EU Constitution Deadlock

IES Scholars look at the causes and ramifications of the current deadlock in EU constitution negotiations.

With the current deadlock in constitution negotiations, the EU may be facing a bleak future.

The impending adoption of a constitution for the European Union by its member states has been heralded as an unprecedented moment in modern history. If Europe adopts a constitution, it will redefine the meaning of sovereignty and governance on the European continent. A draft of the constitution was hammered out after two years of work by a "European Convention" under the direction of former French president Valéry Giscard dEstaing. The EU was scheduled to agree to that draft in the middle of December 2003. Instead, the countries fell into a dangerous deadlock that has not yet cleared. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters that "the voting system is the obstacle that can block the whole agreement, and that is a pity."

Disagreement over that system has simmered since the EU's intergovernmental conference in Nice, which took place three years ago. Germany and France, which together account for one-third of the EU's population, want the voting system to reflect their size. But Spain and Poland fear domination by the bigger powers, and argued for the implementation of a voting system agreed upon at Nice. There they were given 27 votes each in the future executive commission -- only two less than the most populated states, including Germany, which has a population double their size. The draft constitution proposed that a double majority system would work most efficiently -- a decision would go through if supported by half the member states representing at least 60% of the EU's total population.

eNews asked IES Scholars Gérard Roland and Nuno Severiano Teixeira to examine this issue more closely. Both agree that voting rights is the main obstacle preventing members of the EU from signing on to a constitution.

"It is the main stumbling block," said Roland. "Spain and Poland are insisting on keeping the voting weights they received in the Nice Treaty. The Nice decisions have been criticized from day one as a compromise hammered through a lengthy night meeting. French threats to go ahead with a core group of countries excluding accession countries and German threats of eliminating transfers Poland is expecting to receive have not helped."

	UC Berkeley Professor of Economics Gérard Roland.

Roland and Teixeira may have different ideas, however, on whether or not the larger countries (Germany, France and Great Britain) should retain the power they would have with a majority representing 60% of the EUs population. Teixeira feels there should be an equilibrium amongst the consensus institutions.

"If the bigger countries want more votes in the council, they need to have less power in the commission," said Teixeira.

"It is a balanced proposal giving, it is true, more blocking power to countries with a larger population," said Roland. "The big innovation however is that the threshold for qualified majority is significantly lower than it was previously, making it more difficult for a small group of countries to block decisions. It is this blocking power of countries that is at stake in the current stalemate."

The big question is: what needs to change in order to reach an agreement? Both feel it is difficult to tell, yet each has a unique suggestion.

"I have an idea that is based on research by Columbia University economist Alessandra Casella," said Roland. "Countries should have once or twice per year the right to use a larger number of votes than usual if they feel that a decision can threaten their national interests. Such an idea might accommodate Spanish and Polish demands for more blocking power but it should be made a scarce commodity. It might also improve the trade-off between the need for efficiency in decision-making in the EU and countries' national sovereignty. The previous system, and also Nice, gave countries excessive holdup power. They could threaten to block decisions where their interests where not threatened to increase their bargaining power over issues they cared about. The proposal I am sketching eliminates the holdup power while preserving sovereignty in fundamental matters."

IES Visiting Scholar Nuno Severiano Teixeira.

"It is a question of representation," said Teixeira. "In the EU, there is no mechanism of compensation of negotiation between population and state, the way there is in the US with the House of Representatives and the Senate. The EU is trying to make everything work in the same institution, while it might be easier to accomplish in two separate institutions. Everything, as is, has to be negotiated."

Roland does not foresee a resolution being reached any time before European Parliament elections in June, partly because there has never been a hard deadline for the agreement. Teixeira is optimistic that an agreement will be reached, and feels it will probably need to happen before the Irish presidential term ends in May.

But the fact remains that the EU has been deadlocked for almost two months, with no immediate relief in sight. If they EU does not come to an agreement on the constitution, there will be other issues to consider. Yet both scholars see the collapse of the EU, based on this problem, as a "very low probability event." Both feel the constitution will be signed sooner or later.

"The EU might face a larger crisis, however, if the constitution is rejected by referendum in some countries," said Roland, pondering a future that, for now, still seems a bit cloudy.

Gérard Roland is a Professor of Economics for UC Berkeley. Visit his faculty web page at: emlab.berkeley.edu/users/groland/index.html. Nuno Teixeira Severiano is a Visiting Scholar for the Portuguese Studies Program. He received his PhD in History of Contemporary International Relations at the European University Institute in Florence, and is currently a Professor of International Relations at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. From 2000 to 2002 he was the Minister of Home Affairs in the Portuguese Government.