More remains to be done at the Convention on the Future of Europe to reach a balanced outcome, writes John Bruton
Last week the European Convention reached one of its most dramatic moments. Just as the Praesidium of the convention was meeting in the suburban Brussels Château of Val Duchesse to see, for the first time, draft articles dealing with the key power distribution issues in the European Union, the president of the convention authorised a briefing on these same articles of selected European newspapers.
This was a major departure from past practice. It soured the atmosphere for subsequent consideration of these articles and that has affected the public debate since then.
It is important, however, to get things back into proportion and to focus on the key issues for Europe as a whole, and for small countries like Ireland.
After this rocky start, the Praesidium got down to reformulating the president's proposals and some progress has been made, although a lot more needs to be done if we are to achieve a balanced outcome which respects the rights of small countries and preserves the balance of power among the European Union's institutions.
The original text presented by the president to the praesidium created a new office of president of the European Council and radically shifted the focus of power in the European Union away from the European Commission in favour of the European Council of Heads of Government.
The European Commission has a mandate to reach a common European view, whereas the European Council seeks a compromise between the interests of countries, with a particular emphasis on the bigger countries. Therefore the proposed shift in favour of the European Council would have worked in favour of the bigger countries.
In substantial measure, the worst aspects of this original proposal have now been removed. The European Council is no longer to be described as "the highest authority of the Union". It is no longer to "determine" the "general political direction" of the European Union. It is no longer to have a board that would have ranged over all of the Union's work, would have brought together the chairmen of the individual councils of ministers and would have been able to summon the President of the Commission and the President of the Parliament to meetings.
Instead the European Council's President is now to confine himself to the work of the European Council itself, that is, to preparing four meetings a year of heads of government. In this he is to be assisted by three prime ministers, chosen on the basis of rotation. This will ensure that, even though he will be working on a full-time basis, he will be kept under control by his peers.
Meanwhile the part of the text on the powers of the European Commission has been greatly strengthened and its prerogatives substantially restored.
These are all important improvements. But much remains to be done. The revised text still contains things that are objectionable from the point of view of many smaller countries, including Ireland.
It reopens the hard-fought three-cornered compromise in the Nice Treaty about voting strengths in the European Parliament, voting weights in the Council of Ministers, and equality of access to the European Commission for all states, large and small. Bigger states were happy enough at Nice to get the improvement in their position on voting weights and parliamentary representation, in compensation for losing their second commissioner. Now some of them are agitating to reopen the one aspect of the compromise that was favourable to smaller countries, the guarantee of equal access to a commissionership.
Giscard's original text contained the proposal to remove this guarantee, and this was accepted by a majority of the Praesidium, against my strongly expressed dissent. This guarantee of equality must now be reiinstated by the convention. I will be fighting hard to achieve this.
My hand, and that of others fighting for equality of representation on the Commission, has, however, been strengthened by the fact that, in the course of its deliberations, the Praesidium agreed that no one aspect of the overall Nice compromise could be reopened unless all of them were.
This will mean that the smaller states, including Ireland, will also have the support of other countries, like Spain, which will not want other aspects of the compromise to be reopened. This creates a basis for future work, but it does not guarantee success.
To allow every country to have a commissioner, it is necessary to have a large Commission. We should not accept any notion that there will be two types of commissioner, with only one type having a vote and others not, as some have suggested. All commissioners, whether from a large or a small country, should have an equal vote.
Big countries will argue that a commission of 25 or 30 members will be less cohesive and efficient than a smaller commission.
But, in deference to these concerns, the role of the president, and of four vice-presidents of the Commission should be further strengthened. Not only should the president have the right to reshuffle the Commission, already given to him at Nice, but he should also have the right, working with the vice-presidents, to regulate the agenda of the Commission to ensure coherence in the work.
Each of the four vice-presidents would co-ordinate a group of commissioners. Some of the work now done at Commission meetings might be done in these groups.
By using vice-presidents in this way, we would create a sort of organising bureau within an enlarged Commission, which would eliminate the concerns about a large Commission lacking coherence.
There are other issues that need to be addressed.
It makes no sense that the European Parliament meets in two places, Brussels and Strasbourg. This is exceptionally costly. The constitution should require each European institution to have one seat, and one only.
This is the sort of matter that should be dealt with in a constitution.
The constitution should also require that if we are to have a president of the European Council he should be accountable to the European Parliament as well as to his peers on the European Council. No institution, like the European Council which meets in private, should be the sole source of accountability for any important European office-holder.
Furthermore, the president of the European Council should only be allowed to operate in foreign affairs in conjunction with the president of the Commission. The Commission should be explicitly recognised in the constitution as the executive arm of the European Union.
Finally, in order further to strengthen the Commission and its president, the European constitution should provide for the president of the Commission ultimately being directly elected by the people of Europe, in the same way as the president of the United States is elected by the people.
Some say we are not yet ready for that. If so, we should at least make provision in the constitution for it to happen when we are ready. Therefore, the new constitution should contain a provision for the European Council to decide, by unanimity, that the president of the Commission may be elected by universal suffrage.
The provision for unanimity would ensure that this step would not be taken lightly, but by providing in the constitution for election by universal suffrage we would be demonstrating that we are aiming to build a European Union for all the people.
John Bruton is a member of the Praesidium on the Convention on the Future of Europe and a former Taoiseach