The Challenges of EU Enlargement on the Eve of Real Decisions

The Challenges of EU Enlargement on the Eve of Real Decisions

Background note for the CEPS International Advisory Council, 22 February 2002

As we finally reach the endgame of EU enlargement, Europe faces a number of key challenges. Some of these challenges are the direct result of enlargement itself: the prospect of a ‘big bang’ enlargement taking the EU from 15 to 25 member states in one step raises a number of questions about decision-making, organisation, policy orientations and political representation. An EU at 25 (and within a few years at more than this) will be a very different Union to that of the original six.

But the EU also faces other challenges – challenges that are certainly affected by enlargement, but that would also need to be addressed even in the absence of enlargement. Issues around democracy, transparency and legitimacy need to be tackled in a much more effective and determined way than in the past. And the pressure to promote democratic legitimacy is reinforced by the fact that the Union is increasingly facing the need to act in policy areas that are particularly sensitive and/or central to national sovereignty.

One of these areas is that of external policy and the question of how to build a stronger and more coherent European voice across the full range of economic, trade, development and foreign policy issues. This is the long-standing issue of how to match more effectively the EU’s economic weight with an equivalent political weight. The impact of 11th September and subsequent developments have strongly reinforced the pressures to strengthen the EU’s global political presence at the same time as indicating the still relatively early stages of development of a common EU foreign policy. The strong unilateralist trend in the US’s current global policy stance further increases this pressure and may force the pace on developments. Enlargement impacts here too – the increase in numbers and size both reinforces the need for a stronger political presence while complicating further the issues of coordination and common interests.

Laeken Declaration

It is in this context that the Convention on the future of Europe starts its work on 28 February 2002. With the Laeken Declaration, the Convention has been given a very wide mandate. The Laeken Declaration represents a move away from the failures of Nice and its limited forward agenda to an ambitious and wide open set of challenges and questions. And while some have already criticised the Declaration for its large array of 50 or more questions, these are situated within the three broader challenges of democracy and public participation, the politics of the enlarged EU, and the EU’s role in the world. Importantly too, the questions posed are questions of substance and not only questions of institutions and institutional processes. The Convention, with the wider Forum around it, also represents an unprecedented method of preparing an intergovernmental conference – in many but not all eyes a constitutional convention. And with the participation of all the candidate countries in the Convention, the future of Europe and enlargement debates and processes are finally (as they should and must) converging.

Range of Views

There is a wide range of views on the role of the Convention and on the impact it will have on the subsequent IGC. While some see it as writing the future constitution of the enlarged EU and re-establishing the public and political legitimacy of the European project, others are less sure that such grand ambitions can be met. A number of member states are also wary of giving up the much greater control they have in the IGC, hence the emphasis by some on the need for the Convention to produce options and for a reasonable time gap between the end of the Convention and the start of the IGC. But while it is already clear that even within the C onvention there are a range of views on the type of final document to produce, there will be a pressure to come to some clear strong majority positions. This leaves an open question as to whether the compromises necessary to reach a majority positions will result in an insufficiently ambitious document, or whether the Convention can challenge the member states to move to a comprehensive new political strategy for the enlarged EU.

Timing

Overall timing of the Convention and IGC is currently unclear. It is known that Giscard d’Estaing, as chairman of the Convention, is keen for it to run for longer than the year set in the Laeken Declaration. This may be contested but with the desire by some member states for a pause between the end of the Convention and the start of the IGC, it seems that autumn 2003 is the earliest likely start date for the IGC. If the enlargement timetable is not delayed, and the new member states join in early 2004, then the IGC may well be concluded at 25. And at this point the enlarged EU would also discuss the highly sensitive question of the post-2006 budget also at 25. So the big challenges facing the EU are all converging – both in their substance and in their timing, which demands an ambitious response from the Convention and subsequent IGC.

Issues for the Convention

The Laeken Declaration opens up a series of questions around the acquis and the actual substance of policy. Should certain policy areas be added to or taken away from the Union? Laeken suggests a number of areas for further possible integration ranging from economic policy coordination, social inclusion and the environment to foreign policy and the Petersberg tasks. But while some would like to consider repatriation in some areas, and others additions of new aspects of policy, an alternative view is that the most important issue in discussing substantive policy is in re-legitimising the project and re-involving the public rather than in actual changes to policy areas. Reviews of key areas of EU policy – the CAP and the structural funds – are due anyway. But the candidate countries in particular, and their representatives on the Convention, may want to push for substantive discussion for example of a redesigned cohesion policy appropriate to the enlarged EU.

The issue of competences will certainly have to be addressed – one of the four Nice questions – although in the discussions since Nice, little real support is visible for some comprehensive charter of competences listing those of the EU and those of the member states. This for the simple reason that most competences are in fact mixed. So the discussion here will need to focus yet again on the question of managing subsidiarity and the most transparent processes and procedures for doing so. There is also likely to be a link here to the issue of the role of national MPs and how they can be more involved in the European process.

This demand for clarification of the role and competences of the EU relates to the larger question of producing a constitutional text for the Union, possibly through the route of a simplification and splitting of the current treaties. This raises then the further key question of how far the enlarged Union will and should go in limiting the use of the veto – keeping it perhaps for only the fundamental constitutional text. But while the larger numbers of the enlarged EU makes a strong case for very clear limits to the use of the veto, the need for more European action and areas of national sovereignty push for alternative methods and outcomes.

The wider context for this expected debate over the veto is the institutional triangle or balance between the Council, Commission and Parliament. This will surely be the focus of much of the debate and work of the Convention. While some common ground may exist – the need to improve both the efficiency and the transparency of the Council and to tackle the six-month presidency for example – t here are also many differences of views both over the detail and the larger picture. These differences in many cases relate to a fairly classic division between the intergovernmentalists and the supra-nationalists – notably whether to strengthen or weaken the position of the Commission vis-a-vis the Council.

But while a few may want to move to a more UN style intergovernmental structure, with ideas being discussed in UK circles of forming an overall executive council of the Council (which directly challenges the position of the Commission), and others, as indicated in speeches by German politicians for example wanting to strengthen both Commission and Parliament, the real focus will be on the both the detail and the bigger picture implications of improving the effectiveness, relevance and legitimacy of the institutions and on the impact of different options on the overall balance between them.

Some of the topics that will arise here will be principally to do with efficiency – for instance the role and functioning of the General Affairs Council or reconsidering the discussion of the size of the Commission; others to do with both efficiency and legitimacy – for instance ideas of establishing a permanent Council of ministers (possibly European or deputy prime-ministers (all problematic for some member states)) in Brussels; others to do with transparency and legitimacy – all Council legislative sessions to be held in public; and others to do with legitimacy and balance of power between the institutions – election of the Commission President, replacing the 6 month presidency, and some of the proposals for streamlining the Council.

Some ideas already on the table, such as the proposal to merge the positions of the Council High Representative and the Commissioner of External Relations (merge Patten/Solana), have much more complex implications for the institutional balance, implying a breaking down of institutional boundaries (with mixed views on the Patten/Solana proposal already seen – France preferring ‘synergy’ and Germany ‘fusion’, and the current High Representative not supporting the latter).

One further large challenge faces the Convention in its work and that is not only to improve the future legitimacy of, and public involvement in, the EU but to contribute to this by engaging the wider European public in the debates that will now run for the next two or more years. Laeken announced the establishment of a Forum – to provide a networked engagement with ‘organised’ civil society (business, unions, NGOs, academia etc). But little has yet been seen on the potential organisation of this Forum or how it will be involved in the Convention’s work – the onus of course rests on organised civil society as well as on the Convention to impact on and be involved in the debate. But the Convention must be genuinely open and not view consultation as a token exercise. It also must consider how to reach out to the much wider European public beyond the relatively informed actors of so-called organised civil society. Full engagement with and of the media will be important here too.

As the Laeken Declaration stated, Europe is at a crossroads – with enlargement, the EU will change and develop in new ways, and in the wider world, the challenges from 11th September, globalisation and sustainable development are all demanding further European action and input. In such a context, Europe has to respond. The challenge and opportunity for the Convention is to map the path and ambitions of that response.

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