Future of the European Union: Federalists Vs. Skeptics

The probable expansion of the European Union to several dozens of countries make the Eurobureaucrats and governments to think even now about its future institutional structure. The extremes are in general clear: either a federation with fully-empowered supranational bodies, or a certain loose alliance, something of the kind of a ‘’Continental UN.’’ And while earlier many things were determined by the degree of differences between the chief enthusiasts of Euro-integration — Germany and France — and the chief Euro-skeptic, Great Britain, now the situation is not so simple. In all probability, the following EU ‘’debriefing’’ will be also interesting to the Ukrainian reader. For if the question of when Ukraine will join the EU no longer provokes the sensation of awkwardness, other questions will arise: where is the country in fact being integrated, on what conditions, and how much will it cost?

Incidentally, when these questions become a serious factor of domestic political situation in Ukraine (as it is now in Poland, for instance), the question of dates will become less dramatic.

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister, set the cat among the pigeons when he laid out his vision of a federalist European Union. In Britain, where the idea of European federalism has never been popular, it was predictable that the Euro- sceptic newspaper The Times would denounce Mr Fischer’s ideas. But even in France, traditionally committed to its partnership with Germany, he raised a small storm, most sensationally when Jean-Pierre ChevPnement, the French Interior Minister, responded with the bizarre claim that the Germans had not fully recovered from their Nazi past.

These intemperate reactions may seem bizarre. For one thing, Mr Fischer made it clear at the time that he was only expressing his personal thoughts, not speaking officially for the German government. For another, it quickly emerged that his federalist vision was not shared by the French government. Hubert Vedrine, France’s foreign minister, described Fischer’s ideas as “ambitious”, which sounds friendly, but is really diplomatic code for “well- meaning but unrealistic”; and when French and German leaders met a few days later, for a brain-storming session on Europe, they did not endorse the Fischer vision.

Yet it may be a mistake to conclude that this was an episode without significance. Joschka Fischer set out his federalist vision because he believes that some form of federalism will be necessary if the European Union is to continue to function after enlargement to embrace the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. He is not alone in this belief.

Last year, Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission and a former prime minister of Italy, made it clear that he believed enlargement would require radical constitutional reform of the Union. So did a committee of “Three Wise Men”, led by Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Belgian prime minister.

This year, the case for radical constitutional reform of the EU was argued by Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, and Helmut Schmidt, a former German Chancellor; and also by Jacques Delors, a former President of the Commission. The cause of radical reform has also been taken up by the European Parliament.

EU governments, however, seem determined to steer clear of any attempt at radical solutions. Last December, they conceded that some constitutional changes would be required before enlargement. But they also agreed to keep these changes to a minimum: a small increase in the scope for majority voting; some change in the relative voting weights of large and small countries; and some reform of the Commission. The French government will be leading the negotiations on these modest changes in the second half of this year, and its priority is not to provoke controversy, but to work towards a successful year-end summit at Nice.

The reluctance of governments to consider radical solutions may not be admirable, but is understandable. One reason is that the idea of European integration is, in many countries, less popular than in the past. But the bottom line is that constitutional changes can only be carried by unanimous agreement, and several member governments, starting with the UK, would resist any overtly federalist agenda.

In the past, no doubt, France (under President Mitterrand) and Germany (under Chancellor Kohl) would together regularly press the case for closer integration, despite British reluctance. But today, France and Germany are less united on a common European strategy, and their commitment to European integration seems less strong. As a result, the French government is reluctant to force a confrontation with the British, if there is any chance of a softer compromise in future.

The problem is that this conspiracy of evasion may not work, and the significance of Fischer’s speech is that he is the first government minister in office to say so in public, even if he pretends to say it in a personal capacity. “Enlargement”, he says, “will render imperative a fundamental reform of the European institutions. Just what would a European Council with thirty heads of state and government be like? How long will Council meetings actually last? Days, maybe even weeks?”

His answer is that the incrementalist method of integration, followed for the past 50 years, will no longer work, and that such a large Union must be a federal Union, though still composed of traditional nation states. It must be reconstructed with a new constitution, built on fundamental human rights. There must be a clear allocation of distinct competences between the Union and its member states. And democracy must be reinforced by two chambers of parliament.

There may be great merits in this recipe; but to describe it as “ambitious” is a serious under- statement. In the first place, it implies a wholesale re-writing of the European Union Treaty, as well as a far-reaching renegotiation of existing EU policies. This would be a heroic task at the best of times, but more than heroic in the face of the hostility of several member states. And since Mr Fischer places his federal transformation some ten years from now, after enlargement, the opponents of federalism may by then be even more numerous than today.

But if the obstacles to Mr Fischer’s federal vision are too great, then there may be an alternative: an inner group of like- minded states could forge ahead without the others, negotiate a new Treaty, and even form a federal government.

At this point there emerges a clear convergence between French and German thinking. For shortly before the Fischer speech, Lionel Jospin, the French prime minister, argued that the 11 members of the Euro currency zone should form an economic government for Europe. In short, the future of European integration may lie with those states that want it, and the others (i.e. the British) may lose the power to block it. By Ian DAVIDSON, Copyright: Project Syndicate

Ian Davidson is a fellow of the European Policy Centre in Brussels and a former columnist for The Financial Times.