EU History III

1
EU History III

• Constitutional Change, 1994-2005

2
The Reflection Group

• A reflection group is created during the Corfu
  summit in 1994. National governments appointed
  one representative each, and (after many
  debates) the EP is even given two (non voting)
  representatives and the Commission is given one.
• -Reflection group identifies three main areas for
  reform
• 1. Making the EU more relevant to its citizens
  (by promoting internal security, human rights,
  employment policy, and environmental protection)
• 2. Simplification of procedures (efficiency in
  legislative realm)
• 3. Legitimacy (democratic deficit)
• 4. Improving the EUs ability to act
  internationally (CFSP and JHA especially largely
  as a result of Bosnia crisis)

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The Flexibility Debate

• Flexibility (the possibility of
  institutionalizing differentiated integration).
• Main factors contributing for the timing and
  intensity of the debate
• British obstructionism.
• The likelihood that only a minority of members
  would be able to participate in the final stage
  of the EMU.
• The prospect of central and eastern European
  enlargement.
• Europe à la Carte (pick and choose when to opt
  in and out of certain policies, advocated by
  Britain) vs. a Two-Tiered Europe (advocated by
  Germany through a paper published by the
  governing conservative coalition parties. Spoke
  of a hard core of countries oriented to greater
  integration and cooperation).

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The Treaty of Amsterdam

• IGC officially launched March 1996
• Amsterdam Results
• Flexibility included in the treaty as long as it
  was limited to precisely defined conditions that
  would not endanger the acquis communautaire.
  Enabling clauses for countries that wished to
  cooperate more, but provision for blocking
  cooperation of others (veto) if national interest
  at stake.

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The Treaty of Amsterdam

• Commission and Council votes Commission would
  comprise of one representative per member state
  as soon as the next enlargement took place,
  provided that Council votes were reweighted to
  compensate for the commissioner loss of the big
  members. At least one year before the EU enlarged
  to 25, another conference was to review the
  provisions of the treaties on the composition and
  functioning of the institutions (decide how to
  apportion twenty commissioners among 25 states).
• European Parliament The conference accepted the
  EP own proposal to set a cap of 700 members,
  while it also reduced the number of procedures to
  three consultation, a simplified form of
  co-decision, and assent. Limited extension of QMV
  to cover research development policy.

6
The Treaty of Amsterdam

• Protocol on the role of national parliaments,
  giving the Conference of European Affairs
  Committees of national parliaments the right to
  send comments on EU legislative proposals to the
  Commission, Council and EP.
• Incorporation of a previously agreed subsidiarity
  protocol (EU being responsible for the tasks that
  could be undertaken more effectively in common
  rather than acting independently).
• A new transparency clause stipulating that any
  natural or legal person residing in the EU has a
  right of access to EU documents.
• Schengen Treaty incorporated into the EU treaty
  structure (no border checks)

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The Treaty of Amsterdam

• CFSP three main decisions
• Created the High Representative position for the
  Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana
  (1999).
• QMV for some CFSP decisions, particularly over
  implementation schemes for unanimously decided
  actions. In addition, the concept of
  constructive abstention essentially meaning
  that abstentions no longer counted as no votes
  when unanimity needed. Permits Member States to
  not participate, but not keep others from acting.
• Decision to permit the merging of the old Western
  European Union (WEU) with CFSP/EU. This would
  essentially give the EU a military existence. The
  Treaty allows the European Council to decide to
  do this in the future if they want (they did and
  the merger occurred).

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The Treaty of Nice

• Results
• France determined to keep the same number of
  Council votes as Germany, Germany concedes in
  return for the addition of a demographic
  criterion for QMV (thus giving Germany extra
  voting weight). According to the new rules, a
  legislative proposal would pass if it received a
  qualified majority of 72 percent of votes, and
  subject to a specific request by a member state,
  if the qualified majority represents at least
  62  of the total population of the Union.
• The Netherlands demanded more Council votes,
  infuriating Belgium, which was eventually bought
  off with the promise of hosting all European
  Council meetings in Brussels.

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The Treaty of Nice

• One commissioner per member state until the EU
  reached twenty-seven members.
• Agreed to exceed the cap of 700 to 732 when
  reallocating parliamentary seats in order to
  accommodate an EU of up to 27 members
• Governments relax the criteria under which
  flexibility could be used by agreeing to remove
  the national veto on the issue of flexibility and
  reduce the number of states allowed to initiate
  the procedure.

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The Convention on the Future of Europe

• Declaration attached to the Nice treaty, calls
  for deeper and wider debate about the future of
  the EU.
• The European Council announced that
  representatives of various national and EU
  institutions would meet in a convention to
  prepare the intergovernmental conference
  composition reflected the need to diversify
  participation on treaty reform
• -15 representatives of the national leaders (one
  from each MS)
• -30 representatives of the national parliaments
• -2 representatives of the Commission, and 16
  members of the EP.
• -(candidate countries to be represented in the
  same way, but without decisionmaking role)

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The Constitutional Treaty

• On 29 October 2004, the Heads of State or
  Government of the 25 Member States and the 3
  candidate countries signed the Treaty
  establishing a Constitution for Europe which will
  then need to be ratified by all 25 member states
  of the enlarged Union.
• Constitutional Treaty Results
• Division of responsibilities extend EU
  competence into some new areas, perhaps most
  importantly into justice policy, especially
  asylum and immigration. It does away with the old
  structure of pillars under which some policies
  came under the EU and some under
  "inter-governmental" arrangements

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The Constitutional Treaty

• Decision making QMV generally applied. There
  will however be a veto for members in foreign
  policy, defense and taxation. And there is to be
  what's called an emergency brake in which a
  country outvoted on an issue can take its case to
  the European Council, though it can still be
  outvoted there. The European Parliament will have
  an equal say on decisions requiring majority
  voting (codecision).
• Qualified majority voting (QMV) A qualified
  majority shall be defined as at least 55 of the
  members of the Council, comprising at least 15 of
  them and representing Member States comprising at
  least 65 of the population of the Union.
• President The European Council, "shall elect its
  President, by qualified majority, for a term of
  two and a half years, renewable once." The
  candidate will then have to be approved by the
  European Parliament. The President will "chair
  (the Council) and drive its work forward and
  ensure, at his level, the external representation
  of the Union."

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The Constitutional Treaty

• Foreign minister The European Council, deciding
  by qualified majority, with the agreement of the
  president of the Commission, shall appoint the
  Union Minister of Foreign Affairs... who shall
  conduct the Union's common foreign and security
  policy."
• Reform of the Commission The Commission "will
  consist of one national from each Member State"
  for its first term of five years starting in
  November 2004. After that it will be slimmed down
  to "a number of members... corresponding to two
  thirds of the number of Member States, unless the
  European Council, acting unanimously, decides to
  alter this figure."
• Leaving the EU A new procedure describes how a
  member would leave the EU " A member state which
  decides to withdraw shall notify the Council of
  its intention... The Union shall negotiate and
  conclude an agreement with that state, setting
  out the arrangements for its withdrawal."

14
Stalemate

• The people of France and the Netherlands rejected
  the text of the Constitution on 29 May and 1
  June, 2005 respectively.
• European Council, meeting on 16 and 17 June 2005,
  considered that we do not feel that the date
  initially planned for a report on ratification of
  the Treaty, 1 November 2006, is still tenable,
  since those countries which have not yet ratified
  the Treaty will be unable to furnish a clear
  reply before mid-2007.
• The state of discussions on ratification of the
  Constitutional Treaty will be examined by the
  European Council under the Austrian Presidency
  (in the first half of 2006).

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