The first part of the policy brief is devoted to "identifying the logic behind the chain of events that produced the Constitution" – a constitution that was paradoxically never explicitly asked for by EU leaders. To describe Treaty reforms that have been carried out since the EU committed to enlarge to Central and Eastern European countries in 1993, the author adopts a "revealed preference reasoning," that is, an economic concept according to which "one learns about people's beliefs only when hard choices are made."
In the constitutional context, here are the main 'revealed preference' lessons drawn by Richard E. Baldwin:
- After the 1996 Inter Governmental Conference (IGC), EU leaders unanimously agreed that Eastern enlargement would require reform of EU institutions, possibly before new members actually join.
- With the Amsterdam Treaty (1999), they reaffirmed this belief, though cutting down the list of "must do" tasks to two key aspects: Council of Ministers voting rules and Commission composition.
- At Nice (2000), they broadly agreed on a "house-cleaning exercise" and came up with a Treaty that they knew would be insufficient to resolve enlargement-related issues, since it left the "Amsterdam leftovers" untouched.
- With the Constitutional Treaty (2003-2004), EU leaders changed a set of rules (the Nice Treaty) without their coming into force, which proves that they had been convinced of their deficiency from the outset. However, the bulk of the Constitution "was merely a reorganisation of the existing Treaties."
The second part of the paper focuses on today's challenge: with the Constitutional treaty in a stalemate, the EU-25 is now governed by flawed rules (the Nice Treaty). Therefore, "something will have to be done, but what and how?" Although these are only "conjecture," the author's views the future as follows:
- The Dutch and French "no" will not be reversed;
- Any renegotiation of the existing Treaty will be ruled out, since the main argument for this "accidental constitution" - namely "to ensure that enlargement does not end the European dream" - will loose force in the EU-25;
- The main way out may be just to "wait and see" that the two-year old Nice Treaty produce several painful "decision-making crises" (on the model of that experience on the 2007-13 budget last year). The author indeed believes that, "at some stage, a tipping point will be reached and a broad consensus will emerge in the EU 27 that an institutional reform is necessary." Though difficult to forecast, he does not see this happen before 2008-2009.
