Rules containing superfluous detail. One aspect of the approved constitution that is particularly weak, in my opinion, is that on the European Commission. The IGC did not dare to include the details that were supposed to be there, namely the number of Commissioners, the date for ending the "Nice Formula" and the modalities for the final phase. Nonetheless, the thesis aiming to prevent these details being included in the constitution (by guaranteeing rights for all Member States through the rule on unanimity for a number of decisions) is progressing; the last example, is the position taken in this direction by the most courageous and attentive MEPs on these issues, such as Andrew Duff. By preventing the insertion in the constitution of a too distant date for the abandonment of the Nice Formula, the door has been left open for possible reforms if agreed to by all, as I am convinced that even the new Member States, after several years of experience "in the field" will agree. The post-Nice agreement has at least two defects: a) the formula is unnecessarily detailed. Why base the number of Commissioners on two thirds of the number of States? If the Union continues to expand, as expected, two thirds will be excessive; b) the "equal rotation" principle is maintained, with dangerous repercussions, even if it is apparently made more flexible by the obligation of satisfactorily reflecting the geographic and demographic situation of Member States. The text, nevertheless, says that the Council will be able, by legislating at unanimity, to amend this mechanism. It will have to do this at a certain moment.
Risks of weakening due to lack of democratic legitimacy. The immediate danger is that of a Commission becoming weaker during the period for applying the Nice Formula, due to the imbalance between the big, small and medium Member States. Ignoring the current period of several months with a college of 30 members: the Commission is going to increase from the previous 20 Commissioners (with a distribution of 10 original Commissioners from the big countries and 10 from the small and medium) to 25, 19 of which have the nationality of the small and medium countries, 6 of them barely coming from the big countries at all. And this will last around ten years. Two or three (indeed more) additional Commissioners from the small and medium countries will arrive en route!
I know that the Commissioners do not represent their countries. but if this was really acknowledged, the vision of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing should be embraced, who when displaying the Union charter erased the borders and called for fifteen or so Commissioners to be chosen on an non-national basis.
Mr Juncker's reasons for saying "no". How should the lack of democratic legitimacy and authority at the Commission be tackled? There are three possible remedies: revision of how it works, creation of "horizontal" vice presidents, appointment of a someone who is undisputedly the right person for the job. We therefore, now come to the painful point on which heads of government failed last week: the choice of Romano Prodi's successor. I announced my choice in this section on 16 April: Jean-Claude Juncker, and gave my reasons. But he has confirmed that he does not want the job. There are two possible explanations for his refusal. Firstly, the reason he gives himself: his desire to respect his commitment to remain at the head of his country, a promise made to the voters. This loyalty to respect his promises is honourable but this could change if his electorate itself asked him! His party could, following opinion polls and appropriate contacts with the grass roots, arrive at the conclusion that the Luxembourg people approve and support the candidacy of their prime minister for the presidency of the Commission. I believe that such a consultation is possible, the "yes" vote could be obtained because the small countries know that a strong and well led Commission is more important than having an excellent prime minister respected by his peers.
There is also a second explanation for Mr Juncker's refusal: having a knowledge of how the European Council works, which is much broader than anyone else's (he's a head of government with the longest experience in this domain), he understands that beyond the rhetoric and the affirmation of principle, a structurally weak Commission would not be able to preserve its authority and prerogatives: its competencies would be undermined and real power would increasingly shift to the Summit and Council. He would prefer to reserve his future of Europe for the multi-annual European Council, which will come into being once the constitution enters into force. If this is the case, Juncker's "no" will be definitive and it will be necessary to think of another solution.
As far as I can, I am attempting to reflect (while taking into account the refusals of Verhofstadt, Dehaene, Chris Patten etc) and will do my best to reach an opinion on this matter. When I do, I won't hide it from my readers. (FR)