In their meeting in Vienna, Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs from Member States cleared the way a little for the Heads of Government, who in two weeks will be striving to define a way ahead for the Union's Constitutional re-launch. What were the orientations sketched out by the Ministers? The main thrust of them that I've retained, are based on report-backs from Ministerial debates (see our bulletin 9200) and on indications from different sources.
A. Extend the reflection. The reflection has to continued because there no other formula for re-launching the Constitutional project has obtained unanimity; divergences persist. As for the details, Ministers wisely renounced any setting out of new deadlines. The June 2007 deadline was not realistic (the German Presidency of the EU would have just had the time to propose its views and the new President of France will have barely started work). The link between the 2009 deadline (new European Parliament, new Commission) were, however, taken into consideration. 2010 appears to be on the horizon.
B. Safeguard the contents. The more or less official objective is to safeguard “the contents” of the Constitutional Treaty, the main principles, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the improvement of institutional performance, which everyone agrees with. But no agreement exists on one or other of the three main options that are theoretically possible: maintaining the Constitutional Treaty as it is; leave it for dead; or keep some aspects of it and abandon others.
C. Changing its name. The term, “Constitution” appears to have been practically abandoned. There is talk of the Constitutional Treaty (in a reference to the formula that exists in Germany) of the Fundamental Treaty. Jacques Delors' thesis according to which we should not mention the Constitution, a concept which in several countries has a significance that is reserved for nations alone, would therefore begin to prevail after being neglected for so long.
D. Early introduction of institutional reforms. The required deadline for providing Europe with its Constitutional Treaty could be used for the early introduction of some institutionally innovative aspects that the current draft contains. But it has been made quite clear that the possibility of early introductions in this respect should not involve the abandonment of the overall institutional structure. This is in response to a concern expressed by Germany (supported by other Member States), which fears that a few hasty improvements, possibly with the text that is currently in force, would lead to the abandonment of the overall structure defined in the constitutional project, particularly with the principle of the “double majority” (states and population) for Council decisions reached at majority voting.
E. Renewing Europe's image with concrete accomplishments. It is imperative that the intervening years before the Constitutional re-launch, are used for proving to the public how European construction is to the benefit of citizens and economic development. According to several Member States, this is really the crucial challenge. Citizens too often have a warped and mistaken image of what Europe's all about and are unaware of its achievements and advantages. In this connection, Europe is, in effect, not very efficient and it needs to straighten itself out and obtain concrete and real results. If this task is successful, the Constitutional re-launch will be better understood.
F. Assimilation of future Member States. The reflection demanded, particularly by France, on the Union's capacity to assimilate new Member States in the future, has been accepted. The terms “capacity of absorption” continues to be used (even in our bulletin) to express this concept, even though they do not figure in the text of the “Copenhagen criteria”, which refer to assimilation and not absorption. On this point, remarks made by the French authorities fell flat: the English term again takes precedence. But this detail is secondary compared with the substance, implying that significance of the demand that future enlargements respect the Community acquis, including common policies (and that they won't be used to get rid of the CAP, structural and regional policy) will finally be examined. The French draft says that the debate on future enlargements is “closely linked to the debate on the future of the Union's common policies and their funding”.
The orientations that I have tried to summarise will be submitted to the Heads of Governments on 15 June and we will be able to see to what extent the latter agree on them. Some of them have already expressed their views quite broadly. I'll be looking at these tomorrow. (F.R.)