Sometime ago, our national governments and the national political classes which lend them formal legitimacy lost the confidence of their citizens which in part explains the reaction of scepticism and mistrust in respect of the Treaty of Maastricht. Being impotent at national level, these governments have decided to stake their futures on the development of European integration, and they harbour the illusion of being able to regain the confidence of their citizens by means of this development. For them, it is therefore essential to avoid failure at European level by demonstrating to the electorate all the benefits which their countries receive through the skills of those who negotiate on their behalf. At every meeting of senior national officials and of ministers or heads of state and of government, we therefore witness haggling between different national interests in which no one bothers about the interest of Europe as a whole. The European Council in Edinburgh did not escape this logic: on the contrary, given the elevated status of the participants, it symbolised this practice of inter-governmental bargaining which has existed for several decades now. In the name of the "Crocodile Newsletter", we took part in the press conferences which, lasting late into the night, concluded the work of the summit: one gained the impression that each prime minister was talking of a summit different from the other summits about which his colleagues were talking to the press. With tears in his eyes, the Greek Prime Minister announced victory on Macedonia, Filipe Gonzales the granting of 300,000,000 ecus more in ...1999, Chancellor Kohl, the additional eighteen German MEPs, François Mitterrand the definitive siting of the European Parliament at Strasbourg (with the secretariat in Luxembourg and the committee meetings in Brussels), the Danish Prime Minister the acceptance of the "national compromise" on the Maastricht Treaty in its entirety, Giuliano Amato the intention of the Commission not to neglect Malta in the second round o
f accession, and so forth right up to the triumph of John Major, who was able to wind up the summit with an agreement by the Twelve on the five main dossiers. The solidity of the agreements subscribed in Edinburgh and the "family" spirit of which Jacques Delors dreams in vain will soon be tested when the "special" councils (Eco-Fin and Agriculture on 18 January) are called upon to act on the guidelines of the summit. We fear in addition that the Edinburgh Council has introduced new components into the already rusty cogs of the Community machine which risk paralysing its operation. Let us take for example, the procedures which will guide the work of the Council in respect of subsidiarity. In the course of the discussion of any Commission proposal, any Member State has the right to require an examination as to the conformity of the proposal with the principle of subsidiarity. This examination is evidently destined to end with a vote ("on principle", of course):a blocking minority, i.e. twenty-three votes (two
"large" and a "small" or a "large" and three "small") would therefore be able to stop the discussion continuing, unless an amendment were adopted to bring the Commission's proposal into line with the principle of subsidiarity. Given that unanimity is normally required to amend a Commission proposal, it is most probable that this unanimity will not be reached and that the blocking minority will be obliged to require provisional suspension of the discussion. In sum, the principle of subsidiarity has re-legitimised the right of suspensive veto. The hypocrisy of diplomats who drafted this text goes so far as to claim that care should be taken not to impede decision-making in the Council and to avoid a system of preliminary or parallel decision-making. Notwithstanding the optimism of Jacques delors, who has diagnosed the Community as being in good health, we are afraid that the Community is ailing under excessive national bureaucracy. We do not believe that the Treaty of Maastricht offers a cure, but rather that
a system of European government is necessary to identify and defend the common interests of European citizens. The moment has come to create an "alliance for a federal European government".
