On the eve of the summit (which will extend the reflection period and confirm conclusions prepared by Foreign Affairs Ministers, as well as prepare some additional indications) we are witnessing two countries, that have been at the centre of European construction since the birth of the first Community, striving to play a key role in relaunching Europe and the Constitutional treaty. France had been put on the side-lines as a result of its rejection of the draft Constitution, and Italy was tailing behind a little, not so much because of any spectacular action, but mainly due to its sometimes reticent attitude and its increasing opening-up to an alliance with the USA at the expense of a deepening of European construction (as well as having a few bizarre ideas on enlargement which would even have included Russia). It is understood that it will fall to Germany to take the real initiative in the relaunch during the first half of next year, when it is in the Presidency of the Council, but Paris and Rome will be proposing their direct participation in the future Berlin initiatives with specific contributions and overall support.
Institutional differences between France and Germany persist. France recently presented some significant national points of view, especially the one the Union's “capacity of assimilation” of accession candidate countries (after Croatia). During their recent bilateral meeting, Angela Merkel and Jacques Chirac focused on the essential character of the German Presidency, which will be coinciding with Presidential elections in France. But one major divergence persists: the French authorities are unable to see any possibility of the treaty rejected last year, being re-appropriated in its current guise and have put forward some ideas on pre-emptive action. The Germans, however, would like to preserve the essential modifications introduced by the Constitutional treaty regarding the functioning of the institutions, particularly that on voting by double majority on decisions taken by the Council (this would finally give their country a role more in keeping with its actual demographic and economic weight). This is why some French ideas on transformations that the EU could introduce, without a new Constitutional text being introduced, have been given a lukewarm response in Berlin, fearful that partial changes could lead other countries into considering them as sufficient and it being no longer necessary to relaunch the whole project again. Speaking about the partial reforms, Jacques Chirac said, “France is proposing them, Germany is examining them”, but he did not dispute the fact that it would be up to the German Presidency to propose a synthesis of the different ideas put forward. Ms Merkel acknowledged that the “capacity of assimilation” represented an important factor for future accessions.
The Italian project. Should we be surprised by the tremors being felt in Italy? With Giorgio Napolitano, former President of the European Parliament's Constitutional Committee, in the Presidency of the Republic, a former President of the European Commission as Prime Minister, a former member of the governing board at the ECB as Minister of the Economy, and at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Emma Bonino, a former Commissioner, the goal of playing a key role in the EU is clear. Romano Prodi's first visit abroad was to Brussels and Tommaso Pado Schioppa immediately affirmed the country's determination to play by the Maastricht rule book. In a less formal but just as revealing way, Italy's Permanent Representative, Rocco Cangelosi used the opportunity of a Round Table, organised last week at the European Parliament (CERVED), to announce the collaborative project with Germany. In the first half of 2007 we will have a German Presidency of the Council and the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. At the 2007 June Summit it will be Presiding, Germany will submit a declaration to be signed later in Rome an which will constitute a kind of “Messina 2”, therefore, a new ambitious programme for relaunching European construction covering both institutional reform (which before 2009 cannot be escaped when Parliament and Commission are re-organised according to rules that have yet to be defined) and commitments on the security of citizens, employment, the environment and energy. This plan, reasserts, with a more precise timetable and better-defined economic objectives, the ideas already suggested by the Commission.
(F.R.)