Who wants to see the end of the EU? I am not really in favour of reinforced co-operation outside the Union. This theory may be a strong argument to those reluctant to accept the Constitution, but it doesn't have to be taken at the letter. Leaving the Union framework means the European integration been built up over the last half-century is over. I am not saying this won't happen, just that if it does, the EU will no longer exist. The effect of the warning, even so, remains that countries which believe in the EU, its permanence and its development, must know that opposing the Constitution, they will bring down the whole house of cards. It would be replaced with something else, but so far from the beaten track that it would virtually mean starting again from scratch. Why?
Because neither the Community method nor the European institutions can be transposed to structures foreign to the EU. The distance between the two Europes would be laughable. The only viable way is the one long anticipated by Jacques Delors, which is quietly going its way: a basis common to all (comprising the single market, solidarity, including cohesion policies, and the principle of preserving national identities), with the option of "differentiation" for countries which can and want to go further: mainly (but not exclusively) in the two great future domains which are the Economic and Monetary Union and Defence Europe. This would work by consolidating what exists and leaving the door open for new development. If, however, the new initiatives develop outside the Union, nothing would remain of the latter but a massive free-trade zone in which nothing would be viable, not even the cohesion policy or other common policies such as the CAP (see this column yesterday).
Answer to the Verheugen formula. Commissioner Günter Verheugen recently defended the idea of a Franco-German alliance (which he put forward last year together with his colleague Pascal Lamy), and when asked how this would work, and what its democratic legitimacy would be, he replied by listing the two countries' joint parliamentary and government bodies. But this formula could only be extended to other Member States if intergovernmental collaboration was the extent of their ambition, involving the negation of the Community method, which presupposes the existence of institutions independent of the Member States and procedures to further the common interest.
Answering questions in an interview, the new Belgian judge to the Court of Justice, Koen Lenaerts, immediately prodded the weak spot on the "Verheugen formula", stressing that anything built up outside the Union would not benefit from the Commission's initiatives and management and would not be subject to the Court of Justice. This is by way of saying that it will get no further than the co-operation phase, involving the political and legal uncertainty experience has shown. Such a sharp-eyed and imaginative observer as Robert Toulemon wrote this of the "new entity" that could rise from the ashes of the IGC: "one thing, at least, is certain: the vanguard would not have the slightest chance of sustainable success if it used the intergovernmental method of organisation. At the first sign of trouble, if the differences in points of view or interests could not be put to supranational arbitration, it would lead to a stalemate which the States left on the outside would not hesitate to ridicule".
Do not give in to blackmail. In his letter to European leaders, which we summarised in our bulletin of 17 January (page 4), José Maria Gil-Robles, MEP and chairman of the International European Movement (and thus well qualified to express his views), wrote that the vanguard is a "wrong way", because creating something new outside the Union would entail denouncing the existing Treaties, building a new Union and then negotiating links between this Union and the current EU, calling the Community acquis into question, including the euro. He feels that such a proceeding would have no value as a threat because "a threat which cannot be taken seriously is ludicrous".
Mr Gil-Robles is partly right. Why only partly? Because the EU cannot give in to the blackmail of those who might reject the Constitution. If the vanguard is the "wrong way", then we must, in François Lamoureux's words, acknowledge the existence of the "vanguard's problem", countries rejecting all progress. We are told that those who want progress are not able seriously to envisage the creation of something outside the Union? Very well; but then we require the means to leave those behind who don't want to move. My conclusion remains the same: the Constitution must be approved, with its option of "differentiation" for those who want to go forward, waiting for the others. There's no getting away from it.
(F.R.)