Along different roads

A month before the summit that will have to decide how to overcome the impasse over the Constitutional Treaty, the European Parliament is continuing its debate on the “Future of Europe”. Some premiers of member states were received as guests by the EP in recent months and set out their vision of what the Community ought to be. During the plenary session held in Strasbourg this week, Italian premier Romano Prodi and Dutch premier Jan Peter Balkenende both intervened on the question. Both declared much the same general objectives (reforming the common institutions and making the action of the Union more effective); but the roads to be followed to this end seem different. EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION BY 2009. In his speech in Strasbourg, ROMANO PRODI declared: “On what happens between now and 2009 the very future of Europe is at stake. A decision has to be taken on what Europe needs to do to tackle the challenges that the world is posing to it”. The head of the Italian government sent out two powerful messages: the need to approve a Treaty of constitutional value before the elections to the EP in 2009; and the possibility, if that does not happen, for the Union to proceed “at two speeds”. On the Constitution, explained Prodi, “we don’t start out from zero: in October 2004 all the European countries signed a [Constitutional] Treaty and 18 of them have even ratified it. The reasons of those that hesitated to do so have been listened to, even sympathetically. The time has come to listen to those who ratified the Treaty”. According to the Italian premier, Community Europe has a need for institutional reforms, “new rules”, “a budget worthy of that name”, and “real policies to tackle the major challenges posed by the contemporary world”. VANGUARD FOR INTEGRATION. The former President of the Commission, referring to the summit of 21 and 22 June, explained: “We could not accept any radical alteration of the existing institutional package: reinforcement of common external and security policy, a single minister of external affairs, a “stable” President of the Council, “the extension of the majority vote”…. “If a 27-member agreement should prove to be impossible, the problem would be posed about how to continue”. “Italy will support the German Presidency, and then that of Portugal”, to reach a new agreement on the Constitution. If that proves impossible “a vanguard of countries could show the best way of continuing the process towards a closer union, on condition that the door always be left open to those who would like to come in and form part of it”. But how many governments agree with this position? “A two-speed Europe is a hypothesis that could gain ground only if an accord between all the member countries fails to materialise – explained Prodi to SIR -. Besides, there are already sectors in which Europe proceeds like this (at two speeds): the euro and Schengen are examples. These are solutions contemplated by the Treaties in force. However, we verify the will of many countries to pool their forces for a more effective Europe and a Europe that counts for more in the world. Italy is one of them”. “PEOPLE WERE AFRAID OF THE EU”. The Dutch premier JAN PETER BALKENENDE , in his speech to the EP, explained the reasons for the Dutch rejection of the Constitution in the referendum of 2005. “The Community has achieved huge successes over these last fifty years: it has created peace and development; it has enlarged its own frontiers and strengthened the links between states. But the most recent steps in enlargement took place too rapidly. Citizens did not have time to fully understand them”. According to the Dutch premier, “people were afraid of too invasive a Union, a Union that would strip our country of its identity”. That’s why, according to Balkenendee, we must “make people understand the added value of a Union that respects diversity”, insist “on the criterion of subsidiarity”, keep the budget under control, and aim at “less red tape and more transparency”. REINFORCING SUBSIDIARITY. “Three quarters of Dutch citizens are favourable to the EU – explained the premier -, but they don’t want a European Constitution. They regard the Constitution as a symbol of national, and not of European, identity”. Balkenende suggested that urgent reforms be implemented to make the EU function better through new Treaties, “just as was done at Amsterdam and Nice”. “Holland – he adds – is a pro-European country and we want a solution to be reached on the Constitutional Treaty that everyone likes and that at the same time takes into account the opinion of the Dutch, the French and all those, in many countries, who say no to the Constitution”. Balkenende spelt out a four-point plan “to reach a shared solution”. “First, pursuing the already tried and tested method of amending the existing Treaties; second, reinforcing the role of subsidiarity, by reserving a greater role for national parliaments”; third, “introducing the majority vote” only in the fields in which it is possible to proceed together; and fourth, “fixing the criteria for enlargement in the new Treaty”, to ensure that they be “strictly applied” in the negotiations now underway.