Ladies and Gentlemen,
Fulfilling these two tasks stands at the heart of the current intergovernmental conference. The EU has pledged to be able to admit new members by January 1, 2003. Following the conclusion of Agenda 2000, the aim now is to put in place the institutional preconditions for the next round of enlargement. Resolving the three key questions – the composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council, and particularly the extension of majority decisions – is indispensable for the smooth continuation of the process of enlargement. As the next practical step, these three questions now have absolute priority.
Crucial as the intergovernmental conference is as the next step for the future of the EU, we must, given Europe’s situation, already begin to think beyond the enlargement process and consider how a future “large” EU can function as it ought to function and what shape it must therefore take. And that’s what I want to do now.
Permit me therefore to remove my Foreign Minister’s hat altogether in order to suggest a few ideas both on the nature of this so-called finality of Europe and on how we can approach and eventually achieve this goal. And all the Eurosceptics on this and the other side of the Channel would be well advised not to immediately produce the big headlines again, because firstly this is a personal vision for a solution to the European problems. And, secondly, we are talking here about the long term, far beyond the current intergovernmental conference. So no one need be afraid of these ideas.
Enlargement will render imperative a fundamental reform of European institutions. Just what would a European Council with thirty heads of state and government be like? Thirty presidencies? How long would Council meetings actually last? Days, maybe even weeks? How, with the system of institutions that exists today, are thirty states supposed to balance interests, make decisions, and then actually act? How can one prevent the EU from becoming utterly intransparent, compromises from becoming stranger and more incomprehensible, and the citizens’ acceptance of the EU from eventually hitting rock bottom?
Question upon question, but there is a very simple answer: the transition from a union of states to full parliamentarization as a European Federation, something Robert Schuman demanded 50 years ago. And that means nothing less than a European Parliament and a European government that really do exercise legislative and executive power within the Federation. This Federation will have to be based on a constituent treaty.
I am well aware of the procedural and substantive problems that will have to be resolved before this goal can be attained. For me, however, it is entirely clear that Europe will only be able to play its due role in global economic and political competition if we move forward courageously. The problems of the 21st century cannot be solved with the fears and formulae of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Of course, this simple solution is immediately criticized as being utterly unworkable. Europe is not a new continent, so the criticism goes, but full of different peoples, cultures, languages, and histories. The nation-states are realities that cannot simply be erased, and the more globalization and Europeanization create superstructures and anonymous actors far removed from the citizens, the more the people will cling to the nation-states that give them comfort and security.
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