While we wait for the Minister of State, Deputy Dick Roche, who will appear as a witness for the Convention on the Future of Europe with Deputies John Bruton and John Gormley and Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, I wish to raise an idea I have with members to see what they think. Once the Convention finishes its report shortly, there will be some sort of interregnum between then and the Intergovernmental Conference. It might be a good idea if we were to advertise and to say to the public and organisations that the Convention document has now been published and if they have views they would like to submit to the committee, we would be happy to receive them. We may receive views which we would like to follow up by calling people in. It would give people the opportunity to comment and would indicate that we are serious about closing the democratic deficit. Would that meet with general support?
Revised Draft Constitution Text - Parts 1-4: Discussion with Oireachtas and National Representatives on the Convention on the Future of Europe.
Would you advertise?
We would place an advertisement in the press stating that if people have submissions they wish to make to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs on the report of the Convention, it would be happy to hear their views.
Proinsias De Rossa, MEP
The difficulty is that there are many versions of text knocking about. I even find it quite hard to find the most recent one. If there is an advertisement inviting comments, the committee would need to produce a text at that time.
A final report. I do not believe it is something we could do before the summer recess.
Will you invite individual members of the public as well as interested groups?
If we place an advertisement, anyone can respond. We will evaluate those responses and if we wish to call in——
Fine.
It is a good idea but I agree with Proinsias De Rossa that we should wait until the documents are finalised because at the moment, each time one downloads something, one gets a different variation of the document. I suggest putting the advertisement in the newspapers inviting submissions as soon as people wake up after their summer holidays late in August. I strongly favour public hearings. We will probably get the usual suspects but it is important they have their say.
It is important people have the opportunity to express their views. We might also hear view points which might sharpen our attention to the issues.
That is an excellent idea but it might be useful to talk to the National Forum on Europe to see what agenda or programme it has. It might be useful to invite the chairperson of the forum in to guard against a high level of duplicity in the work of the committee and the forum and to ensure the maximum effect out of both fora.
We consult it. As the Minister of State is with us now, we can formally commence the meeting. I invite the Minister of State to make his opening comments after which I will go to the other members of the Convention.
We are now in the final furlong of the Convention's life. As the Chairman knows, the final working programme will be from tomorrow onwards. There will be a series of meetings. There will be informal group meetings tomorrow followed by formal meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. They will run up to Friday and God knows what will happen at the end of the week. After that, the papers will be completed and will be presented at Thessaloniki on 20 June.
We have made remarkable progress in the past seven to ten days. I pay tribute to everyone who has represented Ireland in any way on the Convention. The Convention is like a very dramatic league table. As the Chairman knows, it is played on different pitches. Up to now, the Praesidium has been the pitch which has been highlighted and Deputy Bruton has played a quite extraordinary and outstanding role there, particularly in the last week and a half when the issues of the institutional framework were under discussion. Deputy Bruton and his colleagues, Henning Christophersen of Denmark, Alfonso Dastis of Spain, Gisele Stuart of the UK and Alojz Peterle of Slovenia have been holding the pass of Thermopylae, so to speak, for the small and medium-sized states. Spain, a large state, is neither, but it has specific views on the Nice formula.
We reached a crucial point on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week when the Praesidium was effectively stalemated on some issues and we moved into different fields where the work of the Convention is played out. The plenary was quite successful last week but in addition to that we had significant action in the national representatives' and parliamentary tiers. We were very lucky with the parliamentary tier in that Deputies Carey, Gormley and Bruton and Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, have played active roles and represented the country very well. They have put huge time and effort in which may not always be visible to the public.
I play my own role in a different theatre, the national representatives and the friends of the community, small and medium states. We have had some very interesting additional recruits in that we have aligned our views on the Nice institutional formula with Poland, Spain and the UK. We now have a very significant majority of the states, and a majority of the populations, for the general preservation of the Nice formula. We had some action-packed meetings at the Praesidium and some extraordinary meetings at the national representative level, where, for the first time, we voted on everything. It was not intended but I had been challenged by a Belgian speaker on the veracity of my contention that a majority of states favoured the retention of the Nice formula in terms of balance. After a debate for three quarters of an hour I said we should cut to the chase and vote. I called a vote and, by the luck of God, 18 countries voted for retaining the Nice treaty balance and four indicated they wanted to reopen it. There was one group which was not fully made up.
The country has been extremely well served. Proinsias De Rossa has been very lucky in that he can look in the socialist family both at the MEP and national parliament tier. Deputy Bruton has been in the national parliament tier and the Praesidium. Deputy Gormley has been involved in the national parliament tier with the Green Party while Deputy Carey has done trojan work in working committees, the parliamentary tier and the Praesidium. That must be said.
Where are we? At this stage we can claim significant success at the Convention on a number of fronts. If one looks at the original draft proposals for the Convention they would have been seriously inimical on the issue of the equality of appointment of Commissioners agreed at Nice. There was a deliberate, focused attempt to unpick that. What we achieved last Friday is significantly better than Nice. Each member state will nominate a citizen to the Commission and the Commission will be made up of the President and 14 vice-presidents. That group will vote but the voting arrangements will be rotated in strict equality.
Second, on the European Parliament, the Nice arrangements will be retained. The seat allocation will remain at 732 and the current disposition will remain. Obviously in the fullness of time, with 28-30 countries, that will be reviewed, but the arrangement remains for the time being.
A third and immensely significant change in what was originally proposed is that the sectoral councils, such as the Council of Ministers, will continue to rotate. We have argued that they should continue to be chaired in rotation by the member states, with one agreed exception. There is still a suggestion that the Foreign Affairs Council be chaired by the EU Minister for Foreign Affairs. We have taken the view from day one that that is very unwise, as the Foreign Affairs Council should control or oversee the activities of the Foreign Affairs Minister, and if he or she chairs the Council it would be a retrograde step. Our view is not shared universally in that regard and we are concerned this situation be retained.
There is no final resolution on the matter of the Commission President. The view is that he or she should be elected by the Parliament on the nomination of the Council. That is where the consensus lies but it is a bad mistake. There was an opportunity here for the Convention to raise its sights and do something truly dramatic, either adopting the formula proposed by Deputy Bruton, a directly elected Commission President, or opt for an electoral college, which is now supported by Ireland and five other countries. For various reasons that has not commended itself, which is a tragedy. There was an opportunity there to create a sense of European demos and ironically the Convention failed. Ironically enough, it failed because those considering themselves the most communitaire were the most opposed to it.
The idea of a full-time president of the Council, whose role is still to be defined, is still on the table. Our view, as outlined by the Taoiseach, is that we have always been willing to listen to the arguments in this regard. We are anxious that any president should not cut across or destroy the institutional balance that exists. We have made the point time and again that that institutional balance is as important as a general principle as the equality issue within the Commission. Those who are open-minded on the issues accept that. I am only speculating, because we do not have the final position, but there may be some form of presidency of the Council and the most important thing is to define that role carefully to make certain it does not destroy the institutional balance. We must make certain the roles and terms of the role are well spelt out. The double-hatted foreign Minister is another issue but, as I have said, we would be allergic to the idea of that Minister chairing the External Relations Council.
We must still reach a final position on voting arrangements, I think. It is strange to say "I think" but there were many different alternative meetings on Friday. The QMV arrangements agreed at Nice will remain in place until 2009. What is favoured after that point is a dual majority, though other speakers can spell that out.
What has been achieved? Maintaining equality in the appointment of the Commission is a positive step. We must make sure there is no unpicking of what was agreed verbally, as there were some discouraging rumours over the weekend. We can look on the package we have before us more favourably than previously, with a more effective balance of the institutions. However, we await the final word on the presidency of the Council.
Other concerns included the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Our concerns did not relate to the incorporation of the charter but that it should be incorporated in an honest way, making it clear to citizens the extent to which it is and is not applicable. We have done huge work in separate groups on the horizontal provisions, which are certainly going to be there in Part 2, and also on the commentary. The commentary is almost completed at this point and is a clearer and more reasonable document than was previously the case.
Another significant issue of concern to us is how the constitutional treaty will be ratified. While it will be ratified by unanimity, members will recall that Giscard d'Estaing went on a flight of fantasy in that he thought it could somehow be ratified by a majority of the states and that those opposing it would park themselves on the sidelines or whatever. That will not happen.
Regarding the other issues referred to previously in the committee, we have reached a high level of agreement regarding where we want to be on taxation. There are still some concerns to ensure the wording is as tight as it needs to be. There was some slippage. Giscard d'Estaing referred to taxation, which caused a little stir.
A significant amount of work remains to be done on justice and home affairs. The plenary session and subsequent work on that area by the Convention was not good. One area where issues need to be resolved is security and defence. There are some concerns in this regard.
We have reached the point where the number of issues on which we must focus specifically and defensively in the Intergovernmental Conference is very limited. We must keep an eye on taxation because there is a continual effort to shift the balance on this issue. We must be very careful regarding justice and home affairs, not because of any concerns we would have that Ireland would become a haven for criminal activity but to ensure in the criminal justice area that our protections of civil and individual liberties, which are in advance of the position in Europe, are not lost. I listened to the Labour Party spokesman on justice issues cite concerns in this area. We share those concerns.
A list is being made of the areas to be covered by qualified majority voting. There will be significant extensions in QMV but nothing that we need be overly concerned about. Nonetheless, we will want to see the final text.
We still have some outstanding issues on economic governance and the Common Agricultural Policy, but I have indicated agreement to a proposition put forward by Mr. de Villepin on the designation of expenditure. This involves the obligatory and non-obligatory categories with which the MEPs will be familiar. The effort is to get rid of what appears to be artificial, and an alternative set of proposals has been put forward.
Regarding timing, the Convention will finish its work on 13 June, which is later this week. The final work will be done in the Praesidium and Deputy Bruton will fill the committee members in on that. The papers will be presented in Thessaloníki. Some work remains outstanding on part three of the treaty and, provided there is no attempt by anyone to change the reality afterwards, there should not be a difficulty. There will be a need to keep a close eye on the results of the additional work on part three. There might be one further convention or pro forma meeting to sign off on the treaty.
I will finish on that but wish to recognise again the work done by Deputy Bruton in this regard.
Proinsias De Rossa, MEP
It might be worthwhile to consider not so much the process as what we are attempting to achieve, namely, a chain of sections in a constitution which contain the values, objectives, institutions, rights of citizens and institutions, policies and resources. We are seeking to achieve coherence between that network of areas. If a value or objective is stated at the beginning of the constitution, there should be a link to it in the policies and competencies of the Union in dealing with issues, whether it is through a sole initiative on the part of the Commission, joint responsibility or competency between a member state and the Union or sole responsibility by a state but through the open method of co-ordination.
If we are to have coherence, much tidying up work remains to be done on what has already been achieved, and we must ensure that part three, which will be debated by and large in July if we get the extension, reflects what we have agreed in parts one, two and four. What the Minister of State said, that in dealing with part three in July we must ensure attempts are not made to go back on ground already achieved, would also be the case in terms of trying to ensure that what has been agreed is carried through.
For example, we agreed that the objective of the Union is full employment, but the text of part three refers to a high level of employment. We agreed in the objectives to a social market economy, but part three refers to a free market economy. This is not an argument against a free market economy, rather an attempt to achieve coherence. We need to ensure we do not lose sight of those areas.
I have tended to place more emphasis on the social Europe dimension of the process than on the institutional end, but I have paid attention to the institutional end and played a role in trying to ensure that, at least in my political family and national parliaments working group, the principle of equality between member states and the balance between the institutions was argued and fought for and maintained.
On the social policy and dimension front, because this relates not just to policy but also to instruments, work remains outstanding on the text of part one regarding the open method of co-ordination. This is the method used by the Union and member states to co-ordinate employment policy, for example, and it is used in 11 other areas of policy development. Nothing in part one refers to this mechanism. I know the Minister of Sate supports the inclusion of a reference to it but debate is still taking place to try to find a wording which maintains the flexibility of the mechanism while at the same time giving it validity.
A related aspect to that is the need to ensure that national parliaments have a clear role in the process. As operated at present, the European Parliament does not have an automatic right to be consulted or to hold the Council or the Commission to account on co-ordination, except in the employment area. Neither does the current protocol on the role of national parliaments and subsidiarity refer to the transfer of documents from the Commission to national parliaments in order that they are aware at the same time as the European Parliament and national governments receive documentation. That is an amendment that needs to be made to ensure coherence, openness and accountability.
Is there still room for that in the third part?
Proinsias De Rossa, MEP
The problem is that the protocols are not in the third part, they are separate. Either we amend them this week or they are not amended, unless it goes into the Intergovernmental Conference as an issue.
The problem with carrying the open method of co-ordination through as an issue into the third part is that it must be defined in 11 areas whereas, if there is a generic, horizontal mechanism in part one, it can be used in whatever way by states and the Union as and when member states decide. That is an important aspect.
The other issue is what is known as services of general interest, which to us means public services. There is still not a strong enough reference to the provision of a legal base for the right to services of general interest to survive. This is not necessarily a debate about private or public ownership, rather is it one about guaranteeing that a citizen, in whatever part of the Union he or she resides - whether in the furthest north-western part of County Donegal or the south-east corner of Greece - is entitled to delivery of post, for instance. As this type of universal service is not provided for in a strong enough manner, I have submitted amendments to try to strengthen it.
On the Charter of Fundamental Rights, there was broad consensus in favour of its incorporation as part two of the constitution. It is not included in part one or in a protocol. The compromise is that it is incorporated as part two of the constitution. There are still arguments around the extent to which it should be juridical, a matter about which the Minister of State may have a word or two to say.
On the EURATOM treaty - another issue that both Deputy Gormley and I have raised - the treaty is out-of-date, over 40 years in existence and the language is completely wrong. It has been incorporated almost willy-nilly into the new draft constitution. Some of us have argued that a sunset clause should be included to ensure that after 50 years it would die and would have to be renegotiated; in other words, it would no longer exist in 2007 and there would be pressure for it to be renegotiated to take into account other processes of energy generation.
The other issue on which I have pressed strongly is that of a specific nomination of a social unemployment Council. The current proposal is that a number of councils will be nominated in the text of the document. While these will include ECOFIN, the foreign affairs Council and perhaps one other, it is not proposed to nominate other specific Councils. The European Council will, however, have the right to decide that an environment Council should exist as well as social policy and transport Councils etc. I am of the view that if the electorate is not given a social unemployment Council, it will believe this entire dimension is being abandoned. At the very least there should be a provision that the European Council may establish Councils but must establish them for areas of core responsibility such as employment, social policy, transport, the environment and so on. We managed to ensure the area of consumer protection was incorporated. The areas of equality, non-discrimination, social justice and inclusion and the eradication of poverty etc. have also been included.
The current Nice treaty formula in relation to the Council, Parliament and Commission will continue until 2009. While the Council may change, the Commission, the concept of qualified majority voting, QMV, and the European Parliament will continue up to 2009. Every country that joins the Union will have a Commissioner up to that date. The QMV vote weighting will also continue up to that year with the existing seat allocations in the Parliament. Thereafter there will be what is referred to as "rendezvous clauses", which provide for changes that may occur, in some cases based on legislation which may be brought forward on the basis of European Council political decisions.
The point which the Minister of State has made is important and should be borne in mind, that one of the significant advances we have made is that, in effect, a Commissioner has been conceded for every member state. However, they all will not have a vote at the same time. There will be rotation on an equal basis, as agreed.
The other issue is that of QMV, a matter on which I do not share the concerns of others. In a 27, 28 or 30 member Union it will be extremely difficult to get any decisions made on the basis of unanimity. We, therefore, need to increase the number of areas covered by QMV. Inevitably, there will be areas in which member states will want to maintain the principle of unanimity. On the tax issue, for example, the Government will want to do this. I do not argue with this. In other less significant areas it is necessary to move to QMV.
The next question is: do we retain the current vote weighting provided for in the Nice treaty process. There is a proposal for a double majority - a majority of states and populations. The state majority is counted by way of the vote weighting. In a fundamental sense that is what is being proposed should change. There is a proposal for a double majority, a simple majority of member states and 60% of population. A concept of super-QMV is being proposed which would provide for a majority of two thirds of member states and a figure of 80% of population in certain areas. That would be as close as one could possibly get to unanimity. I have argued that there is no reason we cannot have a range of levels and interactions between numbers of member states and populations on issues of differing levels of importance. With creativity there is a basis for making progress on the QMV issue.
I have about 12 points to make which I will make quickly. The first is that the proposed tax arrangement is very good, whereby the subject matter upon which the principle of qualified majority voting might apply in the area of tax fraud affecting the internal market must be decided by unanimity. In the most recent plenary on this question, many criticised this arrangement as being too restrictive. Many were not calling for tax harmonisation to be an objective of the European Union, rather they were simply saying tax fraud was too narrow a definition of the areas that could be the subject of a unanimous decision to move the subject to qualified majority voting. We should be willing to look at the possible extension of the areas upon which a unanimous decision might be taken to move to qualified majority voting. That would be a more prudent approach than one which would fight for absolutely no change because the risk is that a majority at the Convention might take the view that we should go much further.
I obviously have a particular interest in the area of justice and home affairs. As members of the committee know, I chair a working group on the subject. With great difficulty I persuaded the Praesidium to accept a very good amendment submitted by the Minister of State: "if in the matter of criminal procedure a country wishes to have a higher standard of protection [in other words, if we want to maintain a higher level such as in the matter of habeas corpus to that which allows detention in anticipation of prosecution as happens in some European countries] it may do so”. This is a well framed amendment on the part of the Minister of State which has now been accepted and removed a lot of the problems encountered. There will always be problems as long as there are lawyers who have a capacity to find them.
We should look at the bigger picture and acknowledge that we have an interest in finding a common area of freedom, security and justice in Europe. We have an interest in ensuring our citizens will be treated properly before the Polish courts if we send them to Poland under the common arrest warrant, to which we have agreed, and that individuals with a base in the most lax countries in Europe do not use the Internet to operate scams at the expense of people living in Ireland. We have an interest in ensuring this is stopped at European level. I hope Ireland collectively - the Government, which is not a sole cavalier in these matters, has to work with public opinion - will support the Government in accepting this package which is a good one.
I am glad to say the word "federal" has gone. I am not ashamed to say, however, that I am a European federalist but the word seems to have an effect on the configuration of the skin on the back of people's necks for a reason I cannot fathom. It means nothing but the sharing of power at different levels of government as we have been doing all our lives. We all share power in our lives every day of the week. While federalism means nothing more than power sharing, for some reason it has acquired an allergic effect. For that reason I am glad the word has gone and that the words "ever closer Union" are used in the preamble. I believe in an ever closer Union about which I am unashamed.
On the charter, we have done quite well. We are under a lot of pressure. As Deputy Carey will testify, in national parliaments there are those who do not want any reference to the explanatory notes on the charter. They say this was not approved by the Convention which considered the charter. One of the political reasons the Government, on behalf of the people, accepted it at Biarritz as a political declaration of our conception of human rights was that it was accompanied by an explanatory note. The custom on the Continent, as I understand it, is to take account of such notes. As those of us who have had the misfortune of studying law will know, judges are not supposed to pay the slightest attention to anything said in parliament about legislation. Therefore, an explanatory note has no status in common law countries but does on the Continent. It is, therefore, important that the explanatory notes are included. While they will be included in a declaration which will have no binding legal effect, they will have a strongly persuasive effect. We have achieved this.
We have also ensured, in part two which will encompass the charter, that the preamble to the charter which apparently has some significance in interpretative terms also will be included separately from the preamble to the constitution as a whole. These two major concerns of the legal profession and their many friends have been met.
On the issue of the recognition of religion in the constitution, a matter which has engendered unnecessary controversy, all that was being sought was a recognition that for some in Europe - not all - their religious belief inspired what they did in their daily lives in politics. There were people who had a problem with a three letter word. It was almost like the problem some had with a four letter word. The reference to the word, God, creates a problem for many. Why this is, I cannot fully understand, given the context of God being a source of values for many which inspire them to co-operate with others, just as other beliefs which make no reference to God have the same effect for others. For many reasons, not all of which are fully understandable, people had a problem with the word appearing, perhaps because of its misuse in the past to beat down others and commit terrible atrocities. We should not be prisoners of the past, either in what we advocate or what we are willing to oppose. A non-sectarian reference to the sociological fact that there is a belief in God among Europeans which is part of the reason they will make the sacrifices they will have to make for one another in the future would not have presented too much of a problem but, unfortunately, it would have for some. For that reason it is not going to happen.
Having said that, I stress that in the constitution, as it stands, there has been a major advance. There is a reference to the religious heritage of Europeans, a matter excluded from the preamble to the charter of fundamental rights. There is at least an acceptance that religious heritage plays some part in people being willing to accept the human rights of others, that for some the belief that others are created as they are by our maker is a just reason for treating them with respect.
In Article 37 there is an important recognition that churches of all kinds - muslim, jewish, unitarian, reformed, individual churches with only one or two members and those with billions of members - are to be recognised as proper interlocutors of the Union in its work. This was included in a declaration the then Minister and I negotiated in Amsterdam and is now included in the constitution. This is an advance from the point of view of those who have religious beliefs. It is an advance not made at anyone's expense but complementary to the beliefs of others. Although not perfect, the balance we have struck is a good one. This is a political product which will never be perfect. I have regrets about the exclusion of the three letter word. However, it is not a matter about which we should be worried. We either do or do not know what inspires us in life and it does not have to be included in the constitution for it to continue to inspire us.
I was hoping we would have a provision which would provide for the direct election of the president of the European Union but we did not succeed in this. We should be more open about qualified majority voting in foreign policy. While I fully agree that there should not be qualified majority voting on defence matters, I am in favour of qualified majority voting in foreign policy. The Iraq crisis would not have happened if people had been required to get their act together earlier. The reality is that it happened in part, as far as the European Union is concerned, because no work had been done on the subject. As there was no prospect of agreement, nobody bothered. If qualified majority voting was provided for, people might bother to try to reach a common position. It does not mean others would be oppressed.
A matter still up in the air and with which I want to deal at some length is that of one Commissioner per country. As far as Ireland's position in the Commission is concerned, the glass is five sixths full, not one sixth empty. We have equality of access. Since 1973, up to next year, Ireland has had a Commissioner; Britain has two; Luxembourg, one; and Germany, two. From 2009, Ireland will have a Commissioner every time Germany has one. Malta will have one every time France has one. This builds on what was agreed at Nice but is now being formalised in the treaty. The details are being worked out.
There was a huge effort by many, led by the president of the Convention, to overturn this and move away from the principle of equality so hard won at Nice. Thanks to the efforts of many, in particular, on the Government side, the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Roche, who acted as a shop steward for the smaller countries, we got the message home. While I have been accused of being a demagogue, he could be accused of being a trade Unionist. I am not sure which of us should be more upset at the accusation. He was an effective trade Unionist for the governments of the smaller countries. He got them together, organised them and ensured they had reached collective positions. He worked with the redoubtable Austrian, Hannes Farnleitner, who would, I think, like to claim that he did even more than the Minister of State. However, I do not think he is right. As Deputy Carey can verify, both of them worked with furious energy. They and we succeeded in getting the message home at last but it took a long time.
I have a copy of the text presented to the Praesidium last Friday. It is not perfect in so far as it refers to Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners.
The latest copy we have is dated 2 June. What date is on that copy?
It is dated 6 June. The committee will not have received a copy. It is an internal draft we received at the meeting.
Is the president of the Convention trying to resile? There was a report at the weekend that he was having second thoughts.
No, this is the position. He has no support for that approach in the Praesidium. We are clear that what we agreed to was that every country would have a Commissioner but some would be in the college on the basis of strict equality. The text does not question the concept of strict equality but talks about Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners which would make no real difference in legal terms but would have a presentational difference. Perhaps he did try over the weekend to draw back from the agreement. However, I was there and it is a done deed and agreed.
The definition is important in regard to services of general interest. I would have doubts about a concept that was not adequately defined.
We should revise, not scrap, the EURATOM treaty. If anything will close the plant at Sellafield, it will be the EURATOM treaty. We should be wary of any suggestion to scrap it because if the courts take an aggressive view about interpreting the treaty, they will have the power to close the plant in a way that the OSPAR Convention never will. We should hold onto the EURATOM treaty and reform it. I sought to do this in the Praesidium about three or four months ago. Although the Government supported me and I circulated a paper on the matter, I got no support within the Praesidium. It is a matter to which the Intergovernmental Conference should return.
The Spaniards were good friends to us in recent negotiations and I supported their position on QMV. There would be considerable advantage in having a double majority system rather than the current Nice treaty system which means that every country is allocated a weighting arbitrarily and politically decided. Therefore, every time we add new members we have to renegotiate the numbers and nobody can be sure of anything. The double majority system would be automatic. If the population of a country fell or a new country was added, it would be simple to redo the calculation. Since the Nice treaty system requires a political negotiation in each case there is merit in the double majority system.
There has been a suggestion that we should, ultimately, have one president who would be jointly president of the Commission and the president of the Council. This would be a bad idea. It is most important that we preserve the separation of powers. The presidents of the Commission, the Council and the Parliament represent three parts of a triangle and each is a check on the other. Each can ensure, far better than any catalogue of competencies ever will, the European Union does not go beyond or above itself. However, we may have to leave this option open in order to get some people to sign off on what we have agreed.
Working in the Convention has been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. I value the experience I have had of working with my colleagues, the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, Deputy Carey, Prionsias De Rossa, Deputy Gormley, all the Irish officials and this committee. It has been a fantastic experience. I hope we have done a good job for Ireland but history will judge. Our work is a good example of Irish people from different political perspectives working together for Europe and Ireland. I cannot speak highly enough of any of my colleagues. The Minister of State has spoken highly of me and I reciprocate what he said one hundredfold. The work is not entirely over. I enjoyed it immensely and express my thanks to the former leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Michael Noonan, who appointed me to the Convention. Without his agreement I would not have been there. I appreciate the support of the current leader, Deputy Enda Kenny, and I am grateful to the Chairman for his support and encouragement.
I also found it a fascinating experience, apart from the travel back and forth. I do not envy our MEP colleagues who have to do this week in, week out as it can be debilitating. I also pay tribute to my colleagues. There has been great co-operation and unity of purpose. The civil servants have provided marvellous backup.
We were all involved in the process to try to do our best. The question that must be asked is: how do we measure success in negotiation? Do we measure it by what is the best possible outcome in the circumstances or by how much ground we have lost? We can look at it both ways. It is important that we see this as a work in progress. Spinelli talked about constitutional gradualism. We cannot take this project in isolation but must also look at the Nice and Amsterdam treaties and see the progress or regression that has taken place. We must also look forward. We must look at it in terms of what was agreed at Laeken and what that asked us to do. Initially, this was supposed to be a tidying up exercise, a simplification process. If we are making the constitution more complicated, we are failing in terms of what was agreed at Laeken.
I wish to deal first with the question of voting weights. Strangely enough, there is a slight disagreement between the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, and me. I know that he is not too happy about the shift as we are now talking about a double majority. As far as I can see, it would simplify the process in order that the citizen could understand very quickly what was happening. I am someone who was very much to the fore in the Nice treaty referendum. That treaty contained a reference to a figure of 62% of population and now we are talking about a figure of 60%. We see this as a shift again to the larger states which has to be recognised. When one talks about being able to block, getting rid of vetoes can be seen as a very constructive move in terms of democracy. We ought to be aware that in a sense we would be handing a veto to the larger states on the basis of population.
I listened to Deputy Bruton speak about Iraq and how he thought that QMV would have helped in foreign policy and allowed us reach a coherent position. The fact is that 16 of the 25 states actually supported the war, on a one by one basis. One must consider how that would have translated in terms of support. If that is the case, Europe could possibly have supported the United States.
On the Commission, I wish to look at what we managed to achieve in the Nice treaty. It is necessary to examine the Government's White Paper in terms of what we did, what we achieved and what we were trying to set out in the treaty. The White Paper is very clear. What we wanted to avoid was the creation of two classes of Commissioner which we now have. That is the way I read it. We have those who have votes and those who do not. I use the analogy of a Minister and a Minister of State. With the greatest of respect to my colleague associate Commissioners would have all the clout of a Minister of State. Voting is about power. We have also reduced the Commission to 15 Commissioners with votes. We must recognise the reality.
I read The Irish Times at the weekend and was amazed at the headline, “Victory”. It was a victory for spin but the reality is that the partnership of equals we sought at Nice is being eroded. It is no coincidence that we are talking about reducing the Commission when we are talking about enlargement because, clearly, one can talk about efficiency but one is also talking about the possibility of being outvoted on the Commission which is what the larger states want to avoid.
I contrasted the reports in The Irish Times with those in the German newspapers which had a different take on the issue. They regarded it as a ridiculous arrangement and indicated that negotiations would have to be opened up again at some stage in the future. We now have 15 Commissioners and an A and B list. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before we have a situation where the larger states will be at the table and the smaller states will have to rotate. That is the next step. I have to agree with Deputy Bruton when he asks if anyone can imagine the French, the British and the Germans without a Commissioner. I cannot. The question is: when are we going to reopen negotiations? I suspect it will happen soon.
I listened to Giscard d'Estaing speak on Friday. He mentioned the idea of sequencing in terms of geography and demographics - those who will have a vote and will be at the Commission table. We know that the idea of equality is enshrined but who will be there and at what time? I ask Deputy Bruton how that will work. I want to know because I suspect that the large states will be at the table and will have votes until such time——
The text is clear.
I genuinely hope I am proved wrong.
On the question of the Council and its president, members may recall that in the context of the Treaty of Amsterdam we spoke about the idea of a high representative who would work in partnership with the external affairs Commissioner. We have since moved on and are creating a single post, that of a Foreign Minister. Even if the person concerned is shackled and does not have support, once the position of president of the Council is created, the next step will be whether a single position should be created. If we want to find out the direction in which we are going, we should listen to the French who are in the driving seat. More and more were of the opinion that one person was needed. If he or she was seen to be powerless, it would be only a matter of time before the position was beefed up and then there would be a single president. We will see a shift of power from the Commission to the Council.
I fully supported Deputy Bruton's idea and that brought forward by my colleague, the Minister of State. It would have led to much greater participation, something I would welcome.
I disagree, however, with Deputy Bruton on the EURATOM treaty. We have to listen to Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace which have been lobbying extensively. I have submitted an amendment at the Convention which has been supported by Deputy Carey and Proinsias De Rossa. I am very grateful for their support. The committee should not underestimate the importance of this serious issue. If we are serious about having the referendum carried, this will play an extraordinary role in trying to persuade the people. By annexing the EURATOM treaty as a protocol, we are saying to them that by voting for this they will be voting for the treaty. Many would balk at that notion, particularly given the concern about the plant at Sellafield.
On sustainability, environmental groups have expressed concern about the wording of Article 3.3 which I agree needs to be strengthened considerably to put sustainability on a par with economic growth. This is vital as far as the Greens are concerned. For that reason I am slightly out of tune on tax harmonisation which in terms of eco taxes makes sense.
I continue to have concerns about defence, particularly closer and structured co-operation as outlined in Articles 40.6 and 40.7. One of our Finnish colleagues, Mr. Kiljunen, seems to be of the view that these articles will be deleted and that there will be a situation where we will operate under the stricter enhanced co-operation provisions. At the time of the Nice treaty we were told the concept of enhanced co-operation would not apply to defence matters. Therefore, a question must be asked about the direction we are taking.
I very much welcome the fact that it seems to be the case that the idea of a citizens' initiative will be accepted. Giscard d'Estaing indicated on Friday that by collecting signatures citizens could have an input into the legislative process. However, it would have been better to push for referendums or plebiscites in each state to consult with the people and get their view on the treaty.
The parliamentary group, of which many of us are members, produced two draft papers last week. The first indicated that the Convention would produce an integral draft constitution with no options. Giscard d'Estaing confirmed that this was what he would present to the Heads of State and Government meeting on 20 June. As Deputy Bruton said, he has dropped his beloved idea of a congress and the word"federal" and taken on board the citizens' initiative that Deputy Gormley has just mentioned, which is probably a good idea.
The role of national parliaments, which has not yet been mentioned, has been considerably enhanced. While it has probably not gone as far as some of us would like, it has been significantly improved. While there was a measure of support for an enhanced role for COSAC, this will not get very far without considerable nudging. I am not hopeful COSAC will emerge as a significant area of influence.
By and large, I am happy with the area of taxation. As members are probably aware, I was a member of the economic governance working group. The line we held was to maintain unanimity as an objective. I am reasonably satisfied with what Deputy Bruton has suggested is the position, which is probably a reasonably good proposal.
Qualified majority voting needs further examination. Like others, I believe it is more understandable and, where possible, should be used more extensively. It is a great pity the opportunity was not taken to be more imaginative and involve national parliaments in the election of President of the Commission.
I agree with Deputy Gormley and others about the EURATOM treaty. Two weeks ago I raised the matter briefly at the plenary session. We should probably all strive towards the objective Prionsias De Rossa calls a "sunset clause". We should push as hard as we can to try to ensure a treaty which will have to be reopened in 2007 is seriously re-examined to see how appropriate it still is.
Deputy Bruton referred to mentioning God in the constitution. I am happy that what has been agreed is as far as we are likely to get.
I disagree with Deputy Gormley in referring to the victory for the notion of retaining a Commissioner. While this matter must certainly be teased out, there is no reason to believe there will be a two tier outcome, even though Giscard d'Estaing mentioned that it would be necessary to take account of demographics and regional representations, which is probably reasonable. Mechanisms must be devised to make sure there will be strict equality of rotation, representation, etc. While it is not beyond the bounds of possibility, as I said, issues like this will involve considerably more discussion.
The issue of the Foreign Minister chairing the Council is serious for the European Union and for us. It is hard to see how the Minister chairing the Council could be held to account by his or her peers. We do not have a huge difficulty with the rest of his or her role. I raised this matter at the plenary session and we will continue to raise it as an issue of concern for us.
Like other speakers, I pay tribute to all who have worked at the Convention. I pay particular tribute to the civil servants who have worked with us, especially on working parties. They have had a rather thankless task working to very tight deadlines and have done an extremely thorough job, something our civil servants are very good at.
Can I make a small point?
No, six people are waiting to contribute.
I am just going to say the rotation——
You must leave it until later.
Have it your own way.
The Chair must let everybody have his or her say. If there are differences, these will be reflected. We have heard from the Convention members and the alternates. I ask other members to keep their contributions brief.
I accept your admonition and share your concern. I wish to make five very succinct points. Let us collectively salute the work that has been done and not waste time repeating it. There has been an extraordinary combined effort, which sadly has gone unreported and unnoticed by the media. As there is at least one member of the fourth estate in the Public Gallery, he might take the opportunity to record this.
I have made a point about tax harmonisation before. There is a much more constructive and positive argument to combat the proposal for tax harmonisation than the narrow national self-defence of Ireland's low corporation tax base. When we joined the single currency with originally ten other sovereign states and now 11, including Greece, we gave away two major macro-economic levers of adjustment: exchange rates and interest rates. We consciously and deliberately did this in the best interests of the single currency.
The only other major macro-economic instrument we have is variable tax rates. If, for example, the Government faced being in breach of the growth and stability rules and exceeded the 3% deficit limit, one possibility for those of a left of centre mind would be to increase tax revenue to maintain social services and social provision rather than to cut - the predilection of the Government. If we had harmonisation in corporation or other taxes, this instrument would be closed to the Minister for Finance. This is not just an Irish concern. With due respect to the Minister of State who has probably made this point before——
I have been making the same point; it is not for national self-interest.
Good.
The Minister of State will have his chance to respond which other members do not have.
We need to see the business cycle run through two or three runs of the single currency before we know the characteristics of macro-economic performance. There is a very cogent argument for maintaining tax flexibility. There is no tax harmonisation in the United States.
It would be a disaster to allow an EU Foreign Minister chair the Council. Following the recommendations of the Cadbury committee on corporate governance for public corporations in the United Kingdom, the generally recognised practice in publicly quoted as distinct from privately owned companies is that the chairperson and the chief executive should never be the same person. Independent News and Media has finally woken up to this because the Irish Association of Investment Managers made the point that it was not possible to be judge, referee and chief player at the same time. The then Fianna Fáil Government made the mistake, when the Custom House Docks Authority was first established, of combining the functions of chief executive and chairperson, but that was corrected subsequently. There is a body of evidence to suggest that, for certain kinds of institutions, that is bad practice and should be recognised as such. On a further relatively minor point, we should continue to refer to "a new constitutional treaty", rather than "a new constitution", for presentation purposes. We are not writing the constitution of the European Union but, rather, a set of treaties. We are in a quasi post-federal world.
Some would debate that.
However, it is significant for the Anthony Coughlans of this world. If there are any issues remaining, this is one to which they will latch on.
I am bitterly disappointed that neither Deputy Bruton's proposal nor that of the electoral college to elect the Commission President did not gain support. Its sense is correct, although the method of arriving at it is debatable; the purest position is direct suffrage, which will come at some stage in the future. My request is that if it is possible - I have not seen the final text - the door should be left open for that to happen. In the final drafting of the constitutional treaty, the possibility of evolution in that direction should be provided for on a basis that would not require a major treaty revision.
On the question of Commissioners, the major, fundamental criticism that both Deputy Bruton and I put on record at the time - I have been repeatedly misquoted on this by people who opposed Nice I and Nice II and who suggested that I said it was a bad treaty - was on the grounds that the Government had signed away the idea of retaining an Irish Commissioner into the future. The principle of equality was achieved in Nice and that got the Finns, the Danes and a few others on board at that time in a badly negotiated and rather imperfect treaty. Much ground has been recovered with the present proposal. The college of 30, with 15 voting members, as I prefer to describe it, will develop its own rules. In a college of 30, people who know they will not have a vote at a future time will have great respect for those who do not currently have a vote but will in future.
Ms McKenna, MEP
I disagree with Deputy Carey's description that the role of national parliaments will be enhanced. In a situation where the European Council, Commission, Parliament and courts all get extra power, somebody will suffer. In this process, I believe it will be the national parliaments which will lose out rather than have their powers enhanced.
On the issue of a reference to God in the EU constitution, I was one of those who signed a declaration opposing such a reference as I believe it is a very bad idea. People are entitled to their personal religious beliefs and to determine their politics and decision making accordingly. However, it is another matter to have a reference to God in this new constitution for Europe, as I prefer to call it. It is good that Anthony Coughlan, who is just one man, succeeds in making people in these Houses worried about how he will spin the situation. The recent invasion of Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan represented George W. Bush's crusades, using the Christian religion. We must be very careful in that regard in a context of promoting tolerance towards all religions, not just Christian religions.
On the issue of qualified majority voting, to which Deputy Gormley referred, I do not believe that would have produced a different outcome in regard to Iraq. Qualified majority voting really means that the three bigger states can block a decision. The question was posed as to whether any of the bigger countries would give up their entitlement to a Commissioner. In a situation where countries such as Spain, the UK, Germany and Poland can block an issue, even though 22 member states are in favour of it, there would be little prospect of arriving at a foreign policy which many of us, especially the Green Party, could support.
The proposal that the Commission will have 15 full members and other substitute members - however they are described - represents first and second class membership. That is the reality, like it or not. I would like some clarification on the following matter regarding the Presidency of the Commission. Do I understand correctly that each country will put forward a list of three persons - or has that been changed? As I understand it, there will be, as it were, 15 superior members of the Commission and 15 other members. Is there a written guarantee that those other members will be from the countries that are not represented? There is reference to taking account of political and geographical balance and so on. Does it mean that all member states will be involved?
Yes.
On a point of procedure, I am trying to chair this meeting fairly, giving everybody an opportunity to speak. The Minister of State will be one of the few who will have an opportunity to respond. It is already 4 p.m. and speakers are still offering. I would appreciate members' co-operation.
Ms McKenna, MEP
I will conclude on my point regarding the Commission. Deputy Gormley rightly referred to a situation of first and second class membership. During the Nice treaty debate, I also stated there was no guarantee as to the size of the Commission, which is now being set at 15. As in other examples we have seen, the substitute members will have no real power. As it is the Commission which initiates legislation, this issue is of crucial importance. I do not believe the problem has been solved regarding the Commission. History will prove us right.
Ms Banotti, MEP
I wish to make some brief comments. Apropos of a reference to God, I do not fully share Deputy Bruton's view. One of the significant issues in that regard was the huge lobby mounted in Brussels by the Vatican for the inclusion of such a reference. That has proven counterproductive. In countries with very large Islamic populations, there was a feeling of exclusion on the basis of a reference to a different God from theirs.
I do not believe that the debacle of the war in Iraq has necessarily been a bad thing. The humiliation and mishandling involved has actually had a very salutary effect on likely future developments with regard to foreign policy and international relations.
With regard to the EURATOM treaty, while the Greens would have us believe they started the whole row about the plant at Sellafield, some of us were working on this issue in the European Parliament 20 years ago. Consistently for the last 20 years, the EURATOM treaty has been the defensive mechanism for protecting the Sellafield plant. That has been used against us every time we raised the issue. While Deputy Bruton sees positive advantage in that regard, I do not. It is a clapped-out old treaty devised and written at a time when people were trying to encourage and help the nuclear industry. It does not take into consideration what we have learned in the interim. It has also been used effectively by the plant at Sellafield to defend, for example, its discharge levels on the basis that at no stage were those levels seen to be in breach of the treaty. Does Proinsias De Rossa recall what happened to the initiative by Jo Leinen, a member of the socialist group, who had a very interesting proposal regarding the EURATOM treaty? Perhaps it simply got lost among other developments. It was an interesting proposal that deserved our support. All those who took part in the Convention learned a lesson - which proves to be one of the most attractive aspects of European Parliament membership - namely, the recognition that consensus and equality across political boundaries are the only way to achieve anything ofconsequence.
I wish to be associated with Deputy Quinn's point on the contribution made to this process by all concerned. Now that the drafting stage is almost over, we can reflect on the fact that the project has been a successful one that represented a civilised debate between people with different perspectives, large states and small states, federalists and intergovernmentalists. Inevitably, this will lead to tension but, as Ms Banotti noted, consensus is the only way the debate could inch forward. It achieved more than this by making considerable progress.
The outcome regarding the Commission is a victory which I support. I have no problem with a proposal under which Ireland would not be on the Commission in a given year, provided Germany, for example, was not on it the following year. The idea of assistant commissioners is daft. Either one is or is not a Commissioner. If a country were to have a Commissioner for four years and then lose the position for the following four years, that would be fine. Let us not create the position of Minister of State for a Commissioner. The proposal is acceptable provided it proceeds on the basis of strict equality. Otherwise, one creates further layers of bureaucracy.
Recently, I made public comments on the Presidency of the Commission. The fact that 15 or 16 nations signed up to a proposal made by the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Roche, which was then studiously ignored by the president of the Convention was a disgrace. I will not repeat comments I made in this forum before and will, instead, confine myself on this occasion to the use of the word "disgrace".
Proinsias De Rossa, MEP
Was it a thundering disgrace?
I did not use the term "thundering disgrace". On the issue of the EURATOM treaty, the European Union has standards for everything. If one wanted to open a sausage factory in Clonakilty, I am sure one's sausages would have to comply with 1,000 standards. Why can there not be standards for nuclear power plants?
Ms Banotti, MEP
There are, but they are——
Let us not get hung up on the EURATOM treaty. It should be clearly stated either in that treaty or elsewhere that if a nuclear plant is not up to standard, the relevant authorities will deal with it.
We should be given time to reflect on the new document. Just yesterday, we had the magnificent result of the referendum in Poland, where the people decided they wanted to proceed with accession to the European Union. They did so, as others will, on the basis of the Nice treaty. Let us put ourselves in their place. Having voted in 2003 for one constitution and one set of agreements, they will be asked, perhaps as early as 2004 or 2005, to vote for another. Is that not a little too soon? The Convention and certain politicians appear to be rushing headlong into this process. Is this necessary?
Proinsias De Rossa's idea of a week long or day long debate may be followed up in every national parliament, each of which should studiously go through the text line by line, taking its time and without pressure. I do not want to hear any more comments about wanting the treaty to be called the Treaty of Rome or the Treaty of Dublin. Let us take our time. We should not allow anybody to put a gun to our heads. People throughout Europe will only feel part of this process if we engage in meaningful, timely consultation with them.
I confirm to Deputy Mulcahy and other colleagues that we, in Clonakilty, are not just European leaders, but world leaders in sausages and black pudding.
We are all proud of the job our colleagues have done. They and their staff have enhanced their reputations and I ask them to keep up the good work until the conclusion of the Convention. The proposals on the Commission will cause considerable discussion, comment and some controversy. It is important to spell out the role and function of non-voting Commissioners. Will we have a college of 30 Commissioners, as mentioned by Deputy Quinn, all of whom will attend meetings but only half of whom will have voting rights? How would such a college operate? The public would like to know more about how it will work.
While I am aware of Deputy Gormley's interest in this area, I did not follow the logic of his point. If Germany, which now has two Commissioners, is placed in precisely the same position as Ireland in five or ten years in that it will take its turn to have a voting or non-voting Commissioner, surely the Germans, rather than us, should be complaining?
I will explain my position to the Deputy.
On the face of it, Germany is losing considerable ground whereas, as a small country, we appear to be holding our corner. This matter needs to be clarified.
I am not fully happy about the discussion on the EURATOM treaty which has been described as a clapped-out treaty dealing with a clapped-out installation, namely, Sellafield. Having listened to both sides, we must ask whether we would be better off trying to press our position on the Sellafield plant through a forum other than the existing treaty. We require more information and a fuller discussion on this issue. It would be helpful to devise a way forward in this regard.
Over the weekend I read that Giscard D'Estaing appears to have changed his mind on the agreement he made on Friday on the issue of Commissioners and raised the possibility of resigning over the latest arrangement. Will the final document be based on consensus or the view of M. D'Estaing? What will be its status? We should consider what approach should be taken in the period following the publication of the final document until the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would like to make a couple of points. On the question of including a reference to God in a future constitution, I strongly support Deputy Bruton's balanced and carefully worded comments. We should not get upset when people who want such a reference included in the text make their case in public. Nobody got upset, for instance, when the Pope suggested the Poles should vote for accession to the European Union.
Ms McKenna, MEP
Some of us did.
There are people who have bent over backwards to accommodate those who do not have particularly religious views or take a different view of life. There should be mutual accommodation. This is a reasonable point. I am unclear on the point raised by Proinsias De Rossa concerning the role of national parliaments. While I am aware there will be a protocol on this issue, I hope the role of parliaments will be enhanced and the progress so far indicated will be made.
Questions have been asked regarding the rotation of the Commission which I do not propose to repeat. How will the Presidency of the Commission be conducted and when will this be laid down? I understand it is proposed to extend the term of the Presidency to 12 months and presidencies for various policy areas, such as agriculture or justice and home affairs, will be divided between countries. Is this the case? Will the terms of reference of the chairman of the European Council be set out in a declaration or in another form?
The Charter of Fundamental Rights has not been raised. What are the implications for our Constitution and the law in that regard? Could it, for example, override the constitutional provision of the protocol on abortion? This is an issue which needs to be clarified. While the right to life is mentioned in the introduction to the new treaty, it merely states that everybody has the right to life. What status will the charter have? Could somebody claim a right that would be contrary to our Constitution? There may be a conflict between the charter and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The charter, for example, states that we would be adopting the case law of the court. These matters need to be clarified.
On defence, I note that there is to be a protocol which, among other things, will deal with the commitments to be entered into. The structure for dealing with the defence arrangements is not sufficiently clear. Perhaps that will be clarified in the protocol. I would like to know the current status of this matter.
I intended asking what will happen to the existing protocols, but I note, from a briefing I received from the Department of Foreign Affairs, that Article 5 makes the obvious point that protocols are an integral part of the treaty. The status of protocols attached to its existing treaties will need to be considered by the European Council before the end of the Intergovernmental Conference. Presumably those protocols will continue to be accommodated. I will not go through all the points as some of them have already been dealt with by other speakers.
In conclusion, I join others in expressing appreciation to the Convention members, not alone for their work in the Convention, but for regularly coming before the committee. Although the members spent a great deal of time in Brussels they made themselves available to the committee and engaged seriously with it, which I very much appreciate.
As I have to leave, I will only deal with the question raised by Patricia McKenna, MEP, and others. It is quite clear that there will be an absolute right for every country to either have a Commissioner or an associate Commissioner.
The EURATOM treaty has recently been used by the courts to threaten closure of nuclear plants on grounds of unsafe practice. I worry that without the EURATOM treaty, one might lose that power. It is because I want to have such a power that I want to see the EURATOM treaty updated rather than scrapped.
It is regrettable that Ms McKenna, having asked a number of headline grabbing questions, then got up and left. Anybody who asks questions should stay for the answers. As Deputy Quinn has correctly said, plus ça change. . . Nothing has changed, it is always the same.
On the issue of rotation, it is stated that members shall be treated on a strictly equal footing as regards determination of the sequence of and time spent by their nationals as members of the Commission. Nothing could be clearer than "strictly equal" and "time spent on". That also deals with Deputy Mulcahy's point.
One of the issues that annoys me is that there was crystal clarity last Thursday and Friday in regard to the Commission. As Deputy Quinn made clear, there will be a Commission of equal members. The description of those without a vote as associate Commissioners is most annoying and is something we will work to change.
Each person appointed to the Commission will be equal. It will not be a case of 15 people working while another 15 sit around twiddling their thumbs. Not alone is that not even contemplated but it is an utterly ludicrous proposition for any serious minded politician to put forward. In fact, there is a view in the convention, particularly within some of the Benelux countries, although it is also held by the friends of the Community method group, that there is more than sufficient work to fully engage 30 members.
The issue of voting is quite separate and will not create a two tier Commission. It will be circulated on a strictly equal footing in an attempt to create some sense of collegiality at the centre.
To be fair to Giscard d'Estaing, of whom I have been quite critical, the issue referred to by Deputy Bruton in regard to regional considerations is a simple and logical question. He simply does not want a situation where the 14 vice-presidents of the Commission would all come from the Mediterranean or from the Nordic countries, or that all of the big ones would be among the 14 vice-presidents at some stage and all of the small ones at another stage. That makes sense. I do not know why sensible politicians continue to try to conjure up ogres in this regard.
The Convention has been a huge success. We will produce a single text that will be infinitely less complex than the existing situation. That is not, however, a great tribute to the Convention because nothing could be more complex than the existing arrangements. It will be significantly better; the text is simple and readable which should commend it to most people. The same could not have been said of the Nice treaty. That was a point which Deputies Quinn and Bruton made in a debate which was subsequently distorted to suggest they said something different.
There is a huge degree of rationalisation. The number of legal instruments through which the European Union will operate will be reduced from 15 to five, which has to be an improvement.
There is now a balanced set of institutional arrangements. I will come back to one or two issues that still require resolution in this respect. The protection of the institutional arrangements agreed in the Nice treaty is very important, because, as Deputy Bruton said, there was a huge effort to unpick those arrangements. With respect to people who took a contrary view to me, and to most of us here, in the second referendum on the Nice treaty, it was proof that what we said was correct, that the treaty was a very good deal for small countries because the arguments in favour of unpicking the Nice arrangements were being promoted in order to tilt the balance back towards the large states. The president of the Convention put that particular argument forward in an open manner but we have frustrated his desires in that regard. This is a significant improvement on the Nice treaty because, in that treaty we voted for an arrangement that would have resulted in there being a period in which we would have been without a Commissioner, in the same way as Germany, France and Italy would also have been without one. Under these new arrangements, however, there will not be a period when we will be without a Commissioner.
In regard to the retention of the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, we have again achieved something significant because a great effort was made to undermine the arrangements agreed in the Nice treaty. Members may recall that on the first day we discussed the institutional issues here, I pointed out that the strict application of the "Giscardian" principles would have meant that some of the small countries could have had as few as one member per state. If it were applied absolutely strictly, it would have meant that Ireland would have had only six MEPs. We have protected our position both now and into the future.
The point about rotation of sectoral colleges needs to be clarified further. As I understand it, the wording as it stands is to allow the European Council to agree arrangements whereby there would be, for example, team presidents. As this is something we have advocated, we should not automatically jump to the conclusion that there is something wrong there. In fact, the wording was taken from an amendment we put forward. As I would point out to Ms McKenna, if she were here, there is a significantly expanded role for the national parliaments. The role of national parliaments is specifically and coherently recognised for the first time. Therefore, with all due respect Ms McKenna is wrong about this. I would have wished for a greater role for the national parliaments; I wanted them to play a role in the election of the Commission President. Deputy Bruton had his own views but supported my view and I am also grateful for the support of the Labour Party on this issue. It might have been helpful if the Greens had got behind it. Deputy Gormley agreed, but the Green representatives in the European Parliament——
Is the door open for that to happen?
It was interesting; we took votes on a variety of issues on Friday among the national representatives' groups and I was quite pleased that I could claim a 20% increase in support in that my support went from five to six member states. I asked the representatives of the Benelux countries specifically why they would not support this issue. They felt that it would be opening the door to Giscard's congress. I pointed out that the congress is now off the table due to the good work that was done in the Commission. I asked that they consider this and that, even if they could not consider putting it in specifically, they rephrase it to leave an opening for greater democracy. Proinsias De Rossa made the point at one stage during a plenary session that we should not be looking at the formula that is there at the moment but at one that allowed for a halfway house by having an electoral commission on the way to full democracy. That would have been an ideal solution, but we do not always achieve everything we want.
An important point arising from the Convention is that there should be absolute clarity on the non-subsidiarity principle and the significant yellow card role that will be played by the national parliaments. Proinsias De Rossa also made this point. Another important point was that there should be clarity with regard to competences among the member states and the Community. On the issue of the EURATOM treaty, it would have been much better if we had had a sunset clause in the treaty from day one. We still need to do a bit more analysis of QMV. I understand the point being made about dual majority being much more understandable - it is. The point was also made that it is automatic; it is difficult to decide what to do in this case.
My personal view - not a Government view - is that the response from some people in the Convention to the idea that God's name should be referenced in the preamble to the constitution is inexplicable. I cannot understand how logical people can stand up, as one person did the last day - I will not mention his name, although it is on the record - and shout that religion was the cause of all the difficulties in Europe over the past thousand years. With respect, it was not religion that was the cause of difficulties and it certainly was not God. It was the abuse of either religion or God's name by politicians who chose to use one or other or both for their own causes. Deputy Bruton's point is correct. It has been suggested that using the name of God might cause offence to Muslims, but in my view any person who follows the religion of Islam would be quite happy to see a reference to God, because it is one of the great monotheistic religions in the world.
Deputy Quinn mentioned tax harmonisation. We do not wish to defend this. I have argued consistently about this and we now have a paper to this effect, signed by seven member states. When a country surrenders monetary instruments under the euro, as member states have, it is of fundamental importance, not just in terms of sovereignty but in terms of a parliamentary role, that it retains the fiscal instruments. As a former Minister for Finance, Deputy Quinn is obviously aware of that. We have always made the point that this is not out of self-interest but in the interest of Europe. Deputy Quinn was also correct to point out, as I have pointed out to Giscard during a private meeting, that talking about tax harmonisation as being a sine qua non is nonsense. There has been a very successful union in the USA for more than 200 years without tax harmonisation. I also agree with the Deputy that we should not be calling it a constitution but a constitutional treaty, because that is precisely what it is.
On the issue of fundamental rights——
I am sorry, the Chairman did raise that question and I will answer it. He touched on two very important points, one regarding the reference protocols. The idea is to review how the protocols are carried forward rather than the protocols themselves. Some may have died with the passage of time, but the protocol mentioned by the Deputy - the Irish protocol - has not. It is as interesting to us as it always was.
The Chairman asked whether the charter would overrule our Constitution. It will not. This is a particularly important point and is precisely why we are spending so much time on the commentary. It is not in any sense to undermine or rethink the charter. As Deputies Quinn and Bruton said, in the European judicial system it is quite common to refer to a political document to inform the court in its jurisprudence of its meaning. There are two reasons we have been interested in the commentary. One is that it actually gives the charter clarity from the point of view of the general readership. Reading the charter at the moment one would get a mistaken impression that this is nirvana in terms of the rights of individuals. Deputies should remember that the charter will only be applicable to the institutions of the member states and European Union in so far as they are applying European law. The charter and the constitutional treaty will lie beside the constitutions of the individual states. The Chairman and I and everyone in the country will have our rights as Irish citizens protected in Bunreacht na hÉireann and, as Europeans, vis-à-vis the institutions of Europe and all states applying European law, we will have specific rights protected by the charter. It is an addition, not a substitution.
It is terribly important that there is absolute clarity, as far as there can ever be, about judicial interpretation of phrases within the charter.
Will the defence structure be based on the euro model, with a council of participating member states?
I still have a sense of unease about the issue of structured co-operation. There are existing arrangements for flexibility. I made the point last Friday that structured co-operation and where it will lead us is an issue we need to consider very carefully. There has been an attempt, particularly among the French, to reduce the numbers involved not in structured co-operation but in enhanced co-operation. Deputy Gormley supported my point on Friday on this. It would mean there would be two or three different competing groups in Europe and that is a bad thing from Europe's point of view. The proposal on structured co-operation is very difficult to accept and we are arguing the case against it. Control by and accountability to the Council is necessary and I do not want to see, as most would agree, actions we do not support occurring under the European flag.
On the common foreign and security policy, we need to look for a more effective decision making mechanism. There must be safeguards to protect us from finding ourselves in a position in which we fundamentally disagree with the way the Union is being run. There is a discussion going on about super qualified majority but that has not yet been resolved. It will be resolved within the Intergovernmental Conference, not within the next four days.
It is an issue to which we will return.
Proinsias De Rossa, MEP
It must be emphasised that it is the clear view of the Convention that a document should be presented to the Thessaloníki Summit which does not contain options; that is, one that expresses our view and what the choice should be. This is important from the point of view that this is a unique process involving over 200 parliamentarians from around Europe, including candidate countries as well as member states, which are constructing what they believe to be a good, balanced compromise. Bearing that in mind, the Minister of State should think twice about kicking things into the Intergovernmental Conference for resolution and about the possibility that issues which are part of a balanced compromise can be unstitched.
That would really be a dangerous thing to do. The problem is not that one would not gain something out of the process, but that it would undermine the legitimacy of what finally comes out of the Intergovernmental Conference if it takes a significantly different route from the Convention. That is not to say that some issues will not be resolved in the Intergovernmental Conference, but issues that make up a balanced compromise should only be touched with the greatest of care.
I find it somewhat odd that we have people around the table from the Green Party who are now looking to defend the Nice treaty, having fought against it on two occasions and helped to defeat it on one. They now want us to measure the outcome of the Convention against the treaty, not against what we set out to achieve in terms of the Laeken Declaration and our own political objectives and national interest, however one may define it. One can take elements of the Nice treaty and measure them against the Convention, but I find it particularly odd for those who opposed the treaty to compare the Convention outcome against it in its totality.
I would ask those addressing the question of whether this is a success or failure to look at it in its totality, not just to look at questions regarding institutions or social policy and argue about whether we won or lost on a particular point. Let us look at the total picture. Of course, we will not be able to do that finally for a few weeks yet, but we know the broad outcomes.
The Laeken Declaration asked us to make the EU more democratic and we are succeeding in doing that. It asked us to make it more transparent, and we are succeeding in doing that. It asked us to make it simpler in terms of how it makes its decisions, and we are doing that. It asked us to make it more understandable, and we are doing that. I am not saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. If I were sitting down to write the constitution, I might write a different one, but we are in a process that requires compromise.
The Chairman asked about the charter and abortion. I would recommend that people look at Article 41 of the charter, which states vary clearly:
The provisions of this charter are addressed to the institutions and bodies of the union with due regard for the principle of subsidiarity and to the member states only when they are implementing union law. They shall therefore respect the rights, observe the principles and promote the application thereof in accordance with their respective powers.
The European Union has no power regarding abortion. That is copperfastened as far as Ireland is concerned in the protocol, which I have no doubt will be carried forward as a protocol of the new constitutional treaty.
Like Proinsias De Rossa, if I were setting out to write a constitution, I would write a very different one. If that were the yardstick we applied, this agreement would probably come out quite badly. The yardstick we have already is the Nice treaty to which we can compare the Convention. I thought the Nice treaty was a bad deal regarding the Commission. This, however, is a step in the wrong direction. The creation of two tiers of Commissioners is bad. I say that quite forcefully. The reduction in the number of Commissioners to 15 is also a negative proposal.
If one looks at what we set out for in the Nice treaty, this is actually a step backwards. We have retained the idea of equality, about which I spoke, but let us look at what were the arguments for reducing the size of the Commission. We were told that this had to do with efficiency. We are now told not to worry because there are 30 Commissioners around a table. Is it being argued that this is efficient? If proponents are saying we will have 30 Commissioners around a table, it does not make any sense. They undermine their own argument in many ways.
I wish to answer the point made by Deputy O'Keeffe. If we were to continue with the big countries having two Commissioners, my calculation is that we would have 31 Commissioners in a Union of 27 countries. That is just based on a quick back-of-an-envelope calculation. We were told that was going to be inefficient.
I think there will actually be 32 Commissioners. There are five member states with two Commissioners.
We are still talking roughly around 30. There is not a huge difference between 30 and 35 or whatever it is - we will have to work that out. What is going on here is the creation of the two tier system, something the Taoiseach said he wanted to avoid. We are creating a Premier League and First Division sort of situation, which is bad. Even within the Premier League a small number of clubs have all the influence. It is a bit like the position on the UN Security Council, where the larger states, by virtue of the fact that they are large and have so much influence anyway, carry extra weight. The idea of giving each state a vote and a Commissioner was a way of creating a partnership of equals which, I very much fear, is now coming to an end.
One of the virtues and advantages of being part of a group in the European Parliament is that one gets to hear the opinions of others. Giscard and Joschka Fischer do not like the way the Commission is operating. They do not like the idea that 20% of commissioners represent 80% of the population, and vice versa. They want to change that very quickly.
Briefly, I would agree with Proinsias de Rossa that this document must be taken in the round. It is a substantial document containing a great deal of what any of us would have wished to have seen in it. It fairly reflects the Laeken principles. The devil is in the detail but there are people around who are good at fleshing that out. The Intergovernmental Conference process will help to refine it.
I will be brief as I know everybody is anxious to get away. I wish to be associated with the tributes paid to the Irish members of the Convention, who have done us proud in the negotiations. Obviously, the institutional situation will be of importance in the context of a referendum. On whether Commissioners can vote or not, is anybody in the room in a position to tell me what the practice actually is at the moment in terms of the operation of the Commission and voting? Is voting a common occurrence in the Commission? That is important.
They rarely vote.
Everybody has a vote on the Commission but it is very rarely exercised. I have never been persuaded that 15 is necessarily a magic number, although I was reminded that it is the number of Cabinet members provided for in Bunreacht na hÉireann. There will be 30 Commissioners, of whom 15 will vote for a particular period, with the other 15 then voting for a subsequent period. If it is a first and second class Commission, which it is not, we will have exact equality with Germany. We will have a better position than under Nice in that we will always have a Commissioner present.
Somebody said that the devil is in the detail. Mies van der Rohe, the great originator of modern institutional architecture, famously remarked, "God is in the detail."
I thank the Convention members once again.
The committee secretariat will be in touch with members but we are meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for European Affairs of Croatia in Room 2 in Leinster House at 11.30 a.m. on Friday, 13 June. As we will be making a visit to Croatia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic later in the year, we should try to have about six committee members at that meeting if we can. We have received an e-mail from the European Parliament about the meeting of the working group on the follow-up to the European-Mediterranean forum, which we just need to note.
We have a full meeting of the committee on Wednesday, 11 June with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen - a pre-General Affairs Council meeting.