P o s i t i o n

Bound for success - EU Convention paves the way towards Political Union

Annette Heuser, Claus Giering, Thomas Fischer - February 2002*

On 28 February 2002 a new course will be followed towards the future of Europe. When the Convention is inaugurated, the concept of a constitutional political order for the greater Europe comes within reach. However, the work of the Convention will probably only be successful if it clearly denotes the strategic aims and success factors of its coming consultations right from the start.

The Agenda for Political Union

The approximately 60 questions posed in the Laeken Declaration of the European Council hide an agenda which, given the quarrels in Nice and the various problems of European policy, can almost be called presumptuous. For the EU intends nothing less than a general revision of its competencies, institutions and Treaties:

• The distribution and delimitation of competencies between the Member States and the EU is to be reorganised. This can mean intensified integration, in particular in issues of internal and external security, as well as the re-delegation of tasks to the national level.

• In order to achieve more democracy, transparency and efficiency, the interrelationship among the Union's institutions is to be examined. For that purpose, the currently existing decision-making patterns will be reviewed in principle. In consequence, the direct election of the President of the Commission, a stronger role of the national parliaments, and the abolition of the Presidency´s six-months´ term of office will have to be discussed.

• While heading for a Constitution the present Treaties are to be simplified. Core questions deal with the future legal status of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights , the simplification and reorganisation of the Treaties as well as an end to the differentiation between Community and Union.

The Heads of State and Government of the EU Member States have herewith begged the right questions. The most important structural deficits of the Union are to be discussed without any taboo. The answer to these questions will be the establishment of a Political Union as it was aimed at as early as ten years ago with the 1991 Maastricht Treaty. Yet the single market and economic union were neither then nor with the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty or the 2000 Nice Treaty complemented by corresponding political structures. Once again the chance to achieve Political Union is now offered by the work of the Convention.

Success Factors

The sheer number of questions could lead to work out an extensive report presenting numerous options and recommendations. However, this is definitely not the course the Convention ought to take even though the text of the Laeken Declaration seems to suggest this approach at first glance. When the Praesidium of the Convention, chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, determines the working methods, major attention ought to be paid to outcome-orientated procedures. The scope of the reform proposals must be balanced against the political feasability of the Convention´s recommendations.
Any action should be directed by the understanding that the Convention need not reinvent the European Union. As early as today, there are numerous solutions to all problem areas. However, they differ extremely in their scope. From status quo to federal state, from editorial amendments to the Treaties to a Constitution, all shades of reform can be envisaged. The more far-reaching the proposals are, the more effective will they be, and the more difficult will it be to carry them out within the circle of the Member States. Whereas too visionary reform plans could thus hardly be put through, the results of the Convention threaten to come up neither to the expectations of the public nor to the really existing need of reform in case of too low ambitions. The following issues will be decisive for the success of the consultations:

Political leadership

The Praesidium will play a decisive role for the success of the Convention. The Chairman Giscard d'Estaing and his two Vice-Chairmen, Dehaene and Amato, ought to try to achieve a broad internal consensus to back their political leadership. This is the only way to ensure that the Praesidium can also substantiate its political leadership externally, i.e. to the public and the Heads of State and Governments. The political importance of the Convention and the continuity of its results should, moreover, be illustrated by the Chairman Giscard participating with equal rights in the ensuing Intergovernmental Conference, which will decide on the next great reform. Besides, in order to guarantee that the national parliaments and the European Parliament are adequately represented, an additional Convention Vice-Chairman ought to be nominated from these ranks. Apart from Giscard, this member of the Praesidium would also have to be entitled to take part in the Intergovernmental Conference. To a greater extent than before, the parliamentary level would thus in leading function participate in the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference.

Strategic time management

The timeframe for the consultations of the Convention is extremely tight. According to present plans, the Convention concludes its work early in the summer of 2003 and the Intergovernmental Conference is convened after the summer break. Given this tight schedule the Convention ought to gear its work to the desired result right from the start and refrain from choosing too broad a basis for its consultations. Neither is it target-oriented to have different draft constitutions worked out at the beginning in order to discuss them in the Convention afterwards, nor does it seem realistic to deal with the questions of the Laeken Declaration one after another. Rather should the work be from the start oriented towards a single joint recommendation of a text with good prospects of being passed as a consensus of all members of the Convention at the end of the relatively brief consultation phase, in the first half of 2003. For only a consensus decision will have the quality of recommendations for the consultations of the ensuing Intergovernmental Conference. If, however, consensus cannot be achieved in the Convention, the proposals will only play the role of possible options for the following treaty negotiations among the Member States. Above all, merely listing the options and minority votes would lose any political importance until the beginning of the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of 2003. Moreover, the present overall schedule of the treaty reform ought to be handled flexibly. It is in the strategic interest of the Convention to present its results as closely as possible before the Intergovernmental Conference. If necessary, it should, therefore, be able to accomplish that its consultations be not concluded before the end of the summer break of 2003.

Procedural outcome orientation

The character of the final document will be decisive for the success of the Convention. The result of the Convention must be target-oriented and, above all, communicable to the citizens. One issue of the Declaration on the Future of Europe could here be the key: the simplification of the Treaties! The Convention ought to determine this objective as major directive for its work. The minimum result would then be a transparent and understandable Basic Treaty for the Union, which

• ties together the essential elements of the existing Treaties;

• integrates the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the new structures;

• offers the overview of the distribution of competencies; and

• clarifies the institutional architecture.

The advantage of this basic orientation of the consultations of the Convention is obvious: within the framework of the next Intergovernmental Conference the Heads of State and Government could hardly reject a treaty document which does not differ too much from the status quo. Corresponding studies of the European University Institute (Florence) and the Center for Applied Policy Research (Munich) have already shown that such a Basic Treaty is feasible.

For the other questions of the Laeken Declaration secondary options ought then to be worked out, which go beyond just consolidating the EU Treaties, making them more precise and simplifying them. To deal with such secondary steps towards a European constitution, the Convention could establish working groups. These should carry out public hearings, conferences and research on the individual issues treated by them, such as e.g. the introduction of new instruments of EU legislation or the future role of national parliaments. If these secondary reform considerations of the Convention could not be agreed on in the circle of the EU Heads of State and Government, the Basic Treaty would, nevertheless, remain a positively visible and communicable result for the European public.

* The Authors

Dr. Claus Giering, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Policy Research (Email: claus.giering@lrz.uni-muenchen.de); Annette Heuser, Director Bertelsmann Foundation Brussels (Email: annette.heuser@bertelsmann.de); Thomas Fischer, Project Director Governance Studies, Politics Division, Bertelsmann Foundation (Email: t.fischer@bertelsmann.de).

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