Balancing efficiency and legitimacy is a difficult task for the European Union as it enlarges to take in more and more member-states. The European Commission, its executive arm, has the sole right to initiate legislation and is the independent guardian of the treaties on which the EU is based.
Not surprisingly, therefore, states value their representation on the Commission as a guarantee of voice and influence. But if the Commission gets too big its decision-making may become clogged and inefficient, affecting the performance of the Union as a whole.
This conundrum lies behind the EU presidency proposal put by the Government to its partners in the final stage of negotiations on the constitutional treaty which are aimed to conclude next month. Under it the Commission would be capped at 18 members from 2014, so that about one-third of member-states would not be represented on it during each five-year term. The proposal has the merit of allowing the 10 new members to bed themselves in over the next ten years, before having to forgo representation on the Commission on a basis of strictly equal rotation - an essential principle for smaller states, that protects them from domination by the larger ones.
Nevertheless the proposal still sacrifices legitimacy to efficiency, without making a convincing case that this is necessary. The Commission does not in fact vote that often. In a larger and more ambitious EU, useful jobs could be found for 30 or so commissioners, so long as a more clearcut hierarchy of authority is recognised and jobs are clustered into sensible functional areas. The problems of scale are better tackled by reorganisation than by undermining the Commission's legitimacy through a loss of representation, however strictly it is rotated. Many national governments are of similar size.
Similar problems of scale underlie the thornier problem of how to organise majority voting in an enlarged EU, the main issue on which negotiations broke down last December. The Government has accepted that a double majority of member-states and populations should replace the present weighted system but has yet to propose a precise mechanism to organise it. The 2014 date mentioned in the Commission proposal is significant, since postponing implementation until then could soften the compromises Spain and Poland must make.
Other outstanding issues will be tackled next week by EU foreign ministers, narrowing down the bargaining to be done at the summit on June 17th and 18th in Brussels. The Government's professional and business-like handling of the EU presidency so far has been widely and deservedly praised, leading to the universal expectation that an agreement on the constitutional treaty can be reached in five weeks time. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said yesterday in Madrid that he is flattered by the widespread mention of his name as a potential Commission president but that he is not a candidate and is staying at home. This rings true to Irish observers. But they should recognise the rumours as a tribute to his political skills.