Impasse at IGC - Andrew Duff proposes further changes to Thursday's European Council
March 23, 2004 12:00 AM
Writing today in the FT.com, European Liberal Democrat spokesman on constitutional affairs Andrew Duff calls on the Irish to make certain proposals which will lead to the unblocking of the constitutional impasse.
These are:
1. The voting system in the Council of Ministers has to be modified from the Convention's proposal to take into account the real fear of smaller member states that an unholy alliance of Germany, France and the UK, acting on their own, could block any Council decision. The modification proposed is to have a larger number of countries representing a smaller number of people. The sensible equation, which seems to be commanding support, is 55% / 55% (as opposed to the Convention's 50% / 60%).
2. The changing balance of power in the Council needs to be balanced with a redistribution of power in the Commission. Given that the larger countries, including Spain and Poland, will lose out in the Council, it is only right that they are able to maintain their position in the Commission. The best way would be to drop the stipulation in the draft constitution that there should be equal rotation of nationalities in the Commission. The specified number of Commissioners should also be suppressed, leaving it to the European Council to decide on the size and shape of the Commission every five years.
3. As with the Commission, the size of the European Parliament will have to be reviewed, making it more proportional to population while maintaining efficiency. The number of MEPs should not be specified in the Constitution but subject to a mathematical formula, the cube root of the whole population. On this basis EU-5 would have 768 seats, spread between 5 for Malta and 126 for Germany. Under this formula, Spain and Poland would have a significant increase of seats.
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