A lot of noise over nothing. In addition to the unanimous political agreement obtained at the European Council on the new treaty (on 19 October) from all member states, the European Council also discussed the future distribution of seats at the European Parliament (an issue linked to the new treaty but subject to a separate decision) and proceeded to a brief exchange of views on reforms to the financial markets.
The question of EP seats provoked a lot of noise in Italy. We can recall that the European Parliament had defined a detailed formula, and member states agreed in advance to accept it if it won a large majority in its support. A comfortable majority was obtained at the EP but there were a considerable number of votes against and abstentions. Dissatisfied with the project, Italy said that the misgivings at the Parliament itself had clearly gone further than a single member state and asked for a revised formula or for the decision to be postponed.
The Italian authorities explained that they did not intend to keep the same number of parliamentarians as France and the United Kingdom at any price, but cited a question of principle: the calculation should not be based on the number of inhabitants of a country but the number of citizens, because the new treaty indicates that Parliament represents citizens and not the country. Italy also said that its misgivings exclusively involved the specific decision on seat distribution and not the treaty itself in any way (which sets out the criteria but not the figures for each country). Romano Prodi insisted that his government had no intention of blocking the treaty.
His explanations in fact, had almost no reverberation: the public interpreted the message as Italy calling for the above-mentioned parity and threatening to use a general veto. A lack of clarity or a misunderstanding? A large part of the Italian press (not just that of the opposition) turned it into a question of national prestige! The most virulent newspaper that set out most demands was that of the business leaders. It said that Italy should not hesitate “to use force” because it was necessary to put an end to blind and ingenuous pro-Europeanism. The government, whose prime minister is a former president of the European Commission, and where a former commissioner, a former vice president of the Convention and several former MEPs figure among the ministers, was called on to behave as if it were the government of the two Kaczynski brothers! The Lisbon summit had in fact decided that the notion of “European citizen” would be examined and while awaiting the result, Italy would have (if Parliament agreed) an additional parliamentarian, in the consideration that the president of the EP would be added to the 750 included in the new treaty. The number of Italian parliamentarians will therefore remain below that of French parliamentarians, which complies with the weight of member states not being determined by objective criteria. France also agreed, without flinching, to ending its historic parity with Germany, and the United Kingdom raised no objection to having one parliamentarian fewer than France.
Political agreement on financial market reforms. The exchange of views on monetary questions was restricted to reaffirming the fact that finance ministers had decided a week earlier to the idea of financial market reform. Agitation was artificially stirred up around the letter from Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in favour of this reform. This letter adds nothing to the results of the previous ministerial debates but confirms British support for demands such as market transparency, risk management, cautious supervision (to be strengthened at European level) and other orientations mapped out at the Ecofin Council and accompanied by a timetable. Formal British support was obtained by inserting a few affirmations of principle into the letter on autonomy and responsibility of financial institutions and market investors (whilst calling for strong regulatory frameworks, see EUROPE 9528). What counts, are the orientations from the Ecofin Council being approved at the highest political level; the European Council will discuss them next spring.
Some Italian press headlines (“Italy rules out agreements on financial markets”) were a simple extension of the polemic about the decadence of Italy's weight in Europe, which, if it exists, derives from quite different factors (public debt incompatible with eurozone management, delays with reforms, bad use of European funding) from the sensitivities quoted above.
(F.R.)