Less is more

The great tortured European debate is becoming ever harder to decipher. What are we to make of Jacques Chirac's "reinforced cooperation," Joschka Fischer's call for the "constitutionalisation" of Europe, Romano Prodi's defence of the "Monnet method," or Tony Blair's enthusiasm for a new "second chamber"?

To pick one's way through this undergrowth of rhetoric, it is necessary to understand that two different timescales are in play: some issues relate to the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) designed to streamline the EU's decision-making prior to enlargement, which is set to conclude at an EU summit in Nice on 7th-8th December; others refer to the "post-Nice agenda," aiming to influence the shape of things many years hence.

Pity the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe, keen to join the club as soon as possible, who look on perplexed as the EU seems to shift the goalposts. The Nice IGC was, after all, supposed to provide a final polish to EU institutions in order to accelerate enlargement. But there is still no definitive entry date for the first wave of countries-Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Cyprus, Slovenia and Estonia (2004 now looks to be the earliest likely date).



The Nice IGC is cleaning up the "Amsterdam leftovers," complex procedural decisions left unresolved at the last IGC: the reweighting of votes in the Council of Ministers to reflect the different size of each member state more accurately; slimming down the membership of the European Commission (at present the larger countries have two commissioners, the smaller countries one each); and the extension of qualified majority voting thereby limiting use of the national veto and so avoiding gridlock in an enlarged club of 20 members or more.

Underlying all these tangled IGC discussions and the proposals on the EU's long-term future, are three conflicts which have shaped the EU since its foundation in 1957. First, there is the enduring tension between the so-called "intergovernmental" and "Community" methods. The former, inspired by French Gaullism and British scepticism, believes that the EU can only function with legitimacy if it is directed by governments meeting in the Council of Ministers. The latter, drawing on the beliefs of Jean Monnet and the other founding figures of the European Union, holds that European integration is only possible if driven by supranational institutions, notably the European Commission and the European Parliament, which are capable of overcoming national vested interests.

In practice, the EU has always thrived on a restless compromise between these two views. Most moderately pro-European Brits would be pleased to learn that the intergovernmentalists currently have the upper hand. The trouble is that intergovernmentalism is bureaucratic, secretive and unaccountable. The Council of Ministers may have a more direct link to national democracies than the supranational bodies of the EU, but the latter are far more transparent.

The second underlying tension is more straightforward: between those at the inner core of the EU and those on the periphery. The IGC will consider calls for "reinforced cooperation," an "avant-garde" or a "federal core" of member states-which would allow a small group of countries to deepen their cooperation, unencumbered by laggards such as Britain and Denmark. This is likely to be agreed at Nice. Its effect, at least in the short term, will be entirely political. It will give the French, Germans and others the reassurance that they can still exercise leadership in an enlarged EU, even when an increasing number of future EU members will be of a more sceptical turn of mind.

Blair seems to have decided, rightly, that there is little merit in trying to block an "avant-garde" going forward. But the debate on this issue in Britain, as on all EU matters, has shot off on an illogical trajectory of its own. The Tories have long claimed to espouse a "flexible" Europe in which a "one size fits all" approach is abandoned. Yet they insist that Britain should retain a veto over any plans for differentiated integration within the EU. This petulant demand to remain camped on the peripheries of Europe whilst also controlling the movements on the main battlefield will receive short shrift. But if the British veto on "reinforced cooperation" is indeed lifted at Nice, expect headlines claiming that it represents the latest step towards total French and German domination of the EU. In truth, it will represent the first crack in EU institutional unity which may one day lead to the internal dislocation of the EU itself: precisely the outcome which many Tories and the anti-EU media would welcome.

The third and final tension within the present debate is simpler still: that between small and large member states. In the run-up to the Nice Summit the small states will fight to keep the right to have one commissioner from each country. These small states are usually supporters of the EU's supranational bodies which, they believe, provide their best protection from the might of the larger states. That is why they will contest the claims of Germany, France, Britain and others that population size should be more fairly reflected in the votes cast within the Council of Ministers. At present, Luxembourg has one vote for every 200,000 citizens, whilst Germany has one for every 8.2m.

In all likelihood, the Nice Summit will not definitively settle these questions, but it will point towards a solution: greater voting powers for the larger countries within the Council of Ministers in return for accepting that even small states should retain a meaningful voice in the commission.

So the forces underlying the debate about both the short- and long-term future of the EU are not new. What is new is that the EU will start to change out of all recognition-even in the next few years-in the run-up to the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe finally joining.

The EU's commitment to expansion, even if insincerely held by some, is so entrenched that it cannot now be undone. The real risk is that such an introverted club, fretting about its own procedures, is a spur to Euroscepticism amongst the voters of central and eastern Europe. And what if the EU, which the countries of central and eastern Europe had hoped to join as an anchor of political and economic stability, is itself becoming unstable?

So perhaps it is time for Europe's leaders to take a break from this arcane cycle of rule revisions and concentrate instead on making what already exists both more legitimate and workable. That, in turn, requires a more explicit debate about what European integration is for-what the EU should, and should not, do.

A glance at the EU's present powers suggests that something is amiss. There is something patently lopsided about an EU which regulates the maximum time worked by junior doctors, yet fails to stop bloodshed in the Balkans. There is something odd about an EU whose leaders cross swords about the details of the transfer system for soccer players, yet fail to speak together in international bodies such as the UN, the World Bank or the IMF.

The political skirmishes in Nice about the extension of qualified majority voting to matters such as tax, social security, border controls and trade are, it is true, echoes of deeper disagreements about the legitimate boundaries of EU action. Yet, in general, both the current IGC and the uninspiring proposals for the "post Nice" agenda provide little guidance on the core questions about Europe's aims and limits.

Prodi has promised to produce his own thoughts on the future of European governance next spring. He should reassert the logic behind the EU's basic institutional design, force government ministers to legislate on EU matters with greater transparency and, most important of all, call for an EU withdrawal from non-essential policy areas altogether.

The EU will become unworkable if it attempts to remain active on such a broad front of policy areas as at present, in a future union of almost 500m citizens. Policies ranging from tourism and sports to the bulk of social policy and third world development assistance could usefully be removed from the EU's remit. There is plenty to do, particularly in the crucial fields of internal security and defence and foreign policy, where significantly strengthened EU action is overdue. Devoting political and administrative resources to these new areas will not be possible if the burden of the accumulated body of EU law and practice is not first lightened.

In short, an enlarged EU requires a greater focus on priorities and a greater disregard for peripheral policy activism. A streamlined EU will not only be more workable but also more comprehensible and legitimate in the eyes of EU citizens.