Posted on 01/21/2002 9:03:49 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Britain is considering putting forward proposals to entrench the authority of the European Union's three biggest powers in a body similar to the United Nations Security Council.
Its potentially explosive plan to recognise formally the predominance of Germany, France and the UK when the union expands from 15 to 25 members will upset smaller member states, and Spain and Italy.
UK officials insist, however, that decision-making of the government heads of the European Council is already close to unworkable, and could be paralysed when up to 10 extra nations from southern and eastern Europe join in 2004.
Britain's radical options for making decision-making easier involve having a permanent secretary general to chair council meetings, rather than the national leader who holds the EU's six-monthly rotating presidency. More radical still would be a Security Council-type inner body that could take executive decisions outside meetings of the full 25-member council.
Britain's idea of a Security Council-type inner body could apply not just to the main European Council, but also to the councils of ministers covering areas such as justice and home affairs, social affairs, agriculture, and economics and finance.
The proposals are at an early stage and the UK has yet to decide whether to put them forward as part of the debate about the EU's future in the run-up to an intergovernmental conference on its treaties and working methods in two years' time.
Even if it followed the Security Council model and included other nations on a rotating basis alongside Britain, France and Germany, the idea is likely to be resisted by those left out.
The sensitivity of the issue was underlined in November when a row broke out after Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, invited French and German leaders to a private dinner in Downing Street to discuss Afghanistan. After protests from other countries, the guest list was expanded to include Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, plus Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief.
Britain believes any streamlined system must acknowledge the reality that the big three will need to work together.
Even to consider the move illustrates Britain's desire to be at the heart of EU policy making alongside France and Germany, the community's traditional "motor".
The Laeken summit last month agreed to set up a Convention on the Future of Europe, chaired by ex-French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and issued a wide-ranging declaration to guide its work. It put on the agenda some issues that have caused difficulty for Britain - such as an EU constitution, direct elections for the European Commission president, and a possible extension of qualified majority voting into sensitive areas.
But it included many elements Britain sought - rejection of a European superstate, an emphasis on issues that affect daily life, a review of the division between the EU and member states that could result in tasks being restored to countries, and a stronger role for national parliaments.
When these idiots go to war over this EU obsession I hope the US just sits it out and lets them kill eachother off.
For the good of the gene pool...you know!
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