BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2020) The newly-released European Commission's communication with an updated version of its vision of the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe on Wednesday avoids saying directly but implies major changes to the bloc's treaties, sparking concerns across the continent as to whether a project this ambitious is affordable and whose interests it truly serves.
Since assuming office as the European Commission president in July 2019, Ursula von der Leyen outlined two massive projects to mark her five-year term � the so-called Green Deal to make Europe the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and the Conference on the Future of Europe to reshape drastically how the bloc runs � both of them with radical reforms, both with significant budgets.
The Conference on the Future of Europe is planned as a two-year communication marathon for citizens to engage in a debate on par with institutions over two strands of matters. The first strand is about issues pertaining to climate change, economy, socio-cultural aspects and foreign affairs; the second one deals purely with democratization and ways to enhance it, specifically through introducing changes to the existing EU laws and treaties.
The debate is planned to be supported by a multilingual e-platform.
VON DER LEYEN WANTS TO RIDE TWO HORSES AT ONCE
Citing that more than 200 million EU citizens attended the elections last May, von der Leyen says it clearly shows that Europeans want to engage more actively in the EU decision-making. To Gilles Lebreton, a French lawmaker in the European Parliament from the National Front party, her concerns are mainly about pleasing the elite, on one side, and the Greens and Left on the other.
"The president of the European Commission launches gigantic 'building sites' to re-imagine Europe as the European elite imagines it should be. At the same time, she tries to seduce the Greens and the Left with an ill-prepared 'Green deal' that has left farmers unions and industrialists of the agribusiness community flabbergasted. She simply does not have the time and the resources to lead these two huge reforms properly. The cacophony will be remarkable, no doubt. Wait and see," he told Sputnik.
Associated institutional, but also financial, costs make the project appear highly ambitious, to say the least. With the declared costs of the Green Deal estimated to exceed $1 trillion on paper and likely much more in practice, expect the burden on taxpayers to get even heavier in catering the redraw of the bloc's architecture.
"The Brussels elites of the Commission pass over the heads of the European citizens with a reform plan of which we know nothing, except that the main measures that this elite would like to take are not even mentioned in the launch releases," Tom Vandendriessche, a Belgian member of the European Parliament from the far-right Vlaams Belang party, told Sputnik, referring to von der Leyen's apparent plans to modify the European Constitution.
In the initial introduction of the Conference in her guidance, von der Leyen said that she was "ready to follow up on what is agreed, including by legislative action if appropriate [and] also open to Treaty change. Should there be a Member of the European Parliament put forward to chair the Conference, I will fully support this idea."
Speaking to Sputnik, Vandendriessche stressed that any such change would need citizens' mandate. "Where is the mandate given by the voter to modify the treaties? This European elite wants to redo the European Constitution."
Any mention of the word "treaty" is gone from the Wednesday's edition of the Commission's plans for the EU makeover. Yet the listed proposals, including changing the way the Commission's president is elected and introducing transnational candidate lists in the EU elections, would inevitably require changes to the existing legislation.
Political Scientist Michel Liegeois from the Catholic University of Louvain told Sputnik that doing so now would be easier than ever, even though not easy per se.
"The reform of the structures of Europe is the sea serpent. It is tempting for the Commission to attempt this revision after Brexit. Supporters of the revision have a slight advantage - it would have been very difficult with the United Kingdom participating to the conversations, but given the general political context, it will still not be easy," he said.
According to Professor Liegeois, the process will require a careful legal drafting in several languages and, because it is normally difficult for people to understand legal texts, then a political instrumentalization of some sort. Populists, strengthened after Brexit, won't loose the chance to use it for pushing for the euroskeptic rhetoric, the expert said.
It is worth saying that any such change under the EU laws as they are now would require a unanimous vote of all 27 member states, and this is a suggested change item as well on the Commission's agenda � to be replaced with a simple majority vote.
WHAT IF MORE EUROPE VOTES FOR LESS EUROPE
"If a referendum were to be organized tomorrow, a majority of European citizens, from Lisbon to Stockholm, would say yes to a Europe of collaboration between sovereign partners, and not to the ill-fitted supranational melting pot," Vandendriessche opined.
All union-related referendums, organized in Europe over the past 15 years, were lost by supporters of more Europe, and according to the lawmaker, it demonstrates that "people want less Europe, not the other way around." With that he stressed that it in no way means opposition to the existence of the EU itself, as long as states have their sovereignty safeguarded.
"We are obviously not opposed to the existence of a European Union, provided that sovereign states remain the masters of the game," Vandendriessche said. "We want to maintain the rule of unanimity, enshrined in the Founding Treaty of Rome."
Professor Liegeois agrees, saying that "supporters of the pursuit of European integration are no longer in the majority."
The plan also seems to ignore the fact that not all parts of Europe are developing with equal speed, with a potential to give lesser developed members a tool to advance at the cost of holding back the more developed neighbors.
"Von der Leyen wants to suppress the principle of unanimity for such decisions. Brussels insists that the Council should decide in future on social policy with a qualified majority and not anymore by unanimous vote. It means the profiteers of common social systems could overrule Germany at every opportunity. This would open a bottomless barrel. The financial consequences would be unforeseeable for Germany," Jorg Meuthen, a German lawmaker at the European Parliament from the Alternative for Germany party, told Sputnik.
As an example, he cited a reform, proposed recently by von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, that would create a single European unemployment insurance.
"Such joint unemployment insurance ... would punish the countries that have made their labour markets competitive. And it would reward those who didn't do their homework. In concrete terms, this would mean for Germany that we would have to pay for the unemployed across the EU. Nobody who represents German interests can want that," the German lawmaker said.
Finally, the problem with the plan seems to be resting on another important thing � or person in this case � lawmaker Guy Verhofstadt who was chosen by von der Leyen to chair the Conference. Former Belgian prime minister and presently a member of the European Parliament, he is renowned for his reputation of a staunch pro-European, very vocal, sometimes to the level of insults. It greatly undermines his standing as of a neutral, impartial arbitrary, Sputnik's experts believe.
Whatever the further modifications of the initial plan, both of von der Leyen's ambitious projects by and large clearly assert initiative to the full and are a sure way to leave a mark in history.
