Beyond the consistently valuable information provided, "ex-cathedra", by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (see this section yesterday), the work of the Convention on the Future of Europe took another step forward last week. According to Romano Prodi, "the Convention has changed gear". It is possible to draw some conclusions from the debates on the different institutional points that were discussed because they were both on the agenda and introduced by the Presidents of different work groups, which were giving a review of their progress. By providing a balance sheet of the debates in our bulletins of 13-14 September, I am now going to sum up the results on each subject.
1. Providing the Union with a legal personality. Giuliano Amato, President of one of the work groups was able to announce that all the members of his group clearly supported the idea of a legal personality for the Union and that the three legal experts from the institutions (Parliament, Council and Commission) consulted also favoured this development. This suggests a complete coming together of the European Community (which has a legal personality) and the Union (which does not). The current uncertainty includes political risks that legal experts revealed in detail to the group; in their opinion, the legal personality of the Union could cause the current structure of the three pillar Union to disappear, without the "Community method" automatically becoming the generalised state of affairs.
Members intervening during the plenary stressed the positive aspects for citizens (who would have the possibility of appealing against the EU for any breaches of the Charter of Fundamental Rights if the Charter becomes binding). Mr Amato emphasised the importance of this development in the EU's external relations: today, third countries do no understand why Europe "is sometimes called a Union and sometimes a Community". Speaking on behalf of the French government, Pierre Moscovici supported the idea of a legal personality for the Union.
Commissioner Michel Barnier stressed that negotiators of the Amsterdam Treaty, were unable to reach the same result. This gives us an indication of where exactly between the IGC and the Convention the inefficiency is coming from.
2. Subsidiarity remains complicated. President of the "Subsidiarity" group, Inigo Mednez de Vigo, described the system for checking that this principle was respected, in the way it is interpreted by his group (see our bulletin on 14 September p 3 and p 6). The observations are positive; no call for creating additional institutions; no blocks (by using the veto) or slowing down the Union's legislative process; the creation of a system that can be understood by the public. But the mechanisms that have put forward (the rapid alarm system made available to national Parliaments and opportunity to appeal at the Court of Justice) appear to be quite overbearing. The issue of the powers of the Committee of the Regions has still not been settled given that positions within the group are not the same.
I am not sure whether the detailed description of these mechanisms correspond to the idea of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and stem from the Constitutional Treaty. It's the first area where the desire for simplification clashes with the complexity of the actual Community system. There are others. Some Convention Members observed that a level of complexity would be unavoidable (Mr Tajani, EP) and that, "simplification is not an end in itself and democracy by its very nature is complex" (Mr McCormick, EP) and that "simplification cannot be achieved to the detriment of democracy and subsidiarity" (Mr Heathcoat-Amory, British Parliament). Peter Hain, the British Minister, did not want to see "efficiency sacrificed on the altar of simplification" for citizens were not interested in procedures but results.
3. "Calling a spade a spade". General consensus was gained on one fundamental point: radical simplification and reduction of legislative and regulatory instruments of the Union. There are still a frightening number of them: regulations, directives, recommendations, guidelines, programmes, framework programmes, Council conclusions, common strategies, common actions etc. Giuliano Amato very wisely called on the Convention to "begin by calling a spade a spade. A law is a law". European Commissioner Michel Barnier followed this comment, "Let's name our rules in the way the press often does, which means naming them clearly and in a way that can be understood by everyone everywhere, European laws. The law embodies an act of general and binding authority. If we want to preserve the flexibility of a particular directive, that would be a framework law". If on the other hand, the act were one of essential significance, I would support, like Michael Duff, the expression of 'organic law'. The term regulation will be reserved for the carrying out of current regulations for which adoption is decided in Member States or the European Commission in accordance with the European legislator and the principle of subsidiarity".
Convention Members broadly agreed with these guidelines but qualified them with some minor clarifications.
4. Procedures to simplify. As expected, the rather chaotic state of Community decision procedures encouraged Convention Members to set out a number of rigorous simplifications. Amongst the main demands: a) getting rid of the Parliament/Council co-operation procedure and make co-decision the exclusive legislative procedure (Mr Dini, Italian Parliament and Mr Hänsch, EP). The Turkish Vice Prime Minister, Mesut Yilmaz, also shared this view, whilst calling for the co-decision procedure to be speeded up; b) majority voting on decisions at the Council, Parliament/Council co-decision (Mr Lequiller, French Parliament); c) improving and accelerating the co-decision procedure and in foreign policy, the clarification of the binding nature of common strategies and positions (Ms Berger, EP); d) make the "open co-ordination" that already exists, binding (Ms Van Lancker, EP); e) create a consultative role for the 400 committees which are currently involved in legislative activity (Mr Oleksy, Polish Parliament), or reduce committee procedures, which will remain "partially necessary" (Mr Hänsch, EP). Commissioner Barnier acknowledged that simplifying and reducing the committee procedure was needed but that the Commission had to be able to call on the expertise of the national governments to managed the single market and some common policies; f) getting rid of the distinction between compulsory spending (on which the Parliament has few powers). It is not just the MEPs how often call for this simplification.
5. Right of initiative. This theme directly impacts on the balance of powers between the institutions. Several Members believe that the Commission should not have the monopoly of the right of initiative: the European Parliament also ought to have this right. This request was logically presented by several MEPs but also by Mr Fini, Italian Vice Prime Minister. Nonetheless, at least one MEP, such as Andrew Duff, did not agree; in his opinion the EP had to resist the temptation, fearing that the Council would demand the same right straight away and that their experience of the Council's initiatives left a lot to be desired.
According to Commissioner Barnier, they wanted to deprive the Commission of its exclusive right of initiative because they thought it responsible for all the complexities. In reality, the Commission does not legislate on its own initiative apart from in 10% of case. For the remainder, Member States or European Parliament are responsible for acting (see the report for this debate in the bulletin of 14 September pp 4/5).
Fundamental choices to make. If I have insisted on this debate for a long time, it's because by discussing the simplification of procedures, Convention Members are participating in the fundamental debate on the institutional structure of Europe: the way in which the Union should be managed, the nature of future executive power, the sharing of responsibilities between the different institutions. The convergencies indicated above are important but do not constitute a prelude to what should follow: fundamental choices still need making and opinions still broadly diverge. The progress of the Convention's work has already indicated a fairly large convergence on the opinions on the objectives of the Union; the synthesis of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing clearly demonstrates this. On the other hand, the President is keen to outline some general principles in regard to institutional structures: going beyond quarrels over doctrine between federalists and souvereignists and the community or intergovernmental methods and define a system that combines the two methods into an effective synthesis.
The majority of Convention Members want this synthesis and according to the President, the two extreme theses (of the hard-line federalists and souvereignists) have only a few supporters. But defining what this means appears to be very difficult. We have available a large number of recipes and projects, some of which are quite weighty. Four of them have been published in our EUROPE/Documents series: the preliminary document of the EPP " A Constitution for a Strong Europe" (n.2264); the "Project for the European Union" by the Commission (n.2276/2277); the "Toulemon Project" (n.2280); the European Parliament European Socialist Group's document drafted by Klaus Hänsch (n.2281). Many other have been reviewed in our daily bulletin, the most recent being the "Discussion Document" of Elmar Brok, "Model for a Constitution" by Andrew Duff and the institutional document of Alain Lamassoure. The European Socialist Party's document should be available on 3 October and in mid-October the document of the EPP. Other documents will follow.
While waiting for these contributions and the most recent progress of the Convention (in the work groups as in the plenary sessions) it is in my opinion already possible to indicated some of the guidelines and some of the most significant developments. This section will deal with this tomorrow. (F.R.)