Impact of enlargement on EU institutions 

The biggest enlargement in the Union's history requires a profound reform of its institutions, which were conceived for the initial Community of six Member States.

The Amsterdam Treaty of 1999 and the Nice Treaty of 2003 have already introduced some institutional changes to make the integration of up to 12 new Member States into the EU decision-making processes possible. However, a more radical re form is necessary so that the enlarged Union of 25 does not grind to a stop.

A new Constitutional Treaty, currently under discussion within the European Convention, will introduce further changes to the Union's institutional architecture to prevent a paralysis of the decision-making process. Under the current proposal by the Convention's Praesidium (see

), new posts of a permanent president of the European Council and an EU Foreign Minister would be created, the six-month rotating EU Presidency would be abolished, the size of the Commission would be reduced from 25 to 15 members, a Congress of national and EU parliamentarians would be set up and the qualified majority voting system would be changed to favour the bigger Member States.

 

Enlargement will not only have a significant impact on the decision-making within the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, but is also likely to change the political structure of the Parliament.

The first consequences of enlargement have already been felt in the European Parliament and the Council where observers from the 10 future Member States took their seats on 1 May 2003, one year ahead of full membership.

The European Parliament welcomed 162 parliamentary observers from the 10 future Member States in May 2003. The observers will take part in the Parliament's proceedings until the entry into force of the Accession Treaty on 1 May 2004, when their countries will have the right to appoint fully-fledged MEPs for a period of a few weeks until the European elections in June 2004.

The Parliament that will be elected in 2004 will have 732 members. The current Parliament, elected in 1999, has 626 MEPs who are members of eight political groups. Here is the composition of the current Parliament with 159 observers (three observers have not yet been designated):

Party	MEPs	Observers	Total
European People's Party and European Democrats	232	69	301
European Socialists	175	57	232
European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party	53	13	66
Confederal Group of the European United Left and the Nordic Green Left	49	7	56
Greens/European Free Alliance	45	1	46
Union for a Europe of the Nations	23	3	26
Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities	18	0	18
Independents/Non-affiliated	31	9	40

The number of MEPs per Member State:

Belgium	25
Denmark	16
Germany	99
Greece	25
Spain	64
France	87
Ireland	15
Italy	87
Luxembourg	6
The Netherlands	31
Austria	21
Portugal	25
Finland	16
Sweden	22
UK	87

The number of observers per future Member State:

Czech Republic	24
Cyprus	6
Estonia	6
Hungary	24
Latvia	9
Lithuania	13
Malta	5
Poland	54
Slovakia	14
Slovenia	7

 

The position of the observers will be similar to that of the observers from Spain and Portugal during the pre-accession period of these two countries. During their year with observer status, the 162 observers will take part in much of Parliament's work. They have been allocated offices in the Parliament's buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg. Observers will have seats in the Parliamentary Chamber but will not have the right to speak, vote or be elected to positions of responsibility. In parliamentary committees and interparliamentary delegations the observers will have the right to speak, but not the right to vote nor to be elected to any positions of responsibility.

Language services for the observers will be provided on the basis of availability, and will depend in particular on the recruitment of translators and interpreters. The observers will continue to draw their salaries as national MPs. In addition, the European Parliament will pay travel expenses between their capital and Parliament's places of work, as well as a daily subsistence allowance of 257 per day.

The future Member States can also participate as observers in the Council meetings. The first meeting with the future Member States acting as observers took place at the Education Council on 5 and 6 May. Their status allows the observers to take part in the discussions but not in the decision-making process.

The Commission intends to employ some 3.900 staff from the 10 future Member States over the next seven years. Around 200 officials from the 10 future members have already been recruited to non-permanent posts designed to prepare the ground for enlargement. Recruitment targets have been set for each country according to population size, the weighting of votes in Council and the number of seats each country has in the European Parliament. The number of EU officials will increase by only 14 percent, while the Union's population will rise by 20 percent with the enlargement.

Most of the new recruits are expected to be translators and interpreters because of the increase of the EU official languages from the current 11 to 20 after the enlargement. The number of possible language combinations will rise to 380.

 

The Chairman of the EPP-ED Group, Hans-Gert Poettering , whose groups received the largest number of observers, welcomed the arrival of the new colleagues. "Out of 162 observers who will participate in in the work of the European Parliament, 69 have joined the EPP-ED Group. We have been and we continue to be the biggest political group in the European Parliament and we are proud of our role as the driving force of enlargement." In 8 out of the 10 accession countries the EPP-ED Group will be the leading political formation (Cyprus, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, and Slovakia).

13 observers from 6 candidate countries joined the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Group , strengthening the position of the ELDR as the third largest group in the enlarged European Parliament with 66 members. European Liberal Democrat leader Graham Watson hailed the arrival of Liberal parliamentarians from the accession countries as "the culmination of years of co-operation between the ELDR and emerging liberal parties in favour of enlargement".

The Confederation of the food and drink industries of the EU (CIAA) stated that the arrival of 162 observers to the European Parliament "is a historical milestone of the enlar gement process, prefiguring tomorrow's political Europe and facilitating the political integration of future EU Member States". The CIAA has contributed for two years, via the PHARE Business Support Programme, to the reinforcement of the food and drink industry federations in the future Member States. The CIAA has recently been selected by the Commission to carry out a new Business Support Programme to help with the rapid implementation of EU food law in local companies and with the introduction of voluntary codes of good hygiene practices.

Eurochambres , a network of 40 national and 1,600 regional and local chambers of commerce, has called for a full and immediate involvement of the future members in EU policies and programmes. President of Eurochambres Christoph Leitl stated that the future members should be fully involved in the EU's Lisbon process, the implementation of the SME Charter, national benchmarking programmes and the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, as well as the European Convention. He warned that the level of preparation among the central European business community is still far to low, and that SMEs in particular need more information and support.