UPDATE - Belgium presses for radical reform of EU
Date: 30-Nov-01
Country: EU
Author: Yves Clarisse and Gareth Jones
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, suggests Europeans could directly elect the president of the European Commission and build a European constitution on the foundation of a non-binding Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted last year.
Verhofstadt is touring EU capitals with the draft of a planned Laeken Declaration to be issued when the 15 leaders hold their next summit on December 14-15 in Brussels.
Framed as questions to be debated by an advisory Convention on the Future of Europe due to open next year, the document moots turning the EU's policy-making Council of Ministers into a second chamber of parliament.
Such ideas could face resistance from more eurosceptical states such as Britain and Sweden. An elected president of the Commission, for example, would boost the Commission's authority and power at the expense of national governments.
EU SEEN AS TOO REMOTE
But Belgium and other more integrationist countries such as Germany say the present system, which vests much power in national governments, is opaque and cumbersome.
They see the next round of EU reform, due to culminate in a new treaty in 2004, as the last chance to streamline decision making and avoid paralysis when the Union is enlarged to up to 25 members.
"A gap has opened up between the citizen and the European institutions... he no longer recognises himself in the European institutions, which he criticises as heavy, rigid and above all lacking in transparency," the Belgian document said.
As proof of disenchantment, it cited Denmark's rejection of the euro in a 2000 referendum and the recent rejection by Irish voters of the Nice Treaty, which paves the way for the EU's enlargement into ex-communist eastern Europe.
The declaration will set the agenda for the convention - bringing together representatives from national governments and parliaments and EU institutions - that will work through 2002-3 on recommendations for the future shape of the Union.
The convention will consider four main topics: the role of national parliaments in the Union; simplifying the EU treaties; the division of powers among member states, regions and the EU's supranational institutions; and deciding whether to make the charter of rights legally binding.
The convention, due to start work next March, will submit its preferred options to an intergovernmental conference in 2004, which will have the final say on the EU's future shape.
POWERS OF NATION STATES
Among ideas likely to worry Britain, Belgium suggests a further reduction in the policy areas subject to national vetoes to prevent institutional gridlock in a future enlarged Union.
But in a nod towards eurosceptics, it says the convention should look carefully at how to ensure decisions are taken where possible at national or regional level rather than by Brussels.
The draft also speaks of projecting a greater role for the EU in the global arena, especially after the September 11 attacks on the United States, which it says highlighted the value of a common European approach to security issues.
Surveys show that ordinary citizens want the EU to play a bigger role in fighting terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration and tackling environmental ills, it said.
"The citizen seeks a clear, transparent, efficient and democratic approach (from Europe)... There is no doubt that Europe must, to this end, undergo deep reforms, refresh its ideas and in a certain way reinvent itself," Verhofstadt said.
