(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
At the first meeting in Rome, each country, both today's EU country and the newcomers, had four minutes of speaking time – and when the first session was over, one was the same length. Everyone had only said what was clear in advance, and the Italian hosts had no idea how to proceed.
The contradictions surrounding the draft constitution are intersecting, but are nevertheless crystallized along a few main lines. The main difference is between large and small EU countries.
82 million votes
It is the number of votes in the Council of Ministers that is at the heart of the conflict. The draft constitution means that the population decides how many votes a country should have in the Council of Ministers, the most important decision-making body of the EU. This means that Germany has just over 82 million votes against Malta's 390.000.
So far, small EU countries have had far more votes in the Council of Ministers than the population would indicate. For example, Denmark has three votes and Germany 10, ie just over three times as many as Denmark. The Treaty of Nice, signed in 2000, shifted the relationship in favor of large countries. Germany received 29 votes, and thus more than four times as many as Denmark with its 7 votes.
If the population is to count, Germany will suddenly get 15 times as many votes as Denmark – and 180 times as many votes as Luxembourg, which until now has had a fifth as many votes as Germany.
Spain and Poland say no
The four largest EU states, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, are – not surprisingly – pleased with such a distribution of votes. It is not Spain and Poland. The Treaty of Nice gave the two states almost as many votes as Germany (27 to 29) – despite the fact that they both have less than half the population of Germany.
Compared to small and medium-sized EU countries, Spain and Poland will come out much better than today's rules. But they do not compare with them, only with Germany.
Spain and Poland therefore reject the draft constitution on this point and demand that the votes in the Treaty of Nice apply. Formally, the two governments are strong. The EU can only get its constitution if all the governments and parliaments agree. And the Treaty of Nice can do nothing to anyone. It has been ratified by all EU countries and will take effect from next summer, long before a new constitution comes into force.
15 A-members
The Spaniards and Poles can be supported by many others. This summer, as many as 17 of the 25 EU governments had the most sense of the distribution of votes in the Treaty of Nice.
Nevertheless, the small states in the EU have inserted the blow against another point in the publisher's constitution. It is the proposal that the EU Commission should have one member from each country, but only 15 of them should have the right to vote and responsibility for their respective parts of the EU administration. This means that at any given time, 10 EU countries must be content with a B-member of the Commission, a member without voting rights and without management responsibility.
Today, the Commission has 20 members, two from the five major EU countries and one from each of the others. With 25 member states – and Poland as a new country among the big ones – that would mean a Commission with 31 members. The argument against such a Commission is that it would be unmanageable and ineffective.
Turns on the shackles
It may seem strange that the small states direct the main criticism at the composition of the Commission, despite the fact that they want a member with the right to vote there as often as large EU countries. According to the draft constitution, the right to vote shall rotate between the Member States so that all countries are equal.
This is probably related to the fact that it is easier to change the constitution on this point than to change the rules for voting in the Council of Ministers. At the same time, one can hope to get in the bag by crawling behind Spain and Poland in the battle over how the number of votes should be distributed in the Council of Ministers.
EU President of the Great Powers
Many EU countries are also skeptical about the EU president that the draft constitution will introduce. This president will be elected by the Heads of State and Government and will be the face of the EU externally. In both small and medium-sized EU countries, there is a fear that the president will become a tool for large states that make compromises between themselves – and present them as the only thing possible to the rest of the member states.
The proposed voting rules reinforce this fear. In the Council of Ministers, the main rule is that decisions require the support of a majority of the states if this majority also has a population of at least 60 per cent of the EU's population. This rule also applies when the heads of government are to elect the EU president. Three major countries can block any decision that the other 22 could want – if Germany is one of the three. This means that the largest EU countries naturally have a great deal of influence on which president can be elected.
