European Union leaders meet at a summit in Biarritz this week to examine work in progress on preparing the EU for continental enlargement. That task has been dramatically reinforced by the anti-Milosevic revolution in Yugoslavia, and will be personified by President Kostunica's presence at the summit. It will discuss EU policy towards Yugoslavia, following the decision this week to lift some sanctions. Its main task will be to examine the issues involved in the current Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC), which is set to conclude at Nice in December.
The scale and scope of the tasks facing the EU leaders is set out in this newspaper today in a special page on the issues involved. If the EU is to be enlarged to twice its present size in coming years, major changes will be required in its institutions and methods of decision-making. This IGC will amend a number of them, including representation of the member-states, the weighting of their votes, and the extension of qualified majority voting to more spheres where the EU has legal competence.
There are vital interests at stake here for Ireland, including retention of a seat on the European Commission and the preservation of that body's independent role as guardian of the treaties and initiator of legislation. That role is centrally important for the smaller states in the EU, whose position is potentially threatened by the emergence of more intergovernmental and less integrated decision-making, which gives larger powers more leeway.
The Government has clearly signalled that it will not accept the loss of Commission representation nor voting changes which would endanger this State's low taxation and distinctive social policies. It has indicated a willingness to extend qualified majority voting to some new areas. It is also ready to examine the use of "reinforced co-operation" or flexibility, whereby smaller groups of states go ahead with deeper integration than others are willing or able to, so long as core policies are not affected and all are entitled to join in when ready to do so. The Government is strongly resisting new treaty matter on security and defence, on the grounds that existing clauses cover this field adequately.
These issues must be judged in the much wider context of continental enlargement, unity, security and prosperity brought onto the political agenda by recent major events. Their broad parameters are only now becoming more clearly visible both to political leaders and citizens alike. Core functions such as the common currency, security and defence and judicial affairs - hitherto monopolised by nation states - are now becoming part of the EU integration agenda under the pressure of globalisation and international competition and also of the internationalisation of human rights. The IGC agenda reflects that emerging political reality. This summit will look in some detail at the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights prepared in parallel with the IGC and consider whether it should be a political declaration or a legal instrument.
It is clear that these issues will not all be resolved at this meeting, but will require further consideration in coming years. That is why they must command much more attention from political leaders and citizens than they have so far received in Ireland or elsewhere in the EU. Unless these political and constitutional issues can be engaged in normal democratic debate, they will not measure up to the ambition of the tasks faced in creating a stable, united and prosperous Europe.