While awaiting ratifications. We need to wait for a number of ratifications before officially tackling certain aspects of Lisbon Treaty application. Not because Europe has something to hide, but to avoid creating the impression that the European institutions are intervening in a decision that is up to the people and national parliaments to decide. The opponents of European construction are always ready, experience proves it, to interpret the indications and rumours emanating from Brussels as they see fit and to alert their fellow citizens of the dangers or interventions they are concocting. The debates on ratification of the new treaty are national and must remain so: those intervening in these debates do so in a personal capacity and are not speaking on behalf of the institutions. The new treaty provides new opportunities for deepening and expanding Community construction, enhancing its democratic character, simplifying the way it works, and creating instruments that will enable member states that want to advance to do so, even in new areas, such as defence. It is up to each country to express its wish in this regard, directly or through the parliament it has elected.
It is, nonetheless, indispensable that the right thing is done to enable the new treaty to function efficiently as soon as it enters into force. This is no easy task. Media attention focuses on one aspect - the appointments to posts of senior responsibility in the future EU: the stable Presidency of the European Council; the high representative for foreign policy, who will at the same time be the vice president of the Commission; the new president of the European Commission. Tomorrow, this column will examine the names and candidates being touted. But other aspects are priorities and will largely determine the choice of people chosen. Two of these aspects, in particular, are the subject of profound and sometimes controversial discussions:
1. Stable Presidency's role at European Council. It has been repeatedly said that two possible profiles exist: either a “meetings organiser”, or a figure who prepares and orientates the work and who plays a significant role with regard to external aspects. Heads of government themselves will decide on this when they choose who the person exercising the role will be. The practical considerations on the way the new post functions are already being examined, particularly: a) its administrative staff (12 level 1 officials, around 60 people in total?); b) its salary (aligned with that of the Commission president?)
Another matter, more delicate because it is political, can also be added. Currently, the prime minister of the country exercising the general Presidency of the Council presides over the European Council: what role will s/he have to play then? Will the role of European figure disappear? It is a role that is currently very important. We only have to imagine the role played by Angela Merkel in the creation of the Lisbon Treaty, or the significance for a prime minister of his summit meetings with third countries (for example, with the president of the US) or the significance for new member states hosting and presiding over informal summits.
Alain Lamassoure, who is never short of ideas, has a ready-made formula: the prime minister of the country exercising the rotating presidency will preside over the General Affairs Council. In theory, this is the role of the minister for foreign affairs, but in most cases the latter leaves the room as soon as the discussion on external relations is concluded, and he leaves the presiding of the “general affairs” to his under secretary of state. Jacques Delors, however, often explained that the General Affairs Council represents an essential element to the European institutional panoply, as both a coordinator and mover-and-shaker for the work in all the other Council groupings, and that the weakening (not to mention the disappearance) of this specific Council, represents one of the main causes of the Union's institutional malfunctioning. The Lamassoure formula would put this right.
2. High representative and EU diplomatic service. The implications of the most spectacular innovation introduced by the new treaty are far from being clarified. The new figure will be both Commission vice president and president of the External Relations Council, representing the EU in meetings with third countries. The diplomatic network at his disposal, consisting of Council and Commission officials and diplomats from member states, would be up to 7,000. The Solana experience is incomplete: Mr Solana is not president of the Council or vice president of the Commission. Will the high representative need assistants, which are not included in the texts? What will relations with the European Parliament be like? And what will its role be in relation to the commissioners responsible for different aspects of external policy (trade, development, etc)? This is a dossier that is both complex and quite explosive.
(F.R.)