The European Union is coming to the most important crossroads since its foundation of the European Community in 1957. Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has proposed that Europe be given a proper bicameral government, with the lower chamber of elected members from the member states and an upper chamber comprising the government ministers, who presently constitute the Council of Ministers.
Schroeder’s plan, which picks up strongly on the raft of public statements by his Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who has made no secret of his enthusiasm for rapid European integration, has been met with some reserve, principally in Paris and London. The British are inherently out of sympathy with the notion of a centralized European government, having originally signed up in 1972 on the basis that they were joining a free trade organization. The French, however, have an entirely different reason for their reserve. Schroeder’s plan has strong federal overtones, which would in fact impose checks and balances on the powers of a European Parliament.
Germany itself is a federation in which the fourteen states have considerable local autonomy. Paris sees a European superstate with the pinnacle of power in Brussels. This mirrors France’s own governmental structure, in which the regions, overseen by centrally-appointed prefects, are subservient to the central government.
Next year, the still-staggering and weak euro will become the single currency of the eleven states that have signed up to it. Schroeder’s argument that Europe needs a parliament with teeth, which will oversee the union’s substantial budget, is therefore logical. The French, however, have been far happier working through the cozy cabal of the Council of Ministers, which has until now been the driving force behind the notion of European statehood.
If a powerful parliament were brought into being with the commission relegated to a revising upper chamber status, the European agenda would slip away from individual governments.
The German scheme would have the virtue of setting out the limits of the power of a European government. The French fear that far from advancing the integration process, this might even lead to a reduction in the power exercised by Brussels
One of the key motives behind the European ideal has been the desire to ensure that never again would European states tear each other apart in a vicious and pointless war. The old balance of power would be replaced with the sharing of power in a single, economically considerable superstate.
Thus, it is clear that whatever foundations are laid for Europe’s new constitution must be designed to withstand future political pressures, the nature of which might currently be unimaginable. Euro-enthusiasts believe that speed is the safest option. They are probably wrong. Political systems that have evolved rather than been imposed by revolution are historically the most stable. Scandinavia and Great Britain, wherein lies the greatest Euro-skepticism, have constitutions that have evolved via the art of the politically possible. The ultimate test of Schroeder’s proposals is: Do they reflect political reality?
