Realism, Jean-Luc Dehaene style. Optimism would be going too far, but confidence seems an appropriate term to define the current mindset of those close to the "Constitution" dossier. I refer not to various Foreign Affairs Ministers and still less to the Heads of Government, whose attitudes and stances are too tactical to be taken literally. We all know the drill: when the time for decisions draws near, each negotiator toughens their tone in an attempt to strengthen their position. This is classic behaviour, and I hope that some of the views of the British Foreign Secretary (who can be quite irksome in his insistence on the "red lines" his country will not cross), and his Polish colleague (who still seems less than amenable to a compromise on the voting procedures within the Council) come under this unwritten rule. I listened with great interest to what Jean-Luc Dehaene said last week, at the launch of a film (highly enjoyable, and at times maliciously indiscreet) on the unfolding of the Convention. He said that he know from the word go that the Constitution stemming from the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) would, on several points, be a few steps behind the draft penned by the Convention, but that he didn't feel these would be serious enough to justify rejecting the whole lot. The Constitution will, in any case, represent genuine and significant progress for European integration, as long as it's not set in stone for half a century, and the door is left open to reinforced co-operation and the option of improving it at a later date. Mr Dehaene accompanied this call for realism with the reminder of a few cases in which perfectionists called for various Treaties to be rejected, because they didn't feel they went far enough, like Altiero Spinelli on the Single Act (which caused Jacques Delors considerable grief), and several people on the Maastricht Treaty. The facts subsequently proved that despite their shortcomings, these texts made a strong contribution to Europe's advancement, and Jean-Luc Dehaene, a man of faith as well as of compromise, thinks that it will be the same for the Constitution.
Reasons for confidence. Bearing in mind this appeal/reminder, I sounded out the state of mind of the negotiators, above and beyond official positions. I noted a certain amount of confidence in a positive result on 17 and 18 June. On the institutions, compromises are being worked out, based on an overall balance between the majority voting procedure within the Council, the number of MEPs per country and the composition of the European Commission. These three aspects would be considered as an overall entity, whose balance would grow from mutual concessions. As for bringing majority voting into new fields, Great Britain would largely find satisfaction. Only the field of "Justice and Home Affairs" would remain controversial, as several Member States feel that majority decision-making is indispensable; in order to achieve the common area of freedom, security and justice, the right of veto would be totally unacceptable. On the Christian roots, the Convention has already gone all around the issue; the current debate is viewed as a" last-ditch struggle".
If this is the situation, it is unthinkable for the Heads of Government to announce to Joe Public that Europe doesn't have its Constitution because of a percentage point more or less in a voting procedure which is impenetrable for most mere mortals. Crashing and burning over the institutional details would mean condoning the view that the power struggle is the only thing of interest to the governments and the institutions, whereas the people's concerns are something entirely different. Of course, the experts and diplomats are quite right to conduct calculations and nit-picking analyses of the institutional formulae under discussion, because the EU's decision-making capacity (voting procedure) and its democratic nature (the powers, notably budgetary ones, of the European Parliament) are at stake in these mechanisms. But reasonable compromises exist, and arrogance is not the best way of achieving them. I was particularly impressed with the way Andrew Duff blew Jack Straw's IGC tactics out of the water, in the hope that Tony Blair will show a different understanding of European negotiations, at the final stage at Heads of Government level.
Existing reflections. It is also significant that talks have started at higher levels about what would happen if once approved, the Constitution is not ratified by one or more countries (see our bulletin of 27 May, page 4). But I don't think that what Jack Straw said (that it won't enter into force unless all 25 countries ratify it) will have any long-term impact. For the time being, nobody wants to give the impression of thinking about a split from the Union, and the only hypothesis retained (whilst rejecting "referendum blackmail") is that the Constitution will be ratified by all. But reflections exist, and will surface if the situation requires it (see this column of 25 May). (F.R.)