The Laeken Declaration was the result of the European Council of 14-15th December 2001, at the conclusion of the Belgian Presidency of the European Union. It provided for the establishment of a Convention to draw up proposals for the reform of the European Union. This represents an entirely new political process in the history of European integration.

Background to the Laeken Declaration

The European Union began life as a Community of six member states, concerned primarily with economic integration. Successive enlargements brought the number of members to 15, while successive rounds of treaty reform have expanded the number of policy areas in which the Union is involved. Throughout all of these changes, the basic institutional structures of the early days have remained unchanged. These structures are now showing the strain of this expansion, and decision-making has become more complex and time-consuming. At the same time, the increase in the number of policy areas dealt with at the European level has opened up a gap between decision-making and democratic accountability.

The imminent enlargement of the European Union to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has brought recognition that extensive reform of the institutions and decision-making system of the European Union is necessary. The traditional method of treaty reform has been the Intergovernmental Conference, or IGC, in which member states bargain behind closed doors to produce a final agreement. The failures of the summits in Amsterdam in 1997 and again in Nice in 2000 to produce a decent reform made even the Heads of State and Government realise that this traditional method would be unable to succeed in preparing the institutions for a future Union of 27 or even 28 members.

The Nice Treaty of 2000 produced political procedures that were even more complicated and inefficient than before. The difficulties faced in achieving even this limited agreement through the traditional method led the Heads of State and Government to launch what became known as the Post-Nice Process: the initiation of an “open and public debate on the future of Europe”.

The Laeken Summit of 14-15 December 2001 represented the first decisive step in the Post-Nice Process. The discussions of the previous year were summed up in the “Laeken Declaration on the Future of Europe”. This Declaration identifies the main questions concerning the political union of Europe and the “Future of Europe” in general. The Declaration also established a Convention to prepare a document to provide answers to these questions. The results of the Convention are then planned to be adopted at another Intergovernmental Conference.

The Laeken Declaration

The Laeken Declaration includes three parts.

Part one is entitled: “Europe at a Crossroads”, which is a short analysis of the state of the EU at the moment. It identifies the challenges facing the EU and sums up “the expectations of Europe’s citizens”.

Part two is much more important. This focuses on “Challenges and Reforms in a Renewed Union”, and formulates the objectives and aims of the Convention. It presents a list of questions which the Convention is supposed to answer, which are grouped into four topics: competencies, “simplification of the Union’s instruments”, “more democracy, transparency and efficiency in the EU”, and “towards a Constitution for European citizens”. The Convention has an open mandate, but it is likely to stick closely to the guidelines of this second chapter of the Declaration. As the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt explained, several of the future members of the Presidium of the Convention were involved in the drafting of the Laeken Declaration and can be expected to work closely to its outlines.

The third part addresses the composition of the Convention in more detail.

The composition of the Convention

The Convention will be composed of just over 100 members, with a Presidium of 12.

The Presidium

The President of the Convention will be the former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. He will be assisted by two Vice-Presidents, the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene. In addition the Presidium will include two representatives of the European Commission; two representatives of the European Parliament; two representatives of the national parliaments of the member states; and three representatives from the countries which will hold the Presidency of the EU during the Convention’s work.

Due to the size of the Convention, the Presidium will have an important role. They will suggest the agenda for discussion and will formulate proposals for the final document based on those discussions. At the moment, it seems likely that all decisions of the Presidium will have to be taken unanimously.

The Convention

The Convention itself will be composed of: 16 members of the European Parliament; 2 representatives of each of the national parliaments of member states and of candidate countries; and one representative of each of the governments of member states and of candidate countries. In addition there will also be observers from the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the Social Partners, and the European Ombudsman.

Although the convention members from the candidate countries are full members, they do not have the right “to prevent any consensus which may emerge from the Member States”. This ‘positive voting right’, allowing the candidate countries to vote in favour but not against, is a new invention of the political leaders at Laeken. The representatives of governments will number far fewer than the number of parliamentarians, European and national. This means that the Convention is a much more European and much more representative body than the traditional Intergovernmental Conference, and gives it the legitimacy to produce a more comprehensive result, independent of the narrow self-interests of the nation-states.

Working methods

Decision-making in the Convention will be based on consensus, which is subtly different from unanimity. It means that a very small minority cannot block the emergence of a consensus position. Nevertheless the Laeken Declaration gives the Convention the opportunity to propose different options if it proves too difficult to find agreement on a single text. There is the danger that with too many options, the national governments may attempt to choose ‘à la carte’ at the subsequent IGC and be able to protect their own narrow self-interests. This could result in yet another failure to produce an adequate reform of the Union.

The result

The decisive step to establish the Convention, with a majority of national and European parliamentarians, offers real hope that a successful reform of the Union might finally be achieved. However, the results still have to be adopted by another IGC after the end of the Convention, where the Heads of State and Government will have to take their decision on the basis of the traditional unanimity. At this IGC, the political leaders will decide about “the Future of Europe” not only on the basis of the results of the Convention, but also on based on the outcomes of “national debates on the future of the Union”.

The timetable

The Convention will be officially opened on 28 February 2001 in Brussels. Although earlier drafts of the Laeken Declaration included a deadline of 30 June 2003 for concluding its work, this deadline was not included in the final Declaration. There are representatives of only three Presidencies, implying that the Convention is still expected to conclude its work by the summer of 2003. The IGC would then be held either during the Italian Presidency of the second half of 2003, or during the first half of 2004. The intention is to complete the process before the European Parliamentary elections of June 2004.

Prospects for the Convention

A Convention to draw up proposals for reform of the European Union has long been strongly demanded by the majority of the European Parliament, as well as large segments of civil society. There are many hopes and expectations linked to the Convention.

For the first time in the European integration process there is the possibility for a democratic body to produce a democratic solution for Europe. There is clearly going to be pressure from the governments towards the Convention to ensure that they maintain the final say over the direction of the European Union. Nevertheless, there is a real chance that the Convention may fulfil many of the expectations held of it and make proposals for the only solution for a democratic, transparent, and efficient Europe: a federal structure.

The Convention’s mandate also allows the Convention to tackle topics which until now had scarcely been addressed at the political level. Should the Council of Ministers be transformed into a genuine second chamber alongside the European Parliament? Should there be co-decision between the Council and the Parliament on all legislation? Should unanimity be abolished entirely? Should there be a real European army, a real European social, economic, and fiscal policy, executed by a European government and controlled by the European Parliament?

The mandate given in the Laeken Declaration allows the Convention to produce conclusions on these and many other important topics. However, the Declaration leaves the final decision with the governments of the member states in the subsequent IGC. The danger remains that the governments may choose to ignore or water down the Convention’s proposals. Therefore it is essential that the Convention engage the interest and support of the citizens, and that civil society supports strongly the work of the Convention, in order to increase its legitimacy. Only if the Convention produces strong proposals for a radical reform of the Union, and only if these proposals attract strong support from civil society and public opinion, can we prevent the national governments from putting the Convention’s work to one side.

If the Convention is successful, this process offers a genuine opportunity for a successful and fundamental reform of the European Union, creating a federal Europe under a federal Constitution.