BRUSSELS SETS ITS SIGHTS ON A CLOSER-KNIT UNION

Emma Tucker and Caroline Southey review main points in the Commission framework document for next year's IGC

(Financial Times, 11/5/1995)

The need for a strengthening of European Union institutions and tighter decision-making procedures were at the heart of the European Commission's message yesterday, as it unveiled its initial framework document on next year's intergovernmental conference on the future of the EU.

At that conference, Mr Jacques Santer, the Commission president, will push for a genu. ine common foreign and security policy, establishing a stronger, more integrated approach to justice and home affairs, and limiting opportunities for member states to use their national veto, in order to achieve more streamlined decision-making as the Union enlarges with new members from east Europe.

"The Commission is convinced the solution to today's problems requires strong action at a European level," says the document, presented by Mr Santer yesterday. "There is no national solution to unemployment or to pollution, the fight against organised crime cannot be done in a dispersed way, and above all, there can be no effective foreign policy witout common action at a European level."

The document - an assessment of the 1991 Maastricht treaty designed as a framework for next year's IGC conference . touched on all the central issues. Its main recommendations and analysis include:

Common foreign and security policy. The Commission makes the point forcefully that attempts so far to form a common foreign and security policy have failed. "The loss in terms of impact and identity on the international scene, is considerable, and the cost in terms of public opinion, exorbitant," says the document. it adds that 18 months may be too soon to judge the Union's record, but so far the signs are not good. The Union needs to develop a truly common foreign policy in keeping with its economic strength - a move systematically frustrated by the "recourse to unanimous voting".

Justice and home affairs. The Commission is dissatisfied with EU-wide initiatives in such areas as internal security, the dissemination of intelligence on organised crime, and drug trafficking. It shares the widely held view that so-called third pillar structures, which cover justice and home affairs, are ineffective, and says the conference must review its apparatus fundamentally.

Majority voting. The Commission says future enlargement will require an extension of majority voting, a suggestion that is likely to meet stiff resistance from the UK, which says it will not countenance a dilution of the national veto.

Decision-making procedures. According to the document, the Maastricht treaty's obvious handicaps are the complexity of its structure, its decision-making procedures and its lack of transparency. Thus, decision-making mechanisms have to be streamlined. The Commission points out that the existence of over 20 procedures makes the structure opaque and incomprehensible.

Opting out. Mr Santer indicated that there would be pressure on Britain to end its optout from the social charter. Member states, he said, should not be allowed to pick and choose where theywanted to participate.

"We do not want a Europe à la carte, that will lead to a collapse of the Union," he said. Countries could move at different speeds, he added, but the goal had to be the same for everyone.

Subsidiarity. The Commission believes the principle of subsidiarity - devolving decision-making wherever appropriate away from Brussels - is gaining ground, but says it is too often used by member states as a misguided excuse for achieving individual aims that only serve to weaken the Union.

Enlargement. The Commission is concerned that enlargement would lead to the EU becoming nothing more than a free trade zone. Its greatest fear is that new members could make the system so unwieldly as to be made inoperable. Enlargement can only take place after reforms to existing decision-making processes. Brussels believes that majority voting is indispensable to enlargement.

Openness and transparency. A key message from the new Commission - wary of the status it carries in the minds of Europe's citizens - is to open up "and make Europe the business of its citizens". Mr Santer said he hoped EU member states would initiate debates on Europe before the end of the IGC, rather than afterwards, as was the case with the Maastricht treaty.

"It should be possible for member states to consider organising a referendum on Europe or on the outcome of the IGC," he said.