The initiative of the French member of the Convention William Abitbol of proposing a "European Award" (in his own way, see below) has been emulated, and I too shall take part in this little game regarding the Convention and related work, maybe inviting readers to make suggestions in turn. Here is my first list of "European Awards 2002":
1. Award for imagination to Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Convention chairman, for his definition of those who don't understand that the first Constitutional Treaty needs to find a balance between Europe of the people and Europe of Nation-States: "Those whose heads are too narrow to bear the two lobes of the brain - the left lobe, emotional, that of the union of peoples, and the right lobe, store of memory, that of the survival of Nation-States - would scupper the project".
2. Award for distrust to Andrew Duff, British member of the Convention, for this reaction to the idea of attributing to the High Representative for CFSP the post of European Commission vice-president: "a good recipe for creating poor relations between him and the president of the Commission, it would be a Council cuckoo making its nest in the Commission".
3. Award for elegance (clothing) to Chris Patten, European Commissioner, for the following reaction to the proposal (accepted by the Commission) of unifying the roles of High Representative for CFSP and European Commissioner for External Relations, allocating him or her with a double cap: "the cap would be very big, it would require a big head"
4. Award for sincerity to Noelle Lenoir, French Minister of European Affairs, for the following description (before her country's Senate) of her first experiences in search of common positions with the United Kingdom: "Regarding the Franco-British link, the dialogue is complex. For the rest, the United Kingdom demands common positions, but is in a delicate position. We organise many discussions but see no tangible rapprochement".
5. Award for causticity to an anonymous member of the Convention who provided the following description of the "Giscard d'Estaing method" of chairmanship: "If a speaker expresses disagreement courteously, Valery Giscard d'Estaing accepts the courtesy. If another expresses disagreement vociferously, he remembers the vociferation. If others approve his ideas, it's a significant consensus. When they don't agree, it's a consensus. When 40 successive members disapprove, the consensus is going in the right direction". Shared award to Alain Lamassoure, Convention member who, for his part, described reactions to the chairman's style as follows: "faced with Giscard d'Estaing, there are two types of people, those who are irritated but fall under his charm and those who fall for his charm but who are irritated".
6. Award for understatement to Valery Giscard d'Estaing, already rewarded (see point 1) for his answer to the question put to him by Antonio Tajini MEP over the idea of he himself taking part in the intergovernmental conference which is to decide on the outcome of the Convention: "I agree that you should propose it".
7. Award for optimism to Pierre Moscovici, former French Minister of European Affairs and former member of the Convention, who, to the question as to whether a positive outcome from the Convention could be placed back into question by the intergovernmental conference, replied: "Should the Convention reach a consensus, how to imagine that States, which took part in the work, should place it back into question? The IGC will, in a way, already have taken place within the Convention".
8. Award for incomprehension to William Abitbol, member of the Convention for having given his "European award for stupidity" to Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, who had declared that "EU enlargement will cost 25 euro a head, the second world war cost a lot more". Verheugen's statement finds its significance if interpreted as an allusion to the fact that the second world war was first an intra-European war, that's to say one of those wars that the creation of the EC rendered impossible, and that the forthcoming enlargement will do the same forever for the countries joining. Mr. Verheugen's statement was therefore a discreet but very appropriate reminder of a fundamental truth of the effects of European integration, which at times we choose to forget or misunderstand.
(F.R.)