Jacques Delors granted Agence EUROPE an exclusive interview on the prospect for the Convention's work and on the conditions required to allow the results of the Convention to be finally considered a success. In any event, the work of the Convention is now seen in a positive light for the building of Europe. Our interview with the former President of the European Commission unfolded as follows:
Agence EUROPE: We are beginning to hear people say the Convention could be a failure …
Jacques Delors: Those who, because of the latest ups and downs over institutional issues, now state that the Convention has not been a success are mistaken. However one looks at it, the Convention has been constructive. Whatever its final result, it will have rekindled the European debate over and beyond specialised circles, and it will have aroused growing interest among national parliaments and prepared for broader debates with citizens. There is a striking contrast between debates by Convention Members and those by diplomats who previously prepared amendments to the Community Treaty. The latter were bound by imperative mandates from their governments and could not budge from this. Everyone knew that, although mutual concessions between Member States were possible, they would not have been placed on the table until the concluding Intergovernmental Conference at ministerial level. In other words, preparatory work had become a fiction that took place within a closed universe. How very different from the Convention's debates!
With the Convention, it has become possible to begin dreaming of Europe all over again, to make plans for the future, to even arouse a certain amount of interest among the European public, albeit an embryonic interest. This result is due to the work done by all Convention Members, of course, but I would particularly like to stress the talents of Chairman Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and of the Vice-Chairmen, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene. The way they prepared and conducted discussions has been a determining factor.
A.E. But will the Convention be able to reach a complete and consensual draft Constitution?
J.D. I cannot predict whether they will reach it or not. If the 20 June deadline is final, then they will not: the Convention would simply have to present principles and, for some chapters, options. One thing I could regret is that the Convention has not managed to prevent excessive toughening of the differences between large and small countries, as, in my opinion, it was the ideal place for pacifying such divergence. A stubborn mule attitude on all sides gets you nowhere. Experience has taught me that the result of European construction is linked to the art of positive, dynamic compromise. Things must be calmed down before the debate becomes a quarrel of prestige, as, when it comes to this level, an acceptable solution is no longer possible.
A.E. At the end of the day, what will be the criteria for assessing whether the Convention is a success?
J.D. There have already been some results that, as far as I can see, we shall not have to come back to, such as the Union's status as a legal entity, the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty and so on. One should not forget that the last IGC had not been successful on these points, so that one could rightly say the Convention has already done the work of two or three IGCs. And then there has been a move forward, sometimes a significant move forward, on several chapters. At the institutional level, the criteria for judging whether Europe is moving ahead lies in a reasonable and effective compromise between the Community method and the intergovernmental method. I say 'a compromise' as, in a Federation of Nation States, no method can take exclusive prevalence. During the long period of time when I was in Brussels, I never requested or suggested increasing the Commission's powers (something in fact which made the federalists come down on me).
The draft institutional reform presented last week by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing does not, even after the Praesidium's amendments, strike a fair balance between the share that must be reserved for the Community method and that for the institutional European Parliament/Council/Commission triangle. Independence, the right of own initiative and the ability to reach compromises are the Commission's essential prerogatives that must be safeguarded. Just as indispensable is flawless cooperation between
the European General Affairs Council and the Commission. What is more, as far as common foreign policy actions decided by the Council are concerned, the Commission must make the means that come under the first pillar (trade, economy, finance, European aid …) available to the Council so that all the assets are in the hands of the Union. The draft on the table considerably impacts on the Community model by making new European institutions gain in power, without, however, sufficiently determining their specific attributions or functions.
A.E. How should one formulate a draft that strikes a balance between the two methods?
J.D. We have to return to clear principles. The European Council is now a Union institution and its task is to determine broad guidelines on the basis of Council and Commission documents. The latter then work together in the context defined by the Summit. In fact, several Heads of Government consider that the European Council should deal with everything, even the implementation of the general guidelines that it has defined. They remind me of the drawing by a famous cartoonist who, after French athletes had done badly at the Olympic Games, shows General De Gaulle wearing a track suit and murmuring: "I have to do everything myself". This, of course, is only a joke, but we must not imitate it at European level. Some Heads of Government say things that are just like that joke, through ignorance or through a lack of knowledge of the past. Others would be content to stop the integration process and replace it with something more flexible and less binding.
A.E. What other principles should be upheld?
J.D. The battle between the large and small countries must be defused. We must become reasonable again. Small countries must not misjudge either the size of the populations or the political and material capacity of the large countries when it comes to diplomacy and military actions, as in the past and even today when it comes to financing the Community budget and cohesion policy in particular (this will again be the case in the near future when the new financial perspectives are being discussed). And the large countries, for their part, must recall the key lesson learned from Jean Monnet: - representatives of all countries, of whatever size, must be listened to, their positions must be respected and taken into account, and compromises must then be sought corresponding to the general European interest. These large countries must give up the idea of being able to define decisions among themselves through institutional tricks of the trade even before the European Council has a chance to deal with them. In practice, the tasks of a stable European Council president, if ever he/she exists, must be defined in a way that prevents any temptation to create his/her own administration or have technocratic power, and he/she must be surrounded by a "presidential team" (which is not Giscard d'Estaing's bureau) allowing each country to alternately take part in managing the Union, according to a formula that ensures large countries are part of the presidential team more often than the small countries.
A.E. What about the composition of the European Commission?
J.D. Realism and experience make me inclined to think that, during the transitional years, each country must have a Commissioner of its own nationality. Experience shows that, for the large majority of countries, the European Commission is the person who reassures, who guarantees that the situation of his/her country of origin is taken into consideration in Brussels, and, conversely, is the person who can explain to the government of his nationality all the ins and outs of each dossier. But this solution cannot be eternal as it poses difficult questions of Commission cohesion, collegiality and functioning. For the transition period, there are solutions for overcoming difficulties, mainly that put forward by Romano Prodi himself. The day will come when the spirit of European integration will have penetrated all countries and when it will be possible to contemplate a Commission reduced in size. Today, this is not yet the case.
A.E. And the Council's method of deliberation …?
J.D. In order to balance the whole of institutional construction, it is important to retain as a criterion for voting within Council that of "double majority" in order to take into acocunt the legitimate interests not only of the large countries (population criteria) but also those of the small countries (criteria of number).
(Interview by Ferdinando Riccardi)