Andrew Duff agrees. I feel less alone. My firm belief that the Constitution for Europe should not include all the details on the composition and running of the European Commission is entirely shared by at least one MEP, no less than Andrew Duff. He suggested giving up on the idea of including in the Constitution the number of Commissions and the principle of equal rotation between the Member States (see our bulletin of 17 February, page 5). Article 25, paragraph 3 of the "Giscard draft" would thus be radically changed: instead of the details in the current draft (thirteen Commissioners plus the President and Vice-President, selected under a system of equal rotation between the Member States), it would just say that the responsibility for re-organising the Commission (which will in any case be made up of one Commissioner per Member State until 2009, in application of the Nice Treaty), will fall to the European Council.
Robert Toulemon is inventive (and a bit impetuous). Those with the patience to follow this column know that my great fear, in terms of the institutional plank of the draft Constitution, is the fate of the European Commission. Both the formulae retained by the Convention (fifteen Commissioners with voting rights, others without to reach a number equal to the number of Member States) and that recommended by the Commission itself (one Commissioner per Member State, all on an equal footing) contain serious risks for the legitimacy and authority of this essential Institution. This means that I am open to alternative formula which may be put forward. One of these recently attracted my attention, and I am not surprised to see that it stems from Robert Touleman's "ideas machine", which is particularly inventive in this area. I listened attentively as he presented his formula in Brussels during the recent colloquium of the "European Realities of the Present".
His starting point is to give the Union genuine executive power. As the truth is that the Commission has no chance, for the time being at least, of getting such a role exclusively for itself, the idea is to expand the concept of the European Foreign Minister, which has already been retained in the draft Constitution ("Giscard draft") and accepted in principle by the Member States in the IGC (Intergovernmental Conference). This Minister will have a "double function" between the Council and the Commission, presiding the Foreign Affairs Council and as Vice-President of the Commission. The idea is to give him or her a few brothers or sisters in other essential fields of Community activity: a Minister for Economy and Finance, an Agriculture Minister, and so on. These Ministers would all be members of the Commission, but appointed by the Council and enjoying the confidence of the Member States; each of them would chair the Council in that field. This would give us eight or nine "super Commissioners" with a double legitimacy which, taken overall, under the Presidency of the future permanent President of the Summit, would make up the European government. Thus, said Mr Toulemon (not without irony), "we would be using the blow they thought they were dealing us to European effect". Who are "they"? Those who thought up the full-time President of the European Council and the European Foreign Minister as Vice-President of the Commission, with the intention of reinforcing the intergovernmental structure of the Union.
The positive bit in Toulemon's architecture is that is solves the problem of the Commission at source. It would be dominated by the ten or so Ministers thus created, but these would still have a seat within it, and the Commission would avoid both formulae under discussion, both rigidly subject to criteria of nationality (one by its nature, the other by the inflexibility of the rotation system). Its Achilles heel is that if the Foreign Minister model is retained, the Ministers would be acting as "representatives of the Council". Is there no danger, in this, for the very principle of a Commission independent of governments? Is there no risk of handing the Commission's autonomy to the Council on a plate?
A formula to be looked into. It is clear that all will depend on the way in which relations between the Commissioner-Ministers and the Council would be defined and put into practice. I think that whatever happens, consensus on the Toulemon formula is impossible anytime soon; in-depth and probably complicated negotiations would be needed, because the very principle of multiplying European Ministers is not to be found within the current draft; would we need to include it, or consider its possible addition by the Institutions? In the meantime, I am sticking by the solution I shall in future call the "Duff formula", which is, for my money, the only one capable of not holding up the adoption of the Constitution, the priority of priorities. Robert Toulemon's invention may be invaluable later, to smooth the way, in 2009, from the Nice regime to the definitive regime, which may or may not be included in the Constitution.
(F.R.)