Dr Matjaz Nahtigal, Representative of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia

Efficiency is inseparably connected with legitimacy. There is no efficiency without legitimacy. The decision taking procedures and the participation of institutions can only be efficient if they are legitimate. The composition of institutions as well as the decision taking procedures must reflect the diversity of both preferences and national cultures in Europe.

At the very beginning, the constitutional treaty should clearly demonstrate that it is to establish a union of equal states, nations and citizens. This is the foundation of the Union. Its specific features provide certain vital elements of the character of the Union that must be considered in its functioning and are therefore prerequisite for the most profound and broadest legitimacy of the Union. We would like to point to two elements that we consider as vital:
In the light of the above, the balance between smaller and larger states will always be an important element of the EU legitimacy. It will be of essential importance to preserve the equality of smaller and larger states in order to ensure legitimacy of the future European structures.
Furthermore, with regard to the enlargement – the key historical challenge faced by the EU, the legitimacy of the European project can only be ensured if the present and the future Member States are equal.

The legislative and executive competences in the Union should be better defined: the common legislative competence of the Council, which represents the Member States (when acting in the legislative role, its meetings should be public), on one side, and the European Parliament, which represents the citizens of the Union, on the other. It is necessary to implement the principle of co?decision of the European Parliament in all areas in which the decision taking by qualified majority is used in the Council. The qualified majority decision taking should become a general principle and should be simplified: qualified majority requires the consent of the majority of states, these in turn should represent the majority of the citizens of the EU. Dual majority is an important element that would ensure legitimacy of the decisions taken, since the states remain the fundamental constitutional elements of the European Union. One should not underestimate the symbolic value of the dual majority: there can be no common European consensus without the consensus of both the European citizens and European states.

Citizens need more opportunities to participate in European issues; therefore we expect an increase of importance of the role of national parliaments and the European Parliament. The counterpart of a stronger European Parliament should be a strong and impartial Commission. According to the principle of dual majority of citizens and states of the Union, the Commission’s directly elected President would ensure democratic legitimacy and a relative autonomy of the Commission. An alternative way would be the election of the Commission President with the assistance of national parliaments.

However, in our opinion the Member States should retain an appropriate level of flexibility and autonomy, in order to be able to respond to their respective development challenges and issues. This, of course, can only be done as part of the common framework legislation.

The existing three-pillar structure of the Union is the reason for decreased comprehensibility and reduced transparency of Union competence implementation. We are therefore in favour of a constitutional treaty that will omit the three-pillar structure replacing it by a single communitarian method, except in certain specific areas. Only the communitarian method can ensure the necessary democracy, transparency, efficiency, and implementation of the principles of solidarity and equality for the European Union.