Posted on 16-1-2003
Big
Two Define Europe's Future?
Ian Black in Brussels, Thursday January 16, 2003, The Guardian
A landmark agreement between France and Germany on two separate
presidents
for the European Union appeared last night to have paved the
way for a new
division of labour between national capitals and the union.
Reactions were mixed as governments digested a messy compromise
between
traditionally competing visions of how an enlarged EU should
work - the
fruit of months of effort to revive the historic axis between
Paris and
Berlin.
Britain and other big member states were delighted, but critics
warned that
the controversial blueprint could generate new institutional
rivalries.
Key details remained to be clarified about exactly what the
French
president, Jacques Chirac, and the German chancellor, Gerhard
Schröder, had
agreed on Tuesday. But the plan is likely to have a huge influence
on the
EU's future constitutional arrangements.
The proposals cleverly occupy the middle ground of the intensifying
debate
about the future of the EU, and were attacked by Eurosceptics
and
integrationists alike. Small countries and the European commission
sounded
uneasy.
Mr Chirac, strongly backed by Tony Blair, secured the German
chancellor's
agreement to a permanent president for the EU council of ministers,
where
the union's 15 governments, soon to be 25, make policy.
In return Mr Schröder persuaded France to accept that the president
of the
commission be elected by the European parliament, instead of
being
nominated in a quiet stitch-up between governments, as at present.
If implemented, the proposals will boost the weight of the nation
state and
increase the democratic legitimacy of the commission, which
proposes and
enforces laws.
But integrationists, even senior members of the participating
governments,
are unlikely to be satisfied by the Franco-German fudge. The
German foreign
minister, Joschka Fischer, who fought hard for a single "super-president",
said last night he was disappointed at the outcome.
"It was very, very difficult to find a compromise," he said.
"We wanted a
joint initiative."
Mr Blair or Jose Maria Aznar, his Spanish counterpart, have
often been
mentioned as possible candidates for the first European president,
who
would serve a five-year or a renewable 2-year term.
The plan is likely to set the tone at the Convention on the
Future of
Europe, where the former French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,
is
charged with drawing up a constitution by this summer.
"Any time the French and Germans agree on something, it increases
the
chances of that being the final outcome," said David O'Sullivan,
the
commission's top civil servant.
But the devil is in the detail. The union's Heath Robinson structures
are
complex and rarely understood outside the Brussels beltway.
And though the
plan may satisfy Paris and Berlin, there are doubts over how
it will work.
"It is more a barter deal than a genuine compromise," said Andrew
Duff, the
Liberal Democrat MEP. "Neither could agree to each other's proposal,
so
they accepted both."
Romano Prodi, the commission's president, has strongly opposed
the idea of
a president of the council, fearing an attempt to weaken his
role. "We have
to make sure we don't end up with the problem... of two competing
power
centres," his spokesman warned.
Brussels's experience of dual leadership is not encouraging.
Since 1999, EU
external relations have been handled by Javier Solana of Spain
for member
states and Chris Patten for the commission. Many believe another
such
arrangement at the highest level could suffer from similar problems
of
coordination and overlapping responsibilities.
"If there were a double presidency, there would one day be a
conflict of
legitimacy and cohabitation," warned François Bayrou, an ally
of Mr Chirac.
Spain and Italy also back the idea of a powerful president of
the council,
pleased to have avoided the "nightmare option" pushed by Mr
Fischer: a
"super-president" of council and commission that would erode
the
carefully-policed boundaries between the national and the supranational.
Smaller states such as the Netherlands and Belgium fear a power
grab by
governments at the expense of the commission and the European
parliament.
But there are signs that this may change. Denmark said yesterday
that it
could accept a system under which a president of the council
was chosen in
turn from groups of different-sized member states.
Sweden has already defected to the pro-presidency camp while
Portugal is
said to be warming to the idea. Finland could probably live
with it.
The proposals will require far-reaching changes to the system
of the
rotating EU presidency, under which each member state runs the
union's
business for six months. With 25 members, that would mean every
country
would do the job every 12 years. Team efforts are likely to
replace the
current system.
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