Wednesday and Thursday next, 4 and 5 December, will be of special importance in the history of the European Convention. 4 December, the countries of the Benelux will submit their common position, notably on institutional questions. The same day, Chancellor Schroeder and President Chirac will meet in Berlin to prepare the Franco-German common position; their representatives within the Convention, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Dominique de Villepin, will take part in the meeting (the document could reach the Convention early next year.). 5 December, the European Commission will present, first to the European Parliament then to the Convention meeting in plenary session, its own position on institutional issues (already amply covered by Michel Barnier; see this section in yesterday's bulletin).
These rendezvous confirm a certain number of significant developments (not to say fundamental) in the attitude of several Member states. Especially:
1. The Constitutional Treaty will be the work of the Convention. The idea that the Convention is essentially a talking shop and that in fact the responsibility for defining the Constitutional Treaty is that of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) is increasingly losing its coherence. The fact that Germany and France should have decided, one after the other, a few weeks apart, to delegate their foreign ministers, is significant. Other participating countries had previously made identical or similar choices before them. We are beginning to understand that it is too late to leave everything up to the IGC; true, it could also be referred national projects, but it's within the Convention that the nitty-gritty is being played out, and those who reject the outcome risk exclusion.
2. The driving role of the "founding countries". The three countries of the Benelux and the Franco-German couple, cited above, that makes five of the six founders of the Community. Italy is missing from the rendezvous: will it be able to recover its place? The progress of the Franco-German couple has made a spectacular leap forward with the joint document on a Europe of security and defence, which proposes to the Convention both political affirmations of principle and how to implement things, notably "enhanced co-operation" between countries interested (the first example would be a European armaments policy and the creation of an Agency in that field), so as to prevent deadlock (this short but fundamental document can be found in No. 2300 of our EUROPE/Document series annexed to the bulletin of 27 November).
The initiatives of the founding countries are not, however, exclusive in nature: they remain open to all. The Benelux countries have made ties with several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially to counter the project of a long-term "president of Europe" designated by the heads of government, which they oppose (as does the Commission: see this section of 22 November).
3. The leap forward of the Community-minded. The aforementioned developments are not simply strategy or games of alliances; they especially confirm the leap forward of those opposing the people who are trying to dilute the Union, questioning Community mechanisms and weakening European institutions. Fernand Herman noted within the Convention "the numeric weakness of the common European interest", which is only represented by 2 Commissioners and 16 members of the European Parliament (of whom 2 are more "sovereign" inclined), faced with 45 members of the Convention from Member states (representing governments and national parliaments), plus some thirty representatives of the ten candidate countries. This situation certainly could have had as result domination of intergovernmental tendencies. Fortunately, that's not the case; certain governments have evolved (see this section of 23 November) and, following an understandable initial period of dithering, the national parliamentarians, seem increasingly aware of the significance of the Convention and the possibilities for co-operation with European parliamentarians. Several are now to rank among the defenders of Community Europe.
4. The United Kingdom's isolation deepens. The outcome of what has come before is that the danger of the United Kingdom's isolation, set out in this section of 19 November, is deepening. The compromise on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proves that most Continentals do not hesitate in distancing themselves from the British stance so as to maintain the support for European agriculture, and the Franco-German document on defence states that in this field (where Tony Blair had the indisputable merit of starting up the engine again when it had stalled) the two large Continental powers want a Europe that seeks its autonomy in relation to the United States. Within a few weeks, the Franco-German stance on institutions risks being an additional disappointment for London. (F.R.)