Large and small Member States in the European Union: reinventing the balance

The paper examines the divisions which cause disagreements between the big and the small Member States of the enlarged EU within the European Convention.

The tension between large and small countries has always been part of EU politics – a trait shared with all federal experiences. Three mechanisms established by the founding treaty have long helped reduce the intensity of these conflicts: the system of weighed votes in the Council, the role and “representativity” of the Commission and the rotating presidency have all preserved the basic principle of equality among member states, while giving to the larger ones a preponderant role.

Successive enlargements have made these mechanisms ever less adapted to the functioning of the Union. As the number of small states has grown much more rapidly than the number of large states, the institutions which guaranteed the equality among states have seemed less defendable to the larger ones. Until the mid-1990s, enlargements were dealt with by adapting the first two mechanisms and establishing a tradeoff between them overtime: voting would become more proportional while the Commission would hang on to the equality principle. But with 9 out of the 10 new member states small or medium-sized, even this basis tradeoff could not do the trick anymore. By the time the Convention was convened, a new bargain was needed to reconcile the principles of equality among states and proportional democratic representation in the EU.

Critics of the status quo have argued that sheer numbers simply meant that the balance between the two principles could not be upheld anymore: equality between states had to give way in the name of effectiveness. Not only would the Commission become too large to remain efficient, but the rotating presidency, which until now had remained untouched, was no longer be viable.

The argument over effectiveness is less than convincing. Even if each member state preserved one commissioner, the Commission would still not be much larger than a national government. Internal re-organisations could guarantee the efficient working of the College, while preserving its representativity. In the same spirit, the coherence and continuity of the Council’s workcould be improved through a better coordination between member states, better collaboration between the Council secretariat and the Commission, and a simplification of Council formations – reforms which have already been initiated by the Council itself without requiring a major Constitutional reform.

The true rationale for the reform proposed by the bigger countries lies elsewhere. It is simply one of balance of power in the Union. A smaller Commission, a double majority or a permanent European Council Chair would all help reduce “the tyranny of the minority” in the Union.

This concern should be taken seriously. At this stage of the Constitutional convention, it would be contrary to the spirit of this Union for the large states to simply impose their viewpoint; but equally, the small states who only represent a quarter of the EU population cannot simply reject wholesale the most important request of the large states. We have argued, however, that simply replacing the rotating presidency by a permanent president would not, per se, be a satisfying solution. First, because this would do away with a system of rotation which has had and could continue to have crucial symbolic and integrative effects. Second, because this would generate new forms of tensions : the balance between states might be corrected under this scenario, but at the expense of the institutional balance.

The compromise we have proposed here seeks to forge a real synthesis between the positions of the large and small states, and to preserve the virtues of the present system, while correcting its most obvious defects.

For one, such a compromise does not rely on establishing sharp linkages between the different dimensions of institutional reform. The suggestion that small countries could accept a permanent chair in exchange for retaining their Commissioner each seems excessively asymmetrical. Indeed, even on the Commission front, the small states are likely to make the concessionary move by accepting to move to a two tier system that would necessarily disadvantage them. The other traditional linkage, between Commission reform and voting arrangement also seems mute with the adoption of a double majority system. Under such a scenario the two principles of equality between states and proportional representation are combined in their purest form in the voting system itself. The bigger states acquire a disproportional blocking capacity but the smaller states can now constitute a partial majority together. In short the balance to be reinvented between small and big states cannot fundamentally rely on linking different concessions. Instead, it must be found at the level of each institution, including the presidency.

We have argued that the presidency system can be redesign to address the demands of both sides. On one hand, a chair of the European Council can be useful, if its role is clearly defined, and if he/she is considered as a “wise man/woman” and mediator rather than that a classic leader as in national epics. On the other hand, preserving some form of rotation for the Council of Ministers along the lines of the Benelux proposal would guarantee the rights of the small states and contribute to their integration in the Union – a particularly important concern, as 9 of the 10 new states are small or medium- sized states. But this in itself does not do much to retain the democratic benefits of rotation –eg bringing the EU closer to its citizens. Most importantly we advocate the creation of a new EU wide presidency, over and above the European Council.

Under this framework, the goal of the big countries would be achieved by shifting rotation outside the European Council and therefore delink it with its management which would be left to the newly created Chair. This Chair would engage in long term strategic planning for his or her institution. In contrast, the EU presidency would be offered from most of the tasks currently associated with the rotating presidency of the European Council. Above all, it would host the European Summit held during its mandate and coordinate with all EU institutions in doing so, in addition to chairing the formations of the Council – with the exception of the Foreign Affairs Council. This focus on the rotation of EU Summit location is predicated on the belief that Summits held in national capitals constitute events which bring the EU closest to its citizens both those in the host Member State and those from the other Member States. Like other heads of state in our democracies, the role of the EU presidency would be above all ceremonial. Crucially, there would be no new bureaucracy created around this new EU presidency.

Such an approach would be both innovative and faithful to the spirit of the Treaties. A new rotating EU presidency would not detract from the profound ly important insight of those who insist on the need for a permanent Chair of the European Council to provide the much needed continuity and long term planning for this institution. On the contrary, it would make it acceptable to the small and medium size countries. Indeed, every EU body should have a single, permanent and accountable head, recognized inside and outside the EU as responsible for running his or her shop. This is the hallmark of all democracies: In the United States, the Congress and the Senate each have their president, even while there is also a president for the whole country. But let the EU as a whole continue to stand for another concurrent ideal of decentralised, transnational and shared governance through the creation of a collective and rotating EU Presidency. In this sense, and freed from its sole attachment to the European Council, the EU presidency will be neither an expression of intergovernmentalism nor of supranationalism but the p oint where both meet, as each presidency in turn would act as a temporary embodiment of the EU as a whole.

True, one might object that this synthesis doesn’t make the EU much simpler. But it does not make the EU more complicated than it is now either. We believe that such a status quo in terms of simplification should be acceptable if this helps build a consensus around a revised institutional framework. Simplifying the EU is a noble objective, but it would become counter-productive if it generated new tensions and frustrations. The EU has never been simple; it probably needs to remain somewhat complex to preserve its efficiency and its legitimacy in the eyes of all those who form it.

And come to think of it, would the average European citizen not be able to appreciate the logic of the construct: a new symbolic collective EU presidency, and a head for each separate EU institution? Would the wavering EU supporter not appreciate such a guarantee of EU pluralism and thus perceive the EU as closer to her concerns? It seems worth making this bet, and in the process mend the deepest divide in our Constitutional dialogue.

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