Confirmation and surprise. A certain number of elements confirm what was already more or less known, but there are also a few surprises. By this I mean the paper for the Convention that the European Commission will formally approve next Thursday, 5 December, and that President Prodi will present the same day to the Convention Members meeting in plenary. Michel Barnier, who represents the Commission at the Convention (with Antonio Vitorino), largely predicted the content when speaking at the Madariaga Foundation. He also expressed his personal stance on a point for which the Commission will no doubt not approve him (that of the Commission's composition). He mainly confirmed his proposal to create the post of "Union Foreign Affairs Secretary", a sort of Foreign Secretary who will also take on the functions currently shared between High Representative Javier Solana and Commissioner Chris jPatten. He confirmed opposition to having a "President of Europe" nominated for five years by the Heads of Government, and specified that the Commission is in favour of the current system of two separate presidencies for the Council and Commission, as, he says, there would be confusion between their respective roles if they were to be merged.
Three "audacities" to be safeguarded. The point of departure is an act of confidence. The EU may respond to the political challenges that are ahead of it by safeguarding a single and coherent institutional framework and by using the redirected "Community method", with a number of specific arrangements and flexibility. Innovations envisaged would make it possible to maintain the three "institutional audacities" which are a feature of the Union's institutional structure, namely: a) power sharing according to a scheme (which is not the traditional scheme of Montesquieu founded on power separation) in which the legislative power is shared between the Parliament and the Council and the executive power between the Council and the Commission; b) safeguarding of the role of the Commission as an expression of European general interest; and c) balance between the most populated and the least populated States (the latter with a weight that is clearly higher than the size of their population).
Demands. The future constitutional Treaty must be simple (understandable to school children) and solemn (being a political founding text). According to Michel Barnier, it should:
- safeguard the achievements of 50 years of European integration. This implies that the Union's common policies should be cited in the constitutional part of the text, not in order to define the content but to reaffirm and consolidate the existence of it;
- avoid the rigid nature of power classification as Europe must have the possibility of being flexible in a world that is undergoing continual change;
- and reaffirm the aim of an "organised political entity", which makes "an exit clause" necessary and a formula for close association for States that do not rally to the constitutional Treaty.
Reform of the institutions respecting the Community method. No surprise as far as the first side of the institutional triangle, that is the Parliament, goes: what Mr Barnier announced corresponds to what everyone recommends, namely codecision (with Council) in all legislative activity, review of the method of election so that MEPs are closer to their voters, and "European lists" for part of the MEPs, in order to develop democracy at European level.
The positions relating to the Council (including the Summit) come as more of a surprise. The long term "President of Europe" formula being rejected, half-yearly rotation would be maintained for the Summit (given the symbolic and didactic significance that the European Council Presidency plays in the current Member States and will play in the future Member States), for the General Affairs Council (mainly because of its task in preparing the Summits) and for the Committee of Permanent Representatives (which are too linked to the "general" Council not to adopt the mechanism). For foreign policy and the "external visibility" aspect, the solution would lie in the Foreign Secretary mentioned above, who would depend directly on the European Council but who, being at the same time Vice-President of the Commission (with ad hoc rules of collegiality) would have appropriate instruments for conducting coherent foreign policy. The Presidency of the other Council formations would have a more stable nature according to arrangements to be specified (designation of the Council president himself, presidential teams, etc.).
As far as the Commission is concerned, Michel Barnier reaffirmed his personal preference for a smaller Commission "in order to safeguard collegiality and the legitimacy of an institution that cannot claim to exercise quasi-federal executive powers while having an intergovernmental composition". If the Commission chooses the solution of "one Commission of the nationality of each Member State", then the methods for the functioning of this enlarged Commission remain open. (F.R.)