Convention Members (some of them at any rate) will again be unhappy. Their Chairman Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has once again used the media (an interview with the Figaro on 22 January) to report on the Convention's work and outline his views on various important issues, saying much more than following the Convention's first meeting of 2003 and its final press conference. Who is right? The Chairman speaking to a handful of reporters, or the Convention Members complaining about it? The Chairman could not make many "ex cathedra" conclusions on the debate on the institutions that is only just beginning (without being criticised of announcing consensus that has not yet come into being); at the same time he is right to inform public opinion about his ideas. The Convention Members are not always very happy to learn the Chairman's ideas from the media. I personally am not put out by this situation. The more transparency at the Convention the better.
Assuming readers know about the interview (widely available even for people who do not usually read the newspaper that published it), I would like to comment on some of the Chairman's statements.
1. On a long-term President of the European Council. This is the most controversial part of the Chirac/Schröder plans. VGE confirms his strongly held view that the six-monthly rotation must be ended, explaining its disadvantages - lack of continuity, constant change in the EU's priorities, lack of identification of the acting President "unknown to public opinion". So he thinks the Franco-German initiative is a positive idea that the Convention should pay attention to.
But Valéry Giscard d'Estaing evaded the two most controversial questions, namely a) would a long-term President be President full-time or also be head of government? and b) would he or she have additional administrative staff? As far as the vast majority of Convention Members are concerned, "yes" to both these questions would render the Franco-German plan unacceptable, so I feel that VGE only half answered the question.
2. On the European Parliament electing the President of the Commission. VGE highlighted the disadvantages but ignored the merits. I quote: "the election of the President of the Commission by the EP would run the risk of politicising the Commission. If elected it would be by a majority so there would be opposition. Difficult in such a situation to incarnate impartiality and the European common good. While in the past we had Presidents of the Commission from a socialist or Christian-democrat culture, who remained very neutral in behaviour." Before the Convention, he also queried the option of leaving exclusive right of initiative to the Commission elected by a majority - the outcome of this being to "deprive the opposition of any initiative for five years" (see this column on 24 January).
Is VGE against the idea then? Not totally. He distinguished between elections on the one hand and the designation of candidates on the other, pointing out that "in our countries, prime ministers are not chosen by parliament. They are confirmed or invested by them. I believe it is perfectly legitimate for the EP to ratify the choice of the President of the Commission. The question of how candidates could be selected or presented deserves greater consideration. I believe this is the direction work should take." One might expect the European Parliament to point out that it already has the option of confirming or rejection the Commission. Convention Member Olivier Duhamel has responded to various institutional and legal aspects of VGE's comments (which we will be returning to).
3. On the composition of the European Commission. It is here that VGE's comments were the most detailed, raising serious and urgent questions. The Chairman said: "the future Constitutional Treaty cannot be ratified before the beginning of the term of the next Commission. It is unfortunately not possible because of the calendar. So the next Commission (NB: whose term will start in October 2004) will be the Nice Commission, appointed using current procedures!" If this is so, VGE is right to be worried.
The next European Commission, resulting from the Nice Treaty, would have to be radically modified in
order to function effectively
In describing the pitfalls of such a situation VGE did not mince his words:
"Public opinion will see a situation where there is no connection between the nature of the Commission and the Union's demographic, political and economic reality. Public reaction could be negative, mainly when, for example, the new Member States have more Commissioners than the founding countries. (…) Even the most populated countries have lost their right to a second Commissioner - although this was acquired in the Treaty of Rome".
I feel relieved that the problem of how the enlarged Commission will be composed and work is finally being discussed! I remember having brought the matter up on several occasions, noting that a 25-member Commission voting by simple majority but without radically changing the way it works would find itself in an absurd situation. The weight of the nationals of (small and large) countries who have been building Europe for the past half a century would be negligible, and the large countries all together would only represent an insignificant minority. In the past, VGE had reached the conclusion that, under such circumstances, the Commission should not vote. Today, he affirms that there would be no connection between this Commission and the Union's demographic, political and economic reality.
The response to such remarks are well-known: - Commissioners do not represent their own countries but shed their national character when they take on the European skin. Fine. But such reasoning can only work one way, and one cannot help wondering why all countries are therefore calling for a Commissioner of their own nationality as an essential element for their participation or EU membership, except perhaps Belgium (it is true that, given the hypothesis of a reduced Commission, the representative of a very small country craftily replied that he could not imagine a Commission in which there was not a German or French Commissioner).
A document from the archives. I do not wish to re-open this old quarrel. The Treaty of Nice is in force and will be applied. Even those with undeniable Community spirit and incomparable knowledge of the role of the Commission (I am thinking of Jacques Delors) have come to the conclusion that the States of Eastern and Central Europe must, at least initially, have a Commissioner of their own nationality. It would be politically unacceptable for them, and for their public, for things to be otherwise. Fundamental reform is therefore not for the next Commission, that which VGE has described as the "Nice Commission" but for the one after next. In what spirit?
VGE, in his interview, thus described the indispensable spirit of rectification: "the compromise adopted in Nice has moved away from the role and the nature of the Commission (…). If the Commission is not composed in a way that is conform to its vocation, then it will inevitably be weakened. Those who want it to keep its role of guardian of the European spirit should help it to refocus on its true nature. And its true nature is a number of Commissioners equal to the real functions to be carried out. Men and women chosen on their merit and European commitment by the Commission president, bearing a certain geographic balance in mind". VGE thus, less explicitly, supports the Chirac/Schroeder document that suggests a radical solution: that of not defining in the constitutional Treaty the composition of the Commission but entrusting its president (made legitimate through parliamentary vote and Summit approval) with he task not only of choosing the Commissioners but also of deciding how many there should be and what their responsibilities should be. It is up to the Convention to take a stance, and I have already had the opportunity to express surprise that no Convention member (nor to my knowledge any commentator) has as yet raised this aspect.
Whatever solutions are chosen for the future, the almost immediate problem of the next Commission remains unresolved, as indicated above. To begin with, it will be necessary to take up the document by Romano Prodi who suggested radical reform of the way the Commission works, precisely for extension to 25 members (see our bulletin of 19 June 2002 and this column of 20 June). There was a heavy silence surrounding this initiative, as it did not even please a number of Commissioners. It will perhaps be necessary to bring it out of the archives again, not necessarily in order to keep it as it is, but to open a discussion that has now become inevitable.
What happens to the country that does not ratify the Constitution?. The interview of the Convention Chairman also has the merit of evoking a crucial question which is such a hot issue that many political decision-makers prefer to avoid it for fear of getting burnt: - What happens to a country that does not ratify the constitutional treaty once it has been approved? VGE has said: "In the course of construction, one should always ask oneself what would happen if things were blocked: should it just be accepted or should one go round. In an informal preparatory document called Penelope, the Commission is very firm about the matter saying that the countries which do not ratify the constitutional treaty should no longer come under the Treaty of the Union. I am not saying that. I am simply saying there is a dual legal and political problem that we shall have to examine at the end of the work by the Convention".
The problem has been raised, and the reference to "Penelope" is significant. (F.R.)