One Europe. One President.

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in Financial Times Online - www.ft.com on Fri 4th Apr 2003

Tony Blair is the strongest leader in Europe. Unlike his mainland counterparts, the British prime minister is largely untrammelled by constitutional niceties. He has no coalition partner to keep in trim; he commands parliament at Westminster; his party, at least until now, has posed no serious threats - even over Iraq. Like Margaret Thatcher before him, the only significant opposition Blair meets is in the European Council. Here he is often out-gunned and contradicted. He has a bad memory of his term as chair of the European Council in 1998. Recently, he has been dragged reluctantly to at least two extra summits on Iraq. One can see why he might be peevish.

No wonder, then, that his main preoccupation with the Convention concerns the leadership of the European Council. He wants to put someone big in charge. Blair's own man in the Convention, Peter Hain, is pedalling a 'job description' for a new-style, full-time 'Chair' of the European Council. This character would be an ex-head of government. One hopes he would not be too old, tired or rumbled to do a decent job. It would hardly be attractive for electors, having ejected a national leader, to find the same man elevated to lead Europe. One need only recite the list of discredited ex-premiers to see one flaw in the UK plan: Haughey, Gonzalez, Major, Jospin, Kohl.

Hain's memo is not a modest pitch. One should not be misled by his choice of nomenclature: Chairman Mao was no shrinking violet, and, in any case, 'Chair' becomes 'President' in many translations. The UK 'Chair' would not only run the meetings of the European Council but have sweeping powers to 'deliver' its political strategy, to speak for the Union in world summitry, to intervene in the work of the sectoral Council of ministers, to represent the Union in front of national parliaments, to choose the High Representative for foreign and security policy, and, threateningly, to supervise the Commission in what Hain calls 'functional areas of shared competence'. He or, improbably, she would have their own secretariat. In short, the British are proposing to set up an executive president of the European Council who would lord it over the rival President of the Commission. Hain argues that all nationalities could have their turn at this job, but everyone knows how effortlessly his plan would turn out to have established a directory of les grands.

The British plan for a super-president of the European Council might satisfy Tony Blair's quest for strong leadership, but it is ironic in these circumstances that he and his ministers continue to rail against the supposed threat of a centralised European super-state. It would be difficult to invent anything as certain to centralise power in Brussels than the replacement of the present collegiate system of governance of the Union with the presidential model now proposed by London. One has to wonder whether the British plan has been properly thought through even in its own terms. Will No. 10 really be happy to have its phone calls from the White House on permanent divert to the EU 'Chair' in Brussels?

The Blair plan is said to be supported by José Maria Aznar of Spain, but France and Germany have taken a different tack. In January, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty (and of De Gaulle's Non to UK membership), Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac launched a plan for a fixed president of the European Council elected not from outside but from one of its number. This lucky chap would cohabit à la française with the President of the Commission. Somewhat awkwardly, a double-hatted Secretary responsible for foreign and security policy would be answerable to both Presidents. In exchange for agreeing to the presidency proposal, Berlin has persuaded Paris to abandon classical Gaullism. Dominique de Villepin now supports more codecision for the Parliament, the election of the Commission President by MEPs and qualified majority voting (QMV) even in foreign policy and justice and home affairs. Welcome as this is, however, the Franco-German proposals on the presidency fail to achieve a genuine synthesis between the federalist and intergovernmental approaches. The uneasy presentation of their leaders' proposals by De Villepin and Fischer was heavily criticised by the Convention.

Now the Convention must come up with something better itself. The best idea is to integrate all the Union's executive functions under a single President. He or she would chair not only the Commission but also the European Council, giving general political impetus and direction to the affairs of the Union. This is a function of government whose fulfilment requires the European Council to be able to draw upon all the executive resources of the Union, be they in the Commission or the Council. The new style President would be responsible for delivering the decisions of the European Council as well as for running the Commission.

In order to stabilise the work programme of the institutions, the European Council would decide a multi-annual policy strategy. The current six-monthly programmes of the Council presidency, which are pretentious and distracting, would be suppressed, with immediate advantages for focus, continuity and scrutiny. Within the context of the overall policy strategy, the Commission would continue to produce its annual legislative programme.

Such an integrated Presidency of the Union would need and deserve the dual legitimation of the Council and Parliament to be appointed and sustained in office. One option would be for the Parliament to 'elect' a sole nomination of the European Council. Another, more suitable if there were rival candidates, would be for the President to be chosen by an electoral college formed of both European and national parliamentarians.

A unified presidency would have the advantage of forcing the separation of the Council's legislative from its executive tasks. A law Council, chaired by a minister, would continue to work methodically in codecision with the Parliament. It would meet in public and act by QMV. The Commission would retain its sole right of legislative initiative.

Meanwhile, an executive Council would meet in a reduced number of formations to run economic policy, foreign, security and defence policy, and police affairs and criminal justice. The presidents of the executive Council would be vice-presidents of the Commission. They would be answerable before the European Parliament for the activities of the Council and would speak for the Union in world affairs.

The proposal for an integrated presidency is a novel one that deserves serious consideration. It is intended to respect the single institutional framework of the European Union, to consolidate its parliamentary democracy, simplify its system of government and strengthen its leadership.