Chirac has set the scene for a `grand transition' debate

The possible shape and structure of an enlarged European Union has come to the foreground of political debate in recent weeks, with French and German leaders outlining their visions of how it could be organised. Ireland's changing position within the EU, as it makes the transition to net contributor status and contemplates a loss of influence in reformed institutions, should make for a sharper debate about where Irish interests might lie in this new political configuration.

In his speech to the Bundestag this week President Chirac set out his own proposals for a two-speed Europe with its own constitution. They must be understood against the background of French politics, where as a centre-right president he governs in uneasy and competitive partnership with the Socialist government led by Mr Lionel Jospin. Yesterday this tension came into the open when the French Minister for European Affairs, Mr Pierre Moscovici, described the Berlin address as the president's and not one by the French authorities. Mr Moscovici is worried that the French presidency's agenda will be overloaded by such long-term visions, making it more difficult to reach agreement on more immediate issues.

On the eve of France's EU presidency (which begins today) Mr Chirac emphasised the political necessity of reaching agreement on the current Inter-Government Conference (IGC) in a treaty to be signed at Nice next December. That has four main issues: representation of the member-states on EU institutions; extending qualified majority voting; reweighting national voting strengths; and making it easier to use the existing rules on flexibility to allow smaller groups of states to reinforce their co-operation in particular sectors or projects.

If agreed, that will prepare the EU for enlargement to possibly double its present size over the next 10-20 years. Agreement on these topics is likely to be a necessary but not a sufficient step on the way to preparing for such a changed structure. The significance of the debates now opening up is that they set the scene in what Mr Chirac called a "grand transition" towards a further round of change - for what might be described as the "constitutional IGC" in three or four years' time.

Mr Chirac welcomed the idea of a constitution for Europe to set out clearly its objectives, limits and competences in relation to the nation-states he defends. It should build on the quasi-constitutional project already in train - the preparation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights, which also has to be agreed at Nice. He suggests it should be adopted as a political declaration rather than a binding legal act; but over the next few years it should be examined further with a view to incorporating it in the treaties.

Mr Chirac prefers a United Europe of States to a United States of Europe. He rejects "the creation of a European super-state which would substitute itself for our nation-states and mark the end of their existence as actors in international life". He did not respond specifically to the proposals made (in a personal capacity) by the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, in his Berlin speech on May 12th, calling for a federal core within the EU, with its own treaty, constitution, president, government and parliament.

Significantly, he left open the question of how these would relate to the existing supranational institutions, notably the European Commission. A looser, inter-governmental form of co-ordination might be a better way of respecting the rights and autonomy of the nation-states involved. This formula has been described as a federation of nation-states by Mr Jacques Delors - an experiment that has never been tried before.

Rather did Mr Chirac call for a "pioneer group" consisting of states volunteering to reinforce their co-operation in political economy, the politics of defence and security and more efficient ways of combating criminality. This played to fresh German calls for such a core group, without conceding the federalist case, which remains troublingly over-ambitious and at this stage premature to most leading French figures.

Mr Chirac said the "face of the future Europe is still to be drawn". But by supporting the idea of a constitution and of a pioneer group he is consolidating the suggestion that another round of treaty change will be required to define that face.

Several major aspects of this emerging debate are especially troubling for Ireland and other smaller member-states, and indeed for all EU citizens. There is a running assumption that decision-making in the new order will be much more inter-governmental than supranational; and the extension of flexibility as proposed by French and German leaders could reinforce the EU's existing democratic deficit and introduce greater domination of its affairs by the large states at the expense of the smaller ones.

Two distinguished visitors to Dublin this week helped to illuminate why this should be so. Mr Daniel Vernet, the veteran Le Monde correspondent, outlined three possible scenarios for the future shape of Europe at a seminar on the French EU presidency. At one extreme there is the Fischer/Delors federal model as outlined. At the other would be a system defined only by flexibility and reinforced co-operation, differing according to subject matter and groupings within or without the EU treaties.

In the middle - perhaps as a third way - there would be the model outlined by Mr Chirac this week, taking account of what he did and did not say. Thus there was no reference to a government, no new parliament, no federation. Mr Chirac echoed remarks made by Mr Moscovici in an interview with this newspaper on June 21st referring to multiple areas of reinforced co-operation, in which those omnipresent would be most influential. That would need co-ordination, but Mr Chirac referred only to a loose secretariat doing that work.

The inter-governmentalist bias of such proposals is quite clear - and is reinforced, Mr Vernet emphasised, by the fact that the EU is growing in the treaty areas governed by such methods - foreign policy, defence and home affairs and immigration.

It seems the European Commission is being marginalised in these forward visions by representatives of the larger states - the same bias is there in British attitudes towards flexibility. But from the point of view of the smaller states that is a dangerous development. Their interests in an international law-governed system have been protected by the supranational Commission with the sole right of legislative initiative and a role in protecting the treaties. Marginalise that and you increase the relative power of the larger states.

That will colour Irish attitudes to the current IGC and the emerging agenda after it. The Taoiseach has referred several times to his fears that Mr Chirac might bounce the negotiations in that direction. He received support from another visitor to Dublin this week, the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of the Czech Republic, Mr Jan Kavan. He foresees a strategic partnership between Ireland and his country in an enlarged EU, devoted to protecting that advantageous balance between the large and small states and the Commission's role. It was only on that basis that the smaller states originally agreed to extend qualified majority voting.

Mr Kavan is also worried that such a constitutional IGC could be a further excuse to delay enlargement and decide such matters over the heads of the accession states, which would have a vital interest in the outcome and could be in the slower lane of integration. That would encourage Haider-type arguments to develop there against integration if accession is delayed by another five years.

Contact: pgillespie@irish-times.ie