English 

Fischer I

Enlargement will render imperative a fundamental reform of the European institutions. Just what would a European Council with thirty heads of state and government be like? Thirty presidencies? How long will Council meetings actually last? Days, maybe even weeks? How, with the system of institutions that exists today, are thirty states supposed to balance interests, take decisions and then actually act? How can one prevent the EU from becoming utterly intransparent, compromises from becoming stranger and more incomprehensible, and the citizens' acceptance of the EU from eventually hitting rock bottom?  

Question upon question, but there is a very simple answer: the transition from a union of states to full parliamentarization as a European Federation, something Robert Schuman demanded 50 years ago. And that means nothing less than a European Parliament and a European government which really do exercise legislative and executive power within the Federation. This Federation will have to be based on a constituent treaty.  

I am well aware of the procedural and substantive problems that will have to be resolved before this goal can be attained. For me, however, it is entirely clear that Europe will only be able to play its due role in global economic and political competition if we move forward courageously. The problems of the 21st century cannot be solved with the fears and formulae of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Of course, this simple solution is immediately criticized as being utterly unworkable. Europe is not a new continent, so the criticism goes, but full of different peoples, cultures, languages and histories. The nation-states are realities that cannot simply be erased, and the more globalization and Europeanization create superstructures and anonymous actors remote from the citizens, the more the people will cling on to the nation-states that give them comfort and security. 

Now I share all these objections, because they are correct. That is why it would be an irreparable mistake in the construction of Europe if one were to try to complete political integration against the existing national institutions and traditions rather than by involving them. Any such endeavour would be doomed to failure by the historical and cultural environment in Europe. Only if European integration takes the nation-states along with it into such a Federation, only if their institutions are not devalued or even made to disappear, will such a project be workable despite all the huge difficulties. In other words: the existing concept of a federal European state replacing the old nation-states and their democracies as the new sovereign power shows itself to be an artificial construct which ignores the established realities in Europe. The completion of European integration can only be successfully conceived if it is done on the basis of a division of sovereignty between Europe and the nation-state. Precisely this is the idea underlying the concept of "subsidiarity", a subject that is currently being discussed by everyone and understood by virtually no one. 

So what must one understand by the term "division of sovereignty"? As I said, Europe will not emerge in a political vacuum, and so a further fact in our European reality is therefore the different national political cultures and their democratic publics, separated in addition by linguistic boundaries. A European Parliament must therefore always represent two things: a Europe of the nation-states and a Europe of the citizens. This will only be possible if this European Parliament actually brings together the different national political elites and then also the different national publics. 

In my opinion, this can be done if the European parliament has two chambers. One will be for elected members who are also members of their national parliaments. Thus there will be no clash between national parliaments and the European parliament, between the nation-state and Europe. For the second chamber a decision will have to be made between the Senate model, with directly-elected senators from the member states, and a chamber of states along the lines of Germany's Bundesrat. In the United States, every state elects two senators; in our Bundesrat, in contrast, there are different numbers of votes. 

Similarly, there are two options for the European executive, or government. Either one can decide in favour of developing the European Council into a European government, i.e. the European government is formed from the national governments, or - taking the existing Commission structure as a starting-point - one can opt for the direct election of a president with far-reaching executive powers. But there are also various other possibilities between these two poles. 

Now objections will be raised that Europe is already much too complicated and much too intransparent for the citizen, and here we are wanting to make it even more complicated. But the intention is quite the opposite. The division of sovereignty between the Union and the nation-states requires a constituent treaty which lays down what is to be regulated at European level and what has still to be regulated at national level. The majority of regulations at EU level are in part the result of inductive communitarization as per the "Monnet method" and an expression of inter-state compromise within today's EU. There should be a clear definition of the competences of the Union and the nation-states respectively in a European constituent treaty, with core sovereignties and matters which absolutely have to be regulated at European level being the domain of the Federation, whereas everything else would remain the responsibility of the nation-states. This would be a lean European Federation, but one capable of action, fully sovereign yet based on self-confident nation-states, and it would also be a Union which the citizens could understand, because it would have made good its shortfall on democracy. 

However, all this will not mean the abolition of the nation-state. Because even for the finalized Federation the nation-state, with its cultural and democratic traditions, will be irreplaceable in ensuring the legitimation of a union of citizens and states that is wholly accepted by the people. I say this not least with an eye to our friends in the United Kingdom, because I know that the term "federation" irritates many Britons. But to date I have been unable to come up with another word. We do not wish to irritate anyone.  

Even when European finality is attained, we will still be British or German, French or Polish. The nation-states will continue to exist and at European level they will retain a much larger role than the Länder have in Germany. And in such a Federation the principle of subsidiarity will be constitutionally enshrined. 

These three reforms - the solution of the democracy problem and the need for fundamental reordering of competences both horizontally, i.e. among the European institutions, and vertically, i.e. between Europe, the nation-state and the regions - will only be able to succeed if Europe is established anew with a constitution. In other words: through the realization of the project of a European constitution centred around basic, human and civil rights, an equal division of powers between the European institutions and a precise delineation between European and nation-state level. The main axis for such a European constitution will be the relationship between the Federation and the nation-state. Let me not be misunderstood: this has nothing whatsoever to do with a return to renationalisation, quite the contrary. 

The question which is becoming more and more urgent today is this: can this vision of a Federation be achieved through the existing method of integration, or must this method itself, the central element of the integration process to date, be cast into doubt? 

In the past, European integration was based on the "Monnet method" with its communitarization approach in European institutions and policy. This gradual process of integration, with no blueprint for the final state, was conceived in the 1950s for the economic integration of a small group of countries. Successful as it was in that scenario, this approach has proved to be of only limited use for the political integration and democratization of Europe. Where it was not possible for all EU members to move ahead, smaller groups of countries of varying composition took the lead, as was the case with Economic and Monetary Union and with Schengen. 

Does the answer to the twin challenge of enlargement and deepening, then, lie in such a differentiation, an enhanced cooperation in some areas? Precisely in an enlarged and thus necessarily more heterogeneous Union, further differentiation will be inevitable. To facilitate this process is thus one of the priorities of the intergovernmental conference.  

However, increasing differentiation will also entail new problems: a loss of European identity, of internal coherence, as well as the danger of an internal erosion of the EU, should ever larger areas of intergovernmental cooperation loosen the nexus of integration. Even today a crisis of the Monnet method can no longer be overlooked, a crisis that cannot be solved according to the method's own logic. 

That is why Jacques Delors, Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing have recently tried to find new answers to this dilemma. Delors' idea is that a "federation of nation-states", comprising the six founding states of the European Community, should conclude a "treaty within the treaty" with a view to making far-reaching reforms in the European institutions. Schmidt and Giscard's ideas are in a similar vein, though they place the Euro-11 states at the centre, rather than just the six founding states. As early as 1994 Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schäuble proposed the creation of a "core Europe", but it was stillborn, as it were, because it presupposed an exclusive, closed "core", even omitting the founding state Italy, rather than a magnet of integration open to all. 

So if the alternative for the EU in the face of the irrefutable challenge posed by eastern enlargement is indeed either erosion or integration, and if clinging to a federation of states would mean standstill with all its negative repercussions, then, under pressure from the conditions and the crises provoked by them, the EU will at some time within the next ten years be confronted with this alternative: will a majority of member states take the leap into full integration and agree on a European constitution? Or, if that doesn't happen, will a smaller group of member states take this route as an avant-garde, i.e. will a centre of gravity emerge comprising a few member states which are staunchly committed to the European ideal and are in a position to push ahead with political integration? The question then would simply be: when will be the right time? Who will be involved? And will this centre of gravity emerge within or outside the framework provided by the treaties? One thing at least is certain: no European project will succeed in future either without the closest Franco-German cooperation. 

Given this situation, one could imagine Europe's further development far beyond the coming decade in two or three stages:  

First the expansion of reinforced cooperation between those states which want to cooperate more closely than others, as is already the case with Economic and Monetary Union and Schengen. We can make progress in this way in many areas: on the further development of Euro-11 to a politico-economic union, on environmental protection, the fight against crime, the development of common immigration and asylum policies and of course on the foreign and security policy. In this context it is of paramount importance that closer cooperation should not be misunderstood as the end of integration.  

One possible interim step on the road to completing political integration could then later be the formation of a centre of gravity. Such a group of states would conclude a new European framework treaty, the nucleus of a constitution of the Federation. On the basis of this treaty, the Federation would develop its own institutions, establish a government which within the EU should speak with one voice on behalf of the members of the group on as many issues as possible, a strong parliament and a directly elected president. Such a centre of gravity would have to be the avant-garde, the driving force for the completion of political integration and should from the start comprise all the elements of the future federation.  

I am certainly aware of the institutional problems with regard to the current EU that such a centre of gravity would entail. That is why it would be critically important to ensure that the EU acquis is not jeopardized, that the union is not divided and the bond holding it together are not damaged, either in political or in legal terms. Mechanisms would have to be developed which permit the members of the centre of gravity to cooperate smoothly with others in the larger EU. 

The question of which countries will take part in such a project, the EU founding members, the Euro-11 members or another group, is impossible to answer today. One thing must be clear when considering the option of forming a centre of gravity: this avant-garde must never be exclusive but must be open to all member states and candidate countries, should they desire to participate at a certain point in time. For those who wish to participate but do not fulfil the requirements, there must be a possibility to be drawn closer in. Transparency and the opportunity for all EU member states to participate would be essential factors governing the acceptance and feasibility of the project. This must be true in particular with regard to the candidate countries. For it would be historically absurd and utterly stupid if Europe, at the very time when it is at long last reunited, were to be divided once again.  

Such a centre of gravity must also have an active interest in enlargement and it must be attractive to the other members. If one follows Hans-Dietrich Genscher's tenet that no member state can be forced to go farther than it is able or willing to go, but that those who do not want to go any farther cannot prevent others from doing so, then the centre of gravity will emerge within the treaties. Otherwise it will emerge outside them. 

The last step will then be completion of integration in a European Federation. Let's not misunderstand each other: closer cooperation does not automatically lead to full integration, either by the centre of gravity or straight away by the majority of members. Initially, enhanced cooperation means nothing more than increased intergovernmentalization under pressure from the facts and the shortcomings of the "Monnet Method". The steps towards a constituent treaty - and exactly that will be the precondition for full integration - require a deliberate political act to reestablish Europe. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my personal vision for the future: from closer cooperation towards a European constituent treaty and the completion of Robert Schuman's great idea of a European Federation. This could be the way ahead!12 May 2000 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs