The Convention on the future of Europe

David Heathcoat-Amory

Keywords: Europe, Scenario planning, European Union

The very name of this Convention is something of a conceit. How can the future of an entire continent be planned?

The President of the Convention, Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, is fond of drawing parallels with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 which drew up the United States constitution. This is a fantasy. In the American states there were then less than two million people, all speaking one language, who realised that they had to create a new form of government to replace the British crown. Also the Philadelphia Convention completed its work in four months. In Brussels it took two months just to agree the rules, and there is no chance of us reporting before June of next year!

Europe today contains 400 million people, speaking more than 20 languages and with an historical diversity which defies any mould. In reality, the Convention has been set up to tackle a narrower issue: the growing perception that the EU is remote, interfering and undemocratic. The turnout in European Parliament elections is low and falling. The Danish no vote in their euro referendum was a shock. The Irish rejection of the Nice treaty was an even bigger one.

So the European Council has convened this Convention, composed of 15 government representatives from the existing member states and two MPs from each member state, together with 16 MEPs and two Commission representatives. The 12 accession states are also fully represented in the same way.

Our president, Giscard, is Olympian, elderly and French. He has authority and experience, but it is the French model of the EU which has caused the problem. It is an essentially technocratic undertaking with an inbuilt centralising tendency. The gap between the EU political class and the ordinary public has grown to alarming proportions. Quite simply, the EU faces a democratic crisis.

Has Giscard, and the Convention in general, the courage not only to admit the problem but take the necessary radical action to solve it?

The declared aim of the Convention is some kind of constitution for the EU,which will make clear the division of responsibilities between the EU and the member states. The danger is that the Convention becomes a process of bargaining between the existing EU institutions, each seeking to retain or enhance its power.

I believe we must start with a more fundamental question. Is democracy possible at a supranational level? There is no single European electorate, no coherent public opinion, in short no European "demos". People feel they are primarily represented through national parliaments, where they can see who represents them and, crucially, can get rid of them.

All governments make mistakes, sometime serious ones. This does not matter if they can be corrected, and the electorate must retain the right to do this themselves by throwing out a government and getting a new one. But if decisions are transferred upwards, to a level where laws are not repealed, mistakes not corrected and nothing gets reversed, then democracy goes too.

The European debate is therefore eventually about self-government. So is the question of the euro. Joining a single currency means an irreversible transfer of economic decision making to a supranational institution beyond democratic recall. That is why the issue is really a political one, and not about the Chancellor's five economic tests.

If the Convention is to cure the democratic deficit, it must recognise the limits of continental-scale democracy and recommend that certain competences are transferred back entirely to member states. These will include health,education, culture, social security and industrial policy.

The treaty must make clear that powers lie at national level unless explicitly given to the EU. Matters to be decided at EU level, such as trade policy, essential cross-border issues and other "core competences" must be spelt out in order to give clarity and certainty to the question of who does what. That in turn will give the public confidence that there are things which are better decided and enforced together, but that it is a two-way street.

The existing acquis communautaire, which is the accumulated laws and regulations of the EU, now runs to some 85,000 pages. There is a habit in the EU of regarding this as an irreversible achievement. The Convention must tackle it,not only to simplify it but also to repeal those parts that are not fitted for EU action or are in breach of the subsidiarity principle. Apart from being incomprehensible to the ordinary public, the scale of the acquis is a burden on the applicant countries, all of which must implement and enforce it as a condition of EU membership.

It will be difficult for the EU leaders and their institutions to reform themselves. For them an "efficient Europe" has been more important that a "democratic Europe", but it has ended up being neither. We have a year to change things, and there will not be another chance.