EU Constitution

26 Pages 6412 Words

nd indigestible compromises. Knowing this, ministers at lower level are often reluctant to concede anything at all until summit meetings. The practice has also eroded the initiative of the commission, the traditional driver of the European project, without always providing an adequate alternative.
Describing weaknesses in the council is one thing; suggesting cures is harder. One favourite notion is to increase majority voting. Yet the council is naturally wedded to consensus; even when the treaties provide for voting, it seldom happens. Some officials maintain even so that it is the existence of majority voting, not its use, that makes agreement easier. Majority voting may be extended in the revision of the Maastricht treaty supposed to be agreed on at the Amsterdam summit in June, but hostility from Britain and others will stop it going at all far.
A second idea is to change the presidency system. The six-monthly rotation confuses the EU's interlocutors; gives chairmen of councils and working-groups short time-horizons; and puts undue pressu...