Moment of truth for EU enlargement

La presidence francaise est plus francaise que presidentielle.

So says a member of the preparatory group for the current Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) negotiating changes in the EU treaties to prepare for a near doubling of its membership.

Quoted in Le Figaro this week, the comment was made after the Biarritz summit earlier this month. It saw a forthright exchange of views on EU reform, exposing deep differences between smaller and larger states about representation on the European Commission.

The tone of the current discussion, leading towards the Nice summit on December 7th to 9th at which the treaty changes are due to be agreed, is further illustrated in a speech by the Irish MEP, Mr Gerry Collins, during a debate on Biarritz in the European Parliament at Strasbourg this week. "We need a fair and balanced outcome to protect small states and defend diversities. The largest member-states seek to bully the smaller ones, blaming them for a failure of enlargement. It is unacceptable."

It would be very difficult to win ratification referendums on the treaty in Ireland, Denmark and Portugal next year with an unbalanced outcome between smaller and larger states, he said.

In response to such criticisms the French presidency has mounted a vigorous defence of its actions, as became clear during a high-level briefing visit for EU journalists this week in Paris, Strasbourg and Brussels. The Biarritz meeting was a frank, honest, serious and necessary exchange of views, according to Mr Pierre Moscovici, the French Minister for European Affairs.

French officials quoted the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Mr Juncker, as saying it was good the discussion was held in timely fashion in Biarritz and not at the last minute in Nice.

"It is a moment of truth in these negotiations, not a crisis", according to the French European Commissioner with responsibility for the IGC, Mr Michel Barnier.

The French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, told us there are four stages to the negotiations. The first took place under Portugal's presidency in the first half of this year, the second concluded at Biarritz, the third, most intense stage is now under way and the final one will be at the Nice summit itself.

EVERYONE agrees the IGC will stand or fall by what happens at Nice, probably at the very last minute, when the heads of state and government themselves conclude the negotiations. It is not yet clear who is really committed to what, French officials say. None of the leaders will want to be blamed for a failure, which Mr Vedrine said the media would portray as paralysing enlargement.

Clearly President Chirac and the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, have a basic political interest in avoiding a failure. They are ambitious but realistic, according to Mr Moscovici. He will be travelling to the 10 smaller states to explain their position, in advance of Mr Chirac's own tour of member-states ahead of Nice.

The Commission's composition and role have come centre stage in the negotiations. The French press their case very strongly that in order to remain efficient and collegial the Commission will have to be capped at 20 and filled by a system of strict equal rotation between all the member-states.

At Biarritz, Mr Chirac proposed that over seven five-year terms all member-states would forgo having a commissioner for two.

That solution is pressed very hard by Mr Moscovici. He does not accept it would weaken the Commission. Mr Jospin's chief adviser on European affairs, Mr Jean Vidal, argues that if it goes to 28, 32 or 35 members it "would not be a college, but a little parliament and that therefore its fundamental mission to represent the general EU interest would be definitely killed."

The alternative and secondbest option is to strengthen the Commission president's role by creating a hierarchy of commissioners. A running assumption is that there is not enough work to share out effectively in a commission in which every member-state is represented.

This is called the institutional IGC - a tag that tends to put many people off as dull and technocratic. But concealed within it are profoundly important issues concerning the future constitutional shape of the EU and Ireland's place within it.

The principal issues outstanding are: extending qualified majority voting (QMV); reweighting votes the better to reflect national populations; loosening the conditions under which "reinforced co-operation" involving smaller groups of states can be used; and the role of and representation on the Commission.

It is puzzling why the French are putting such a primary emphasis on the Commission in an IGC whose main purpose is to prepare for enlargement. That is arguably best done by resolving the issues in the order just listed. Considerable progress has been made on QMV (although taxation and social affairs are outstanding and contentious for Ireland) and on reinforced co-operation (although its potential application in security and defence affairs is unclear and also contentious for Ireland). The most difficult negotiating issues are on reweighting votes and the Commission.

THE FRENCH have a strong preference for reweighting rather than adopting a system of dual votes to take account of population, which they say would be too complicated.

But there are potentially very sharp disagreements between the Netherlands and Belgium and between Germany and France on population weighting, while Spain is especially concerned to stay within the large state group.

It may be a tactical decision to put the Commission issue ahead of reweighting, in the hope that movement on the first (on which France and Germany agree) would facilitate a deal on the second.

But many of the smaller states suspect the larger ones want to marginalise the Commission and move to a more inter-governmental system in which the relative power of the larger ones is increased.

In our discussions this week with French officials it became clear the Commission plays a very different role in the smaller and larger states. Commissioners are bigger, better-known political and media fish in the smaller states; they are reference and feedback points and guarantors of access and democratic legitimation.

Having them there has made it easier for smaller states to accept qualified majority voting in the council of ministers.

This is a basic constitutional rather than institutional matter. It is not as yet proven to be addressed by the equal rotation formula - and there is precious little time to do so before Nice. A fallback compromise considered by the French would be to agree such a formula now but implement it later. They have no time for an alternative approach which would put the decision off until the next IGC, probably in 2004.

It is likely to be agreed at Nice to consider such questions as writing a constitution for the IGC by reorganising the treaties, agreeing how the various regional, national and supranational levels of government should interact and how the accession states should fit in. That seems a more appropriate time to decide on the Commission's role and composition.

The European Parliament's representative on the IGC, Mr Elmar Brok, told us he thought not everything could be agreed at Nice concerning the future of the EU. But it could deal with what was necessary for enlargement: predominantly QMV and reinforced co-operation. He thinks vote reweighting and the Commission could, if necessary, be postponed.

Asked about inter-governmentalism, Mr Vedrine foresees a hybrid system for many years to come. It might be true that smaller states are better served by more supranational methods. But then, he said, one comes up against those that simply refuse to consider majority voting on social or taxation affairs. One wonders what state he had in mind. As another French official put it, in all of them there are hidden agendas.