IGCAWAR

27/2/2004

Comment by Peter Sain ley Berry:

Europe Braces Itself For Multispeed Progress

A lesser known consequence of the ill-starred Treaty of Nice was to kill off the ambulatory European Council. Every three months heads of European government used to meet in a great circus that toured the principal cities of the Continent, according to which country held the rotating six month EU presidency. European agreements could be traced to the city in which they had their birth - Nice itself, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Rome - but also Lisbon, Tampere, Dublin, Edinburgh, Laeken - and so on. It was a little like a royal progression of yesteryear, only rather more rushed.

All this made the EU more interesting as well as extending Hans Citizen's knowledge of geography. But it was expensive - intolerably so for the smaller member states in these times of raging insecurity and terrorist threat. Moreover, communications with the north of Sweden or the south of Spain, whether for journalists or politicians, were not always easy. So the Nice treaty provided that member states need only host one summit in every two until the date of the Union's enlargement after which all European Council summits would be held in Brussels.

Which is where on the 25th and 26th of March the next European Council will be held, with Ireland in the Chair as current President of the Union. The agenda is as full as ever. There is the international situation to review, dominated these days by the Middle East and Afghanistan, but also embracing West and Central Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere. As the world's largest trading bloc and with, after 1 May, one in twelve of the world's inhabitants residing within its borders, the Union has to look out as well as in. This is where a single European Foreign Minister - as suggested in the draft Constitutional treaty - would be helpful.

Nevertheless it may well be domestic issues that prove the thorniest. Under an economic strategy decided at Lisbon, the Union aims to have the most competitive economy by 2010 - knowledge driven and growth oriented. Yet growth is tepid over much of the Continent, held back - or so many would have it - by vested interests and regulations that require urgent reform. The other major domestic issue - the procedure for settling the EU's next six year budget - is likely to be even more controversial with questions raised about both the size of the budget as well as its distribution between old and new member states.

With such an agenda will anyone want to listen to the Irish report that will assess the prospects for reconvening the Intergovernmental Conference on the EU draft Constitutional treaty? More important, with the divisions inevitably excited by such wide international, economic and finance issues, will the Irish ever be able to deliver the prospect of the compromise necessary for the European Constitution ever to be agreed?

All member states - with the possible exception of the United Kingdom - pay lip service to the value of the Constitution. Indeed few would disagree with Mr. T. O’Malley TD, an Irish Minister of State, who explained the logic concisely.

"The draft constitutional treaty recommended by the Convention is a simple document. It draws together the existing complex treaties into a single logical text. It uses plainer language. It incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights, with a clearer description of its scope and application. It describes clearly the distribution of competences, or powers, between the Union and the member states. Significantly, for the first time the text contains a clear statement of the fundamental principles under which the Union must operate. Under the principle of conferral, it only has those powers that the member states expressly confer upon it. For example, member states retain primary responsibility in such areas as health, education and culture. Under proportionality, the Union may only act to the extent necessary. Under subsidiarity, it may act only where the intended aim cannot be achieved by the member states alone or where it can better be achieved at Union level."

This can scarcely be bettered as an example of compression given that the draft Constitutional treaty makes up a medium sized book. But while desirable in itself most member states have managed to find in it something to which they take exception. One reason for this may be, as the Centre for European Policy Studies pointed out this week, the problem of selling any agreement to a sceptical domestic audience. It is this and not necessarily the difficulty of achieving some compromise at the European level that may be the root difficulty. As the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, has said - we want an agreement, but not at any price.

Although opinion polls conducted for Eurobarometer have indicated that three out of four Europeans want to see a constitution in place and that almost two-thirds would be willing for their governments to compromise, the road to getting public endorsement of any European treaty can be a rocky one. Denmark - over Maastricht - and Ireland - over Nice, both found this out the hard way and other countries are now prudently wary.

Having completed most of the consultations necessary for its European Council report, Ireland must struggle to make an assessment that is both positive and realistic.
They can only recommend re-starting the Intergovernmental Conference if they can be reasonably sure of success and with some 20 'open issues,' where there is no consensus, that means many countries will have to compromise voluntarily on some key matters before even reaching the formal talks. Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, has made it clear that he won't contemplate re-starting that IGC with 20 issues on the table. He is hoping these can be reduced to a maximum of four.

Whether this can actually be done no one is quite sure. After a great blaze of enthusiasm last month for all matters constitutional, with leaders throughout the Continent calling for compromise and a rapid settlement in time for the European elections in June, the voices have now fallen silent as attention has switched to other issues.

It was left to President Chirac, fast becoming the Grand Old Man of the European construction, to beat the constitutional drum - even though his chosen venue, the Hungarian Parliament, was hardly at the centre of European politics. "Europe needs a new political project," he said. "Let's adopt the Constitution as soon as possible… (that's) the highest priority in the next few months; we should devote all our energies to it."

Fighting and encouraging words - at least for Eurobarometer's three quarters of European citizens who wish to see a constitutional settlement. But Chirac then followed these words with others that gave an altogether different message.

Saying that he wished neither to see a Europe that was divided, nor a Europe that was paralysed (by lack of agreement) he suggested that if the 25 countries could not agree to move forward together then certain pioneering countries should pave the way leaving the others to catch up - if they so wished - in their own time. Naturally he hoped that in this case Hungary would be among the pioneers.

After last week's ground breaking Big Three summit between France, Germany and the United Kingdom, this is not a message that many want to be hearing. It must have seemed to countries like Italy, Poland and Spain that a two-speed Europe, so often threatened as an alternative to constitutional stagnation, was already here.

From their perspective the meeting of Big Three represented the genesis of a European 'directoire,'- named after the small undemocratic inner group that ran France after the fall of Louis XVI - that could de facto take command of Europe's principal strategies. Not so, say the Big Three, but then they would, wouldn't they?

Will the response to this challenge be a rush to settle the Constitution before the European elections this summer? That is certainly a possibility. And that is surely what the Irish must be hoping for. The need to make progress together, to avoid the threats of a two-tier Union, should make people compromise.

Even so European Commission President Romano Prodi is reported as admitting that "we are experiencing a period when there does not seem to be a clear will to work together." The Commission President has always envisaged the possibility of a two tier Europe, with different groups of countries opting in and out of projects even though his preference is for progress to be in unison.

But in the absence of rapid direct constitutional progress the outcome may well be a proliferation of competing member state groups that could render Europe's decision making even more tortuous than it is now. Excluded from the Big Three, Italy was busy making overtures to the accession countries this week during a visit by Foreign Minister Franco Frattini to Poland. A suggestion that Italy might forego the transition period and open its labour markets directly to Polish workers - as a gesture of solidarity - was not entirely dismissed.

"We are interested in close co-operation with Italy, both as regards contributing to some sort of equilibrium within the European Union as well as building strong Transatlantic ties," said Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller afterwards. "We therefore propose putting a mechanism of regular intergovernmental consultations into place such as already exists with the governments of France, Spain and Germany." The Irish are going to need an almighty fair wind to steer the constitutional project home notwithstanding Mr O'Malley's skills at compression. The Dutch, who take over the EU Presidency in July, must be already starting to worry.