An ambitious project. Finally a Plan B that is worthy of the name! Andrew Duff, MEP of the Liberal Group (ALDE) is more ambitious than President Josep Borrell. In his speech in Bruges, the latter said: “I have no Plan B up my sleeve” (see this column in our bulletin No 9289). Mr Duff, on the other hand, sets the tone from the very start in the title to his pamphlet: “Plan B: How to rescue the European Constitution”. The essential content of the plan was summarised by Albin Birger in the above-mentioned bulletin. It is a very ambitious plan. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, General Secretary of “Notre Europe”, has pointed out that his association considers it useful to publish it to help revive the constitutional debate but “without taking all its proposals on board”. One can understand her as its proposals go a long way.
Three eloquent examples. Judge for yourselves from the three following examples:
a) According to Mr Duff, the Union's financing reform should be included in the revised constitutional treaty, and therefore defined and negotiated with institutional reform.
b) He suggests creating a new category of EU Member States: the “associate” members, a formula that would be open not only to candidate countries that do not fully meet the set criteria but also to current Member States that no longer wish to be subjected to “obligations arising from full Union membership” (orally, he named the countries that would prefer not to accept the constitutional treaty). His text specifies that the associate states would not be represented in the Community institutions.
c) Mr Duff suggests a new negotiating method for partial revision of the constitutional draft treaty of 2004, that is, a sort of “constitutional codecision between Parliament and Council “ that would allow the European Parliament to intervene at any time in the process of developing the new text (if the hypothesis of a new Convention is not retained). The texts would be shuffled backwards and forwards between the inevitable Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) and the EP, establishing a “conciliation committee” between them. Andrew Duff explains that, in so doing, the quality of constitutional amendments will rapidly increase and global democratic consensus will have more chance of appearing.
I do not say that these are bad ideas but they are so innovative that it would be hazardous to imagine that they can be approved easily and rapidly.
Why make this preliminary remark? Because I have the impression that Mr Duff's Plan B will, if approved, take time, a great deal of time, when nearly all observers feel that, under the current circumstances, time is an essential element in the sought-for revival of the debate. I shall come back to this later.
Demolition of the projects on the table. Andrew Duff starts by stating that “ratification of the existing constitution has now encountered insurmountable difficulties” as France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom cannot ratify it (for the first two the reason is clear, for the British an explanation would, I believe, be appropriate) and several other Member States show no progress. His conclusion is radical. He believes that, to rescue the Constitution, it must be modified - that there is no other choice open. The options being discussed at present do not find grace with Mr Duff. He naturally regrets that all constitutional ambition has been abandoned as, he says, without the Constitution, Europe will lack internal coherence and external force, and the transformation of the Union into a more mature, post-national democracy will come to a halt.
The solution of negotiating a whole new project after the European elections in 2009 should be rejected as the result, he believes, would be certainly less promising and because one should not go back to point zero.
The hypothesis of a mini institutional treaty to be defined and ratified very rapidly is, he believes, unrealistic, in that he sees the 2004 text is a broad compromise based on a series of mutual concessions. The choice of any one aspect would destroy the balance so carefully put together, by accentuating the “crisis of confidence” between Member States instead of easing it. If one asks the 27 governments to set out their preferred aspects of the text, “there will be no fewer than 27 different responses”, he points out.
According to Andrew Duff, the speedy adoption of generally accepted institutional changes and the promise of getting the whole lot adopted at a later date is unfeasible because who could really believe that every government would keep its word to adopt the whole draft at a later date?
He is just as decisive about the idea of scrapping Part III and keeping Part I because it is the third part which sets out the political objectives arising from the domains of EU competence listed in the first part - new legislative procedures, rules governing the new EU foreign office, and extending qualified majority voting (qmv) at the Council, all of which is set out in Part III. He believes the oft quoted statement that Part III simply reproduces measures already in force is wrong.
Duff feels that the idea so attractive to a number of German politicians for setting up a federalist hard core of states is premature, to say the least. (According to Belgian prime minister Guy Verhoftstadt, the eurozone could be the hard core.)
Plan B suggestions. It cannot be denied that he makes a good and pretty convincing job of demolishing other people's arguments. Having done so, Andrew Duff outlines his own Plan B.
There are three sections - 1) seeing the first part of the current draft as set in stone; 2) accepting the second part too as it is (the Charter of Fundamental Rights) but removing it from the Constitution as a separate piece of legislation; and 3) renegotiating some areas of the third part.
He explains that the two first parts should be left out of the renegotiations because it's absurd to start again from scratch where there is no real controversy: 'The 2004 text must be ring-fenced where the consensus that lay behind it still holds good.' Perhaps rather naively, Andrew Duff says 'the renegotiation must be judicious, tactical and modernising' and stresses the limited nature of the few amendments he recommends. In reality, it's a long, radical and innovative list. I quoted three significant examples above.
First on Andrew Duff's list of amendments is the autonomy of the eurozone, which would allow a more coherent economic policy to be pursued and greater budget discipline. Eurogroup would become the first area of 'strengthened cooperation' (amending the current measure whereby monetary policy cannot be decided upon in this way) and adding the Stability Pact principles to the constitution. At the same time, the Lisbon Strategy objectives would be added to the next text, setting out in a clear and detailed manner how power is to be shared among Member States and the EU. The European Commission would be given greater powers to control how the Lisbon Strategy is applied by the Member States and the European Parliament would be given new responsibilities to control the way the European Commission uses its greater powers.
On the four other areas to be renegotiated, I refer readers to the summary by Albin Birger quoted above. Duff also suggests Part III could later be amended using a simplified procedure, foreseeing that the amendments would come into force once ratified by four-fifths of Member States representing two thirds of the population of the EU.
Margot Wallstrom is right. Readers will have understood the substance of my main comment - Andrew Duff's Plan B would require huge renegotiation. His statement that he is only suggesting a few relatively minor updates is an illusion. The Vice-President of the European Commission, Margot Wallstrom, said the same thing (in a slightly more diplomatic way) when she gave her initial reaction to this Plan B (see yesterday's newsletter) in the heat of the moment, mentioning the tough and intense negotiations that would be required to reform the way the EU is funded and for some of Duff's avant-garde ideas (on the Eurogroup and a social protocol), but what is required is a solution that can be operational in a realistic timeframe. Listening to her, I have the impression she favours the idea of a mini institutional treaty because she mentioned keeping the European Foreign Minister as a starting point, along with new rules on majority voting, the President of the EU, increasing the amount of legislation covered by co-decision and popular initiatives (which are all institutional areas). In this frame of mind, Andrew Duff's seductive innovations would not be so urgent.
In the debate, Andrew Duff admitted that he did not know how long his suggested review would take, but said the EU now had some experience in the matter and one couldn't wait for the United Kingdom to accept a simple institutional treaty without any review of the common policies the UK has been calling for for years now (clearly hinting at the Common Agricultural Policy). I am perplexed at this comment. In a root and branch renegotiation, all Member States (not just the UK) will make their own demands and I don't see why British demands should get special treatment.
(F.R.)