policy brief
CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN REFORM
After the Brussels summit: what next for the EU? ★ The EU’s failure to reach agreement on a new constitutional treaty is a damaging blow to its credibility, but it does not trigger a full-scale crisis. EU enlargement can proceed on time, on the basis of the Nice Treaty’s decision-making arrangements. ★ Elections later in 2004 in Spain, and possibly also in Poland, may take some of the heat out of the argument on voting weights. But if governments opt for a long delay in resuming negotiations they run the risk that countries will want to re-open debates on many issues apart from voting weights. ★ The next few years will see further acrimony as the EU must agree on a new budget package by 2006. ★ A Franco-German attempt to establish a ‘core Europe’ is unlikely to succeed. But various leadership groups, where different groups of countries decide on closer integration in different policy areas, are likely to emerge.
What went wrong? The manner and speed at which the Brussels European Council collapsed took most observers by surprise. Heads of state and government had arrived on the morning of Friday December 12th, expecting negotiations to last until late on Sunday 14th. In the event, the Italian presidency called a halt to proceedings on midday on Saturday, after concluding there was no way of breaking an impasse over voting weights.
his back-pocket’, but at the summit itself the Italian team proved bereft of new ideas.
Just as importantly, other member-states were prepared to let the talks fail. For Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, the collapse of the IGC headed off a damaging domestic row about whether to hold a referendum on the constitutional treaty. France had no strong incentive to make concessions, because it can live with the Nice voting arrangements, which give the French the same weight as the With the benefit of hindsight, this failure seems Germans. More importantly, President Chirac less surprising. Both Germany and Poland had was keen to make the political point that hardened their respective positions on voting decision-making with 25 countries around the weights in the run-up to the summit, leaving table is proving increasingly difficult. little room for compromise. The Italian Following the failure of the Brussels meeting, presidency had not properly prepared the France has quickly moved to fill the vacuum ground for constructive discussions. Silvio with its own ideas for a two-speed Europe (see Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, had below). Above all, member-states had neither a promised to keep a potential compromise ‘in sense of urgency nor the mutual trust that
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