Will the Convention this week manage to move closer to reaching agreement on draft institutional reform of the European Union? VGE's draft made everyone unveil their ideas and arguments. The debate showed that views differ in several important areas, but also awakened good will desiring compromise. Among the hundreds of proposed amendments of the draft submitted to the plenary (already considerably reworked compared with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's initial draft), some want extreme solutions (either intergovernmental or, at the other extreme, federalist), but others made an effort to suggest intermediate solutions.
Unexpected developments. The disagreements that most attention has been paid to are those concerning the Presidency of the European Council and the composition and functioning of the Commission. I get the impression that compromises are being formed regarding the Commission, while disagreement over the European Council continues apace. It's either yes or no to a full-time, long duration presidency, with no other option being admitted. To such a point that VGE threw Romano Prodi the challenge of a public debate, where the viewers would be the judges and the loser would have to pledge to comply with their verdict! This is a spectacular idea, unthinkable a few months ago, that demonstrates the rocketing of interest that this debate is beginning to cause. A debate that at the beginning must have made the man in the street yawn. TV channels and various figureheads have said they are prepared to organise and handle the event. This is an unexpected development which will be difficult to realise but the idea is reverberating.
Barnier and Vitorino express openness. VGE expressed his basic argument: keeping the rotating presidency, in the next ten years the EU will have twenty Presidents, but never the same one twice, which is clearly not ideal in terms of visibility and clarity. The arguments in the other direction aren't bad either. With all his confidence in being able to force "consensus" of differing levels of spontaneity and enthusiasm, if VGE agrees with the idea of the public challenge, it's because he doesn't have much faith in the possibility of striking agreement at the Convention. On his side are all the big countries (Italy finally came over to his formula following some adjustments by the Praesidium) and a large number of MPs and MEPs, against him are the Commission, small countries and most MEPs. I should point out, however, that Commissioners Michel Barnier and Antonio Vitorino, when rejecting VGE's draft, expressed openness: "we would be prepared to continue discussion of any proposal that does not incorporate the above-mentioned disadvantages" (basically the lack of clarity, simplicity, efficiency and democracy of a full-time, long duration presidency, and the risk of overlapping competences with the President of the Commission or the European Foreign Minister).
The Benelux countries … With regard to the composition and functioning of the Commission, renewing their traditional role of mediators of compromise, the Benelux countries have made a significant step in the direction of a Commission restricted in size, calling for a College of no more than fifteen Commissioners, assisted by the same number of "delegate Commissioners" who would participate in the College's deliberations without voting rights. The Benelux document adds: "the Commission has to include a national of each Member State, either as a member of the College of Commissioners or as a delegate Commissioner, with fair rotation".
… and the Commission. The Commission supports the idea of a national from each Member State, explaining that the presence on the College of a figurehead from each Member State will facilitate dialogue with EU citizens and make it possible to better understand the role the Commission plays in European integration. It recognises, however, that a Commission with such a composition will require a radical change in how it functions: "in order to maintain its efficiency, it will have to be able to authorise a group of Commissioners to take decisions on behalf of the Commission". Not enough attention has been drawn to this innovation. It recognises that imbalance will exist if "one Commissioner of each nationality" is not corrected by appropriate rules about modes of functioning (since in four years time, this would lead to a Commission of 21 people from small countries and 6 from big countries).
Institutional reform obviously comprises of a huge number of other elements, in particular the idea close to VGE's heart of establishing a Congress of MPs and MEPs. This idea is still strongly opposed. The debates this week will be tough and instructive. (F.R.)