Wednesday, October 22, 2003
How to Keep the Franco-German Axis at Bay
By Jacek Rostowski
Posted: Tuesday, October 21, 2003
ARTICLES
Wall Street Journal Europe (Brussels)
Publication Date: September 30, 2003
After having driven the Atlantic alliance to the edge of break-up over the Iraq war, the Franco-German axis is becoming ever more open about its contempt for its European partners.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister, has flaunted his dismissal of the eurozone 3% ceiling on budgetary deficits. For his part, Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, has reacted to the Swedish electorate's rejection of the euro by proposing to press ahead with a "two-speed" Europe. Britain, Sweden and the new accession countries of central and eastern Europe would be relegated to the "second league."
However, most revealing is the proposal by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the chairman of the European Constitutional Convention, that countries that reject the new constitutional treaty be asked to leave the Union. A domestic politician making a similar threat to voters would be hounded out of public life. In EU politics it is accepted without a murmur.
The threat might matter less if the draft of new constitution had been arrived at in an open and fair way, or if it was likely to achieve the original aims of bringing the Union closer to its people and making it more democratic. In fact, the Giscard draft was devised in the small "Presidium" of the Convention that was tightly controlled by Giscard and his Italian sidekick Giuliano Amato. Opposition in the plenary sessions was suppressed by giving each delegate only a few minutes to speak. The document's managers also tried to diffuse criticism by emphasizing that the Convention's draft had still to be accepted unanimously by all the current and future members states at the inter-governmental conference (IGC) starting next month.
Once completed, the draft was presented as a compromise, the best proof of its suitability being that it supposedly equally dissatisfied everyone. However, at the end of the Convention it transpired that far from requiring extensive discussion at the IGC, in Mr. Giscard's view the draft should be accepted almost without change. Moreover, despite earlier claims, dissatisfaction is clearly asymmetrical. France, Germany and Italy are pressing strongly for "whole hog" acceptance of the draft, while 17--yes, 17--small and medium sized countries are opposed to its current form. The smart money, however, is on its acceptance largely unchanged by the Rome summit in December.
And it is not as if the Constitution were just a "tidying up exercise" as Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair naively claims. The Giscard draft proposes a fundamental shift in the balance of power among member states in favor of France and Germany. In the crucial Council of Ministers, governments will now vote their nation's population weight, with only a 60% majority needed to pass legislation. The new voting procedure will make it much harder for anyone to block policies they strongly disagree with, though it would be much easier for France and Germany acting in tandem.
The French and the Germans constitute a blocking minority of 40%, able to stop legislation with only the support of either Britain or Italy, or Poland or Spain plus any two of the eight smaller countries with populations of over nine million.
The argument that the new procedure is more democratic is spurious. How democratic would the U.S. House of Representatives be if it met in closed session, attended only by the 50 state governors, each voting all of his state's districts? Yet that is how the EU Council works. As a result, it hardly ever formally votes on anything. Three votes a year being about standard. Everything is decided through backroom deals, where each country's weight compared to the blocking minority is decisive.
Not surprisingly, in the Giscard draft the biggest losers are to be Poland and Spain, two of the United States' staunchest allies during the clash over the Iraq war. The time has come for them to pay for having been so "badly brought up," to use French President Jacques Chirac's famous phrase.
Britain and Italy support the new procedure because they fancy that they too will be gainers. In fact, they will lose. Until Silvio Berlusconi appeared on the scene, Italian policy has traditionally been to desperately seek admission to the Franco-German duo, whatever the cost in terms of national humiliation. Britain has fluctuated between negotiating opt-outs for itself on policies it dislikes and ingratiating itself with France and Germany.
What the EU needs instead is an alternative center of power. Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain, the four largest U.S. allies, need to devise common policies, build up trust in their mutual solidarity and get into the habit of trading favors. Their present ad-hoc coalition must, in other words, be made more permanent, and domestically bipartisan. They have the added advantage of constituting a blocking minority in themselves. They should therefore copy France and Germany and sign an Elysee treaty of their own. The Franco-German treaty's structure, with its regular meetings and policy co-ordination, has helped buttress the duo's power.
Of course, this will be harder to do among four than between two, but until it happens France and Germany will always have the initiative in the EU, with other member states having to negotiate their interests individually with the dominant duo.
By Jacek Rostowski
Posted: Tuesday, October 21, 2003
ARTICLES
Wall Street Journal Europe (Brussels)
Publication Date: September 30, 2003
After having driven the Atlantic alliance to the edge of break-up over the Iraq war, the Franco-German axis is becoming ever more open about its contempt for its European partners.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister, has flaunted his dismissal of the eurozone 3% ceiling on budgetary deficits. For his part, Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, has reacted to the Swedish electorate's rejection of the euro by proposing to press ahead with a "two-speed" Europe. Britain, Sweden and the new accession countries of central and eastern Europe would be relegated to the "second league."
However, most revealing is the proposal by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the chairman of the European Constitutional Convention, that countries that reject the new constitutional treaty be asked to leave the Union. A domestic politician making a similar threat to voters would be hounded out of public life. In EU politics it is accepted without a murmur.
The threat might matter less if the draft of new constitution had been arrived at in an open and fair way, or if it was likely to achieve the original aims of bringing the Union closer to its people and making it more democratic. In fact, the Giscard draft was devised in the small "Presidium" of the Convention that was tightly controlled by Giscard and his Italian sidekick Giuliano Amato. Opposition in the plenary sessions was suppressed by giving each delegate only a few minutes to speak. The document's managers also tried to diffuse criticism by emphasizing that the Convention's draft had still to be accepted unanimously by all the current and future members states at the inter-governmental conference (IGC) starting next month.
Once completed, the draft was presented as a compromise, the best proof of its suitability being that it supposedly equally dissatisfied everyone. However, at the end of the Convention it transpired that far from requiring extensive discussion at the IGC, in Mr. Giscard's view the draft should be accepted almost without change. Moreover, despite earlier claims, dissatisfaction is clearly asymmetrical. France, Germany and Italy are pressing strongly for "whole hog" acceptance of the draft, while 17--yes, 17--small and medium sized countries are opposed to its current form. The smart money, however, is on its acceptance largely unchanged by the Rome summit in December.
And it is not as if the Constitution were just a "tidying up exercise" as Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair naively claims. The Giscard draft proposes a fundamental shift in the balance of power among member states in favor of France and Germany. In the crucial Council of Ministers, governments will now vote their nation's population weight, with only a 60% majority needed to pass legislation. The new voting procedure will make it much harder for anyone to block policies they strongly disagree with, though it would be much easier for France and Germany acting in tandem.
The French and the Germans constitute a blocking minority of 40%, able to stop legislation with only the support of either Britain or Italy, or Poland or Spain plus any two of the eight smaller countries with populations of over nine million.
The argument that the new procedure is more democratic is spurious. How democratic would the U.S. House of Representatives be if it met in closed session, attended only by the 50 state governors, each voting all of his state's districts? Yet that is how the EU Council works. As a result, it hardly ever formally votes on anything. Three votes a year being about standard. Everything is decided through backroom deals, where each country's weight compared to the blocking minority is decisive.
Not surprisingly, in the Giscard draft the biggest losers are to be Poland and Spain, two of the United States' staunchest allies during the clash over the Iraq war. The time has come for them to pay for having been so "badly brought up," to use French President Jacques Chirac's famous phrase.
Britain and Italy support the new procedure because they fancy that they too will be gainers. In fact, they will lose. Until Silvio Berlusconi appeared on the scene, Italian policy has traditionally been to desperately seek admission to the Franco-German duo, whatever the cost in terms of national humiliation. Britain has fluctuated between negotiating opt-outs for itself on policies it dislikes and ingratiating itself with France and Germany.
What the EU needs instead is an alternative center of power. Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain, the four largest U.S. allies, need to devise common policies, build up trust in their mutual solidarity and get into the habit of trading favors. Their present ad-hoc coalition must, in other words, be made more permanent, and domestically bipartisan. They have the added advantage of constituting a blocking minority in themselves. They should therefore copy France and Germany and sign an Elysee treaty of their own. The Franco-German treaty's structure, with its regular meetings and policy co-ordination, has helped buttress the duo's power.
Of course, this will be harder to do among four than between two, but until it happens France and Germany will always have the initiative in the EU, with other member states having to negotiate their interests individually with the dominant duo.
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