual speeches by top celebrities … Each day you find reports on all these in our daily bulletin. I add a few remarks or take account of events that I have personally witnessed.
Between daring and wisdom. First example: Speaking last Saturday to close the seminar organised by "Present European Realities", the "International European Training Centre" and the "European-Germany Movement" (with the support of the Dresdner Bank), Convention Vice-Chairman Jean-Luc Dehaene summarised his attitude to institutional reform as follows:
a) The Convention must seek "broad consensus" (which does not mean unanimity) on a legal text of constitutional Treaty, which includes the Charter of Fundamental Rights. If the Convention simply puts forward principles or general ideas, the result would not have any impact on the Intergovernmental Conference to follow, and the Heads of Government would do as they please.
b) The time is not ripe for integral federalism. By wanting to go too far, you get nowhere. In particular, political Europe must move forward with management of the second and third pillars coming more under Community competence, but "total Communitarisation" of these pillars is not yet possible.
c) The Union's institutions must really be strengthened, by keeping the "double Executive" (Commission and Council) and by safeguarding the role of the Commission against the tendency that some Heads of Government have of transforming it into a Council secretariat.
d) Union powers must be extended, but the transfer of power must be accompanied by adequate institutional powers, otherwise it will just be a façade. The EU must also follow the movement of decentralisation that is evident in the Member States, without bringing acquis communautaire into question.
The realisation of this programme is not won in advance, stressed Mr Dehaene. To be successful, the Members must "rethink Europe" without considering themselves as just acting by proxy. If the Convention fails, enlargement and EMU will happen anyway, but under Europe's failure to act, which will necessarily result in a crisis with unforeseeable results. Mr Dehaene disputes the fact that citizens do not take an interest in Europe. Give them an "element for identifying themselves with Europe" and, as we have seen in the case of the euro, citizens will find their enthusiasm again, he says.
Trade unions participate. During the unfolding of the seminar, MEP Jo Leinen, President of the Union of European Federalists, had defended somewhat different positions taking a stance in favour of a real Constitution (directly addressed to citizens, conferring usual rights upon them, while a Treaty is addressed to governments), and in favour of an institutional structure with, at its centre, the European Parliament (which would itself choose the president of the Commission) and no longer the Council. It is worthwhile also noting the speech by Gloria Müller (German trade unions) stressing that the trade union movement, in her country as at European level, is beginning not only to take an interest in the debate on the future of Europe but also to take part (one speaker nonetheless affirmed that this is not yet true in France). Ms Müller also felt that the representations of the social partners must keep a particular role in the Convention and not be drowned in the large mass of civil society organisations (while closely collaborating with a certain number of NGOs that represent general interests and not sectoral pressure groups). German Federalist Oliver Pahl, for his part, gave a flexible interpretation of the requests made by the Länder aimed at giving some powers back to the regional level. It is not, he believes, a matter of "renationalising" agricultural policy or regional policy, but of better defining the aims and adjusting competences.
Toulemon project would make it possible to … Presenting his institutional project already noted under this heading on several occasions, Robert Toulemon did not object to it being defined as a compromise" (between cosmetic adjustment and the most radical federalist arguments): - stressing that it is effectively indispensable for the Convention to reach a compromise, otherwise its results would have no influence on the IGC that is to take the final decisions; - making a distinction between the bad compromises (that seek to give a little satisfaction to almost everyone) and the good compromises, which mark progress in the direction intended and which allow one to come out of the field of "illusion". He summarised the aims and the significance of his project (summarised under this heading on 4 April) as being to:
1) draw the institutional and budgetary consequences of the general aspiration to extend European powers in the fields of foreign policy, defence policy and the fight against terrorism and against organised crime. Without effective institutional and budgetary measures, they are just empty words.
2) define effective hinging between the intergovernmental aspect and the supranational aspect of the institutional system, by safeguarding the powers of the European Council and of the Council but, at the same time, by consolidating the powers of the European Commission through the creation of a "collegial Union presidency", a Praesidium of five or six members: - whose composition would respect the balance between large and small States and between the main political trends; - whose members would chair the sessions of the European Council and Council, providing a solution to the problem of rotating half-year Presidency, a system that everyone condemns without knowing what to replace it with (solutions suggested so far are "all bad", says Mr Toulemon).
3) introduce, for the Council's legislative powers (House of States, alongside the European Parliament, House of the People), the double majority vote (States and population represented). This is the only solution that the public would find comprehensible and that would be able to overcome the fiddling and the "wounded pride" noted in Nice, with the results we know about.
4) resolve the problem of "differentiation" between the Member States by avoiding pushing certain countries down into a "second category". The only admissible solution is that of self-exclusion. Through its normal institutional function, the reformed EU would define its new projects to comply with its new ambitions, leaving Member States the possibility not to take part in either. It would be up to them to choose, through derogation on a case by case basis.
5) have the principle of self-exclusion already apply to the new constitutional treaty, which would therefore take effect between the Member States that had ratified it. If a national parliament were to reject it, that country would remain outside but would not cause the whole construction to collapse.
Some of the above ideas had already been suggested in earlier projects. The great merit of Robert Toulemon is that he has grouped them together into a coherent whole, and completed them in some aspects (for example, the solution "one parliamentarian for one million inhabitants with a minimum of two parliamentarians per country" would mean that the unpleasant bargaining, of the kind that the EU went through in Nice, would be of no purpose).
Eurosceptics clearly set out their aims. I shall come back to the report by Alain Lamassoure on defining EU and Member States' powers, given the influence that the European Parliament's position in this connection has on the work of the Convention. For now, I wish to draw attention to the minority opinion of four MEPs who voted against the report (or abstained) within the EP's Committee on Constitutional Affairs: Jens-Peter Bonde, Georges Berthu, Daniel J. Hannan and José Ribeiro e Castro. They affirm that "national referenda results and public debate show that increased power to the EU at the expense of Member States causes increased public alienation from the political process. Only by reversing the trend to return powers to national institutions with which the peoples of Europe identify, is a re-emergence of healthy public interest in the political process possible. This can be achieved by slimming down the acquis to cover only issues of cross-border concern, with all other powers being returned to Member States". According to the four MEPs: "of fundamental importance in addressing the imbalance of powers is the matter of control over their distribution. This should be exercised by national democracies. Notably, national parliaments should have a veto right over questions of subsidiarity. Article 308 should be deleted (concerning the possibility of attributing new powers to the Union). Member States should direct the Commission rather than vice-versa and they should also have the right of initiative. And EU Constitution, taking powers away from national democracies, would cause increased alienation. The constitutional agenda shows that the EU institutions are unwilling to address the fact that the peoples of Europe want less not more EU control over their lives".
Once again, the positions taken by the Eurosceptics are clear and their language is not ambiguous. So much the better if there is to be clarity in the work of the Convention. (F.R.)