[A-List] EU integration struggles: Big Three converge

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Struggle over EU's reins enters its endgame
By George Parker in Brussels
Financial Times: October 11 2002

It was in La Truffe Noire, over the eponymous truffles and duck with fresh
fig, that Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, tackled the most sensitive
subject in Brussels: who should be the political driving force of the EU?

The fact that his dining companion was Romano Prodi, the European Commission
president, and currently the EU's leading political figure, made the
conversation all the more awkward.

Mr Schröder said bluntly he believed there was a case for a new president in
Brussels, running the EU's Council of Ministers, the main forum for national
leaders.

But he also assured Mr Prodi that he would only back the plan if he could
find a way to reinforce the position of the president of the Commission, the
guardian of the greater European interest.

Mr Schröder's position as the leader of the EU's biggest country, but
traditional defender of the interests of the smaller member states, is
pivotal.

He has launched the endgame of a struggle between two different visions of
how Europe should be run. Whether he can find a compromise to make both work
in tandem remains to be seen.

The debate goes to the heart of what sort of Europe will emerge next year at
the end of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's convention on the future of the EU.

Should power become more focused in the council, the forum for a Europe of
nation states? Or should it be built around a powerful Commission, the
traditional motor of European integration, with its ambition to defend the
interests of the smaller states?

Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, believes an EU president in the
council would reinforce the UK vision of a Europe of nation states.

Writing in Friday's Economist, he says: "The European Council should set the
strategic agenda for the Union. But one of the problems with delivery has
been that - unlike the Commission which is appointed for five years - there
is musical chairs every six months in the European Council and the Council
of Ministers.

"The presidency switches from one country to the next. This stop-go comes at
the expense of consistency and efficiency."

He says a permanent EU council president would provide the Union with a
sense of political direction, as well as a publicly accountable face.

But many smaller countries suspect a stitch-up, an attempt to create a
directoire of big member states to take over the running of a cumbersome,
enlarged EU.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Austrian foreign minister, claims the idea goes
"directly against the principles of equality" in the EU, arguing that the
president would almost certainly come from one of the larger member states.

Even if this was not the case, critics claim, the president would tend to
make policy by taking instructions from the leading EU capitals.

Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister, said: "To put it mildly, I
don't find this a helpful proposal." Mr Prodi himself says he wants to make
the EU council work better, and agrees that the rotating six-month
presidency is disruptive.

The question is whether a strengthened council, led by a high-profile
political figure, can co-exist with the president of a strong Commission.

Mr Giscard d'Estaing, who invented the European Council in 1974, is widely
suspected in the Commission of wanting to push power towards the new rival
president. "Giscard wants an elected president of the council with the
Commission as a secretariat," said one senior Commission official.

Although relations between Mr Prodi and Mr Schröder are strained after the
chancellor's recent election campaign, with its heavy element of
Brussels-bashing, the Commission president needs Germany to help fight a
rearguard action.

How can Mr Schröder reconcile his promises, given over the frivolite'
dessert on Wednesday night, to ensure the Commission gets more power even as
some authority is moving to the council?

One option being considered by Mr Prodi and Germany is to give the
Commission president more legitimacy by allowing members of the European
parliament to choose him.

Germany might also press for new areas of policymaking to be pushed in the
Commission's direction, such as aspects of justice and home affairs and
possibly elements of foreign policy.

But things might still be uncomfortable. Whether Brussels is big enough for
two presidents remains to be seen.