Remarks
by Mr. John Bruton
Appointed Ambassador of the European Commission
to the United States
On the Occasion of
The European Institute’s 15th Anniversary Gala
Dinner
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
Jacqueline,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a
distinct honor to join you in celebrating the
Fifteenth Anniversary of the European
Institute. It is not necessary for me to
have been in this town for long to know already
that Jacqueline and the Institute she created
have made extraordinary contributions to transatlantic
understanding.
To be clear, I have not quite yet officially
begun my tenure as Head
of the European Commission Delegation. I
met with Secretary Powell last Friday and will
formally present my credentials to President
Bush in two days.
I speak to you tonight more in my capacity as
a member of the
European Convention which drafted the Constitutional
Treaty approved by the European
Council.
Yet, following the remarks of Ambassador van
Eenennaam, and in the collective attendance
of the distinguished Ambassadors from the other
EU Member states, I feel that I am attending
my first Heads of Mission meeting.
This leads me to a comparison that may require
some explanation – I see distinct similarities
between the role that Jacqueline has played
in Washington and which President Giscard d’Estaing
played in the Convention.
Giscard’s sheer presence and natural authority
commanded consensus in a Convention that, with
such a diversity of institutions and societal
interests represented, was on its face extremely
unlikely to reach complete agreement on a final
draft Treaty. The successful conclusion is a
tribute to his political skill and tremendous
energy. He played an indispensable role.
Now, no one would confuse Jacqueline with Giscard.
If I may say so she is a lovely and charming
woman. But through her political skill, keen
insight and tenacity she has similarly commanded
the respect of the diverse transatlantic policy
community in Washington.
Time and again she has brought the European
diplomatic corps, Administration officials,
Congressional representatives and members of
the business community to the table to discuss
the shared objectives and policies that define
the transatlantic relationship.
Jacqueline may not always command a consensus.
I am told this can be a formidable task in Washington,
even when compared to the European Convention.
But she has commanded the respect and active
participation of movers and shakers in establishing
a unique forum for constructive dialogue.
We are deeply in her debt. I wish Jacqueline
and her colleagues at the European Institute
many more years of good health in occupying
a special place in the transatlantic relationship.
The Constitutional Treaty
As I said, as a newcomer to Washington, I want
to focus tonight on an important development
in Europe with which I have been closely associated,
namely our new Constitutional Treaty.
In 2002-3 I was privileged to be a member of
the Presidium of a yet entirely new creature
of the European construction, the European Convention,
which drew up this new draft Constitutional
Treaty.
The Constitutional Treaty, if adopted, will
have a number of benefits for the people of
Europe and I believe for the United States too:
simplification, efficiency, a Human Rights Charter,
new and stronger role of national parliaments
are some of the novelties.
A more efficient global partner
Through the consolidation of all treaties
in one text, the European Union will become
a little easier to understand at home and abroad.
Our ways of making decisions will become clearer
and more efficient: distribution of competences
is clearly spelled out and the legal personality
of the EU is established for the first time,
eliminating the previous confusion between the
communities, the 3 pillar structure and the
Union.
Improvements to our foreign policy-making and
overseas representation will help the European
Union become a more effective partner
of the United States in tackling the many regional
and global issues we face together.
Please allow me to give you some concrete examples:
The Constitutional Treaty will allow Europe,
when it has agreed on what it wants to say,
to do so through the voice of a single Foreign
Minister – rather than through two different
institutions, as at present. Mr. Kissinger’s
request for a single phone number – 1-800-JAVIER
– will be answered so completely that it will
hopefully never again be mentioned in a dinner
speech.
A European Armaments Agency, proposed in the
draft Constitution, will enable us to achieve
cost effectiveness and economies of scale in
defending ourselves. This will ultimately help
Europe to assume its responsibilities in the
world scene.
Systematic intelligence sharing is also vital
in the battle against crime. Ad hoc cooperation,
after a crime has been committed, is not as
effective as prevention of crime by prearranged
routine pooling of data. Apparently trivial
data may prove ultimately to be the most useful.
Cross-border crime must have no safe havens
anywhere in the European Union.
The present system, whereby the EU can only
move forward on cross-border criminal issues
on the basis of unanimity, is not viable. In
the draft Constitution there is a tightly defined
proposal for majority voting on a limited range
of cross border crimes – notably terrorism,
drug trafficking and people trafficking – crimes
which are often carried out as joint enterprises
by highly sophisticated crime multinationals,
of which Al Q'aeda is just one example.
All of these developments will enhance the EU’s
ability to act as a more effective global partner
and face the challenges of the 21st
century.
Closing the Democratic Deficit
We also worked hard in the Convention to find
ways to bring the EU closer to its citizens
and to close what is known as the democratic
deficit. I believe the new Constitution improves
democracy in several ways.
It will strengthen the position of national
parliaments in regard to EU legislation and
will allow them to ensure that, in accordance
with the principle of subsidiarity,
the EU does not undertake to regulate, at EU
level, things that can better be regulated at
the level of the Member State.
It provides that each national parliament will
be asked to decide, within six weeks of its
publication, whether each draft EU law breaches
the principle of subsidiarity, the terms of
which were set out in the Treaty.
If a Parliament thinks a proposal does breach
subsidiarity it could, if this Treaty is accepted,
present a "reasoned opinion" to that
effect.
If one-third of national parliaments present
such reasoned opinions, the Commission will
then have to review the proposal and possibly
drop it.
This mechanism, especially the six-week time
frame to concentrate minds, will dramatically
increase the influence of national parliaments
on the EU legislative process. Rather than being
taken by surprise by the implementation of EU
"directives" long after they had been
passed, national parliaments and through them
national public opinions will be required to
examine them in advance.
Furthermore, the EU Council
of Ministers will, if the new Constitution
is adopted, be required to meet in public when
drafting legislation. This is a major step forward
for democracy at European level.
Another major step forward will be incorporation
of the Charter of Fundamental Rights
as an integral part of the Constitutional Treaty.
This will bring explicit human values into the
heart of the EU's work. It will guarantee that
the EU will respect human rights in its own
work in all member states.
A further protection of human rights is to be
found in the fact that the draft Constitution
provides that a country may be suspended from
EU membership if it fails to respect EU values,
which are stated to be "human dignity,
democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect
for human rights." This new provision is
an important bulwark for democracy in Europe.
Rogue states will be expelled from the EU.
The new Constitution will be much simpler, and
easier to read, than previous Treaties, which
have been complex and confusing because each
of them referred back to another Treaty and
one could not understand one EU Treaty without
access to all of them.
Now everything will be brought together in a
single document. Simplicity and accessibility
of basic documents are important to the quality
of democratic discussion. The new document will
allow the EU to conclude international Treaties
in its own right within its own field of competence.
This Constitution is the latest in a series
of European Treaties. Is it really a constitution?
Is it such a big deal? Most organizations have
a constitution in effect. I am sure the European
Institute, for example, has a constitution.
In reality, a constitution could be defined
as a set of basic rules that have primacy in
a case of dispute, over rules that are made
on a day-to-day basis.
By this definition the EU has always had a constitution,
right back to the Treaty of Rome because all
EU treaties have, from the beginning, rested
on the assumption that, in its field of application,
EU law would have primacy over the law of any
member state.
I do not think we could ever have created a
European single market for goods and services
without this principle of primacy of EU law
in its field being built into the EU legal system,
because we would otherwise have had twenty-five
different legal interpretations of the standards
that goods or services must meet in the single
market. This latest Treaty will more precisely
define the field of application of EU law, thereby
limiting the area in which EU law will have
primacy.
All that is really new is that this particular
consolidating Treaty is being given the formal
title “Constitution.”
In that fundamental respect it differs from
Philadelphia, which was a truly new departure.
Let me say a few words about what the draft
EU Constitution will not do. This will help
distinguish it from the Constitution drawn up
in Philadelphia in 1776.
Unlike the American Constitution, it will not
create a Federation.
It will not create a Union that could be called
a "Superstate," or even a "State."
The Union will have no right to raise taxes
autonomously.
It will not have the right to run a budget deficit.
It will have no right to raise a military force
distinct from the resources of its Member States.
It will only be able to act within competences
that have been conferred on it by Member States.
These competences could be withdrawn by any
Member State at any time, by that state withdrawing
from the European Union.
Finally, the Union may spend, at maximum, only
1.27% of the combined GDP of all Member States,
and that limit may not be raised without the
unanimous agreement of all twenty-five states.
Contrast that meager 1.27% with the spending
of member state Governments who, on average,
spend nearly 40% of EU GDP.
The European Commission has fewer employees
than the District of Columbia Government.
Far from being a "Superstate," the
European Union, under this Constitutional Treaty,
will be a legally strong cooperative arrangement
between States, who have voluntarily decided
to limit the exercise of their own sovereignty
in certain areas, so that they can achieve more
together than any of them could ever achieve
separately.
This voluntary limiting of sovereignty was sensible
when the first six States of the European Community
got together in 1956.
It is even more sensible today, when even the
biggest nation states are too small to cope
alone with otherwise uncontrollable global forces
in economics, the environment, in crime and
in disease.
Let me conclude by returning to broader themes.
We are trying to create a “demos” in Europe,
a European democratic space, with which all
Europeans can identify, while further retaining
their individual national identity as well.
Recent events in the European Parliament, which
brought about changes to the new European
Commission as originally presented by President
Barosso, demonstrate the beginning of such a
European “demos.” This demos is in an early
stage of formation, peacefully and slowly.
Throughout history many of our nation states
in Europe forged their "demos" by
means of wars, wars sometimes stretching out
over decades or even centuries. Go through the
list of states of Europe or of the Americas,
and you will see that most of them emerged out
of a war or a civil war.
In the European Union, we are trying to do something
completely different. We are trying to create
a "demos," without a war. Perhaps
for the first time in history. Certainly for
the first time in history, on this scale – a
scale of 450 million people and dozens of different
nationalities.
Now that "demos" has been extending
across Europe, consolidating peace through areas
that were not so many years ago at war and serving
also to help stabilize and modernize countries
in our immediate neighborhood. The prospect
of EU accession
has, for example, been a great incentive and
catalyst for reform in the Balkans and in Turkey.
Without the potential prize of EU membership,
would those countries be making the same effort?
The truth is this.
We need local democracy. We need national democracy.
But if we are to manage the forces of globalization,
we also now need supranational democracy. The
European Union is not perfect, but it is one
of the best attempts yet at supranational democracy,
anywhere in the world.
