A convention of 105 people is at work to pass a Constitutional Treatise that should assure the former EEC new political importance. Optimists have already compared it to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, which resulted in the Constitution of the United States of America and was, at Benjamin Franklin’s time, proposed as a model to his European friends. If the 105 members of the European Convention at work in Brussels under the guidance of the former French president Valéry Giscard D’Estaing were to be really inspired by the stars and stripes’ “founding fathers”, in little less than a year the Intergovernmental Conference, which will be called to approve their work, should inaugurate a completely renovated European Union, close-knit and ready for its historical expansion towards East.

But, as Jacques Le Goff says, “History never baths twice in the same river” and the possibility that the Convention may give life to an institution called the “United States of Europe” is rather remote - the Fifteen can in no way be compared to Virginia or New Jersey and not even Germany, today’s most federal European state, would dream of renouncing its leadership in favour of a common, central super-government. The negative reaction of most European Parliamentarians when Giscard suggested that the new institution should be called ‘United States of Europe’ proves the underlying wariness towards extreme solutions. The best we can expect is a not better defined “Federation of Nation States”, with a president by turns and greater powers in the fields of foreign and defence policies, the administration of justice and control of economy.
But not even this result can be taken for granted because the constitutional engineering operations required are so complex, and the options open are still so many, that the drafting of a final common document appears a problem. If the Convention, which unites representatives of the governments of Member States and candidate Countries, national Parliaments, the European Parliament and the European Commission, should reach the end of works still divided between supporters of the “community method” and of the “intergovernmental method”, it is unlikely that the governments will later succeed in settling the conflict.
The subject is hard for inexperts to understand – and in fact the debate on Europe’s future, which should take place in member countries in view of next year’s deadlines, is still almost inexistent. For the time being the governments too refrain from taking up well defined positions on the crux of negotiations, so that their hands are not tied when the turning point is reached and, to say it with Giscard, they will have to choose between the “narrow door to success” and the “abyss of failure”. In short, this is how things stand.
Except for unforeseen cataclysms, in 2004 ten new countries – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus and Malta – will enter the European Union with full rights. However complex the final stage of negotiations proves to be when compared to expectations, and probably not all the candidates will succeed in digesting all the aquis communautaire in time, it is now obvious that their entry into the EU cannot be postponed without causing a rejection crisis throughout East Europe. But to avoid matters coming to a standstill, the Union must radically review its institutions and decisional procedures before the D-day - it must modify the Commission’s organization, extend the majority vote in the European Council to new topics, review relations between the two organisms, strengthen the European Parliament’s role, appoint a “president” of the Union or at least one person in charge of foreign policies and – above all – be equipped with a Constitution that combines the various Treatises, stating who must do what.
The problem is that, the very moment the need for this act was noticed and the Convention was opened to meet this need, all latent conflict between maximalists (supporters of total federalism) and minimalists (those who are satisfied with the Union as it is – a large free trade zone with one currency, which only requires small adjustments) have surfaced. Countries that have made great progress together, even despite frequent conflict, struggle to reach an understanding now that the final and hardest lap of the climb has to be faced.
The interests involved, which could so far be negotiated and even renounced, have become essential; every step treads on the sore spots of national sovereignty; and, wary and even openly hostile forces towards the European Union are rising in all fifteen countries, and they influence public opinion even when they are not ruling the nation. In parallel with the institutional reform entrusted to the Convention, the Fifteen will also have to review the Common Agricultural Policy and the criteria for awarding structural funds, because with today’s rules the expansion would upset the Community’s budget. The sentence “Europe is at a junction” has hence almost become a commonplace statement. In practice, it is not so much a junction that involves a net choice between two roads that are already traced, as marking out a course that can be followed in a land that is virtually unexplored and dotted with obstacles.
The mandate given to the Convention by the Laeken European Council is to draft a “Treatise of the Union’s competences”, with the answers to a series of key questions. What must the Union’s competences be? What must those of member states be? How can the subsidization principle be applied - according to it the Union must only handle problems that cannot be solved at lower levels? How to develop a common foreign policy and a more consistent defence policy? Is a greater cooperation required between judiciary and police forces? Do we or do we not want a common immigration and refugee status policy? Which legislative tools must be adopted? Is it advisable to resort more often to the skeleton law, which leaves member states a wider manoeuvring margin? How to increase the legitimacy and openness of European institutions? How can the Commission’s authority and efficiency be strengthened? How must the president of the Commission be appointed: by the European Parliament, by the European Council or through direct elections? How can the Parliament’s role be strengthened? Should a qualified majority make more decisions and what measures must be taken if the dissident faction does not apply them? How can the tool of advanced corporations be codified as it enables certain states to surpass others on the road to integration?
It must all take place under the protection of a Declaration, which also states as follows: “Europe must become more democratic, open and efficient and bring the citizens closer to the European project”. But the president of the Commission, Romano Prodi, has also added something of his own, by proposing “four challenges” that are no trifle matter to those participating in the convention: international responsibility for peace and development, the defence of a balanced social model that can assure wealth and solidarity, the answer to the migratory phenomena and crime without frontiers and the ability to become a centre of intellectual, scientific and innovative influence. It is clear that each question we have listed can have different answers, according to the type of Europe desired.
Besides the representatives of governments, who play their own individual game, the number of euroenthusiasts at the Convention is larger than that of eurosceptics, and relying on their individual mandate they will try to push towards more courageous and innovative solutions. At the end, however, they too will have to surrender to the eurorealists, who want to strengthen European institutions and take another step forward towards integration, without however leaving behind the countries, which – like Great Britain and Sweden – do not want to hear about real federalism. The orientation of candidate countries must also be considered – after being through almost forty years of limited sovereignty in the sphere of the Warsaw Pact, they are not in the least enthusiastic about immediately sacrificing a part of their newfound independence on the altar of the European Union.
“Here – one of the participants at the convention recently observed – it is like facing the final stage of the ascent of the Everest. More or less everyone has reached the base camp, but now some do not feel up to it, or do not feel like climbing to the top”.
The need to make the Union “more democratic and open” has lead the Convention to begin its work with a listening phase, during which it tried to identify – through a series of ‘auditions’ – the civil society’s wants. As it was to be expected, the answers were all but univocal, and only confirmed what was already known: before an élite that really wants Europe to succeed and is willing to sacrifice even prerogatives that were so far jealously defended by national states, there is still resistance of every sort, and an ascertained lack of a real European conscience.
Many have a sectorial view of the Union, that is they take an interest only in those aspects that interfere directly with their existence, others adapt to the stereotypes of the controversy against “faceless bureaucrats” who want to lay new rules of life. The enthusiasm for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, adopted among much controversy at the Nice European Council, but which has still not been made a law, appears limited in the eyes of experts.
The list of reports resulting from the survey conducted by Eurobarometer and which must be handed to the government of the Union are presented in the following order: the fight against international terrorism (85%), the traffic of human beings (80%), organized crime (72%), drugs (71%), humanitarian aid (71%) and foreign policies (71%), while there is much more resistance with regard to the defence and management of economy. Theoretically, the advancement of the so-called CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) is placed first in the governments’ agenda, but in practice, every time there is a crisis the difficulty in reaching an understanding on this point becomes more obvious.
The case of a precautionary war against Iraq is, from this viewpoint, a perfect example: Germany has announced that it does not mean to participate even if it were to take place under the aegis of the UN; Great Britain will however be in the front line. How a common position can be reached in such circumstances is a mystery, and how the loser, in case of a majority decision, can adapt to it is another. In an attempt to tone down matters, the eurorealists suggest adopting the majority vote system in the European Council, and leaving those who do not agree the so-called opt-out solution, that is the right not to participate. But the problem seems to stretch beyond formulas: as long as national governments will differ in their orientation and colours, it will be virtually impossible to make them agree in situations which would require Europe to “speak unanimously”.
The reaction to the demand for European control of economy, which many consider indispensable to balance and integrate the work of the European Central Bank in ruling the only currency, is not very different. Unfortunately, the conditions of the Fifteen (and with all the more reason of the Twenty-five, when the expansion will be completed) are still too different to enable a common orientation.
During these very weeks we can see a struggle between those states which hope for a slackening of the Stability Pact’s bonds and those which, having respected it with great sacrifice, refuse to hear of exceptions. To imagine that there could be a European fiscal policy in the near future almost seems a dream. Lastly, the struggle for power underway between the Union’s various organs plays a relevant role in this match, which involves the European Council, which represents member states, the Commission, the Strasbourg Parliament and – the last to tread the boards – the Regions.
Each one is trying, more or less vigorously, to bring grist to his mill, in other words to gain more authority in the Union’s new order. Individual states are understandably reluctant to delegate certain functions to Brussels (“No to an European super-state!”) and on certain matters they would even like to take back certain competences they had already given up, interpreting the famous subsidization principle in a new manner. The Commission, often on the same wave-length as the Parliament, would on the contrary like to expand its activities and become the Union’s only executive organ, confining the Council to the role of “Upper House”. We are, once again before the conflict between the “community method” and the “intergovernmental method” we mentioned in the beginning, and which will, in short, decide about the very nature of the Europe we are building.
In making a forecast, it will however be a good rule to recall that the Convention has only prepositional powers, and that the last word is the right of heads of state and governments in what promises to be the most important European Council held in the last ten years. If everything works out according to schedule, this Council will take place in Italy, who knows, even in the same hall that exactly fifty years ago saw the birth of the Treatises of Rome.

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