To Build a Society, You Need A Sense of Belonging
	Q&A with Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, Chairman of the Convention on the Future of Europe
	By JAMES GRAFF

Posted Sunday, June 15, 2003; 14.29BST
Paris bureau chief James Graff spoke with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, just before work on its proposed European Constitution was completed.

What do you say to persistent criticism that you've favored national governments over the European Commission and Parliament in future EU decision-making? People who make that criticism were fighting for a change in the system, which is to move the balance towards the Commission and to some extent to the Parliament. This group was very active at the beginning of the Convention, and had some support, since they represent the Brussels community. But curiously, they didn't get the support they expected, and the Convention by itself moved in another direction — a position that I support, namely that we need to have a balanced system. If you move too much in one direction or the other, you lose one of the legs of legitimacy for the system. We always need the legitimacy of the nation states and that of the Union. Going one way or the other would imbalance and finally endanger the whole enterprise. It cannot work for long without the acceptance and support of nation states involved; and if it has only the support of nation states, then it's not the European endeavor. What was interesting was that attempts to go one way or another were eliminated more or less by the Convention itself. Now we are working to keep the two pillars. We're trying to impose, simplify stabilize the two pillars. We propose a drastic reform of the Council on one sided, and to bring the Commission back to being a body of 15 prominent people on the other side.

How do you foresee the governments' deliberations on your proposal developing? This intergovernmental conference could be very difficult, because our work was difficult — a lot of people have worked very hard over the last 16 months, and it was just near the end that we were able to reach common positions. They'll have a difficult road to go, if they go too far from our text, they'll have to start the whole process over again.

Any particular stumbling point? The only point which is touchy is where do we keep unanimity and where to we accept majority voting. Everywhere we leave unanimity in place, there will be no action, because with 25 very different countries, you cannot have unanimity. But the areas where unanimity is still required are very sensitive, and you can't change them without causing major political problems. On taxes, for instance: it's under unanimity, and some countries — the Swedes, Danes, Irish and British — are against changing that. If we keep unanimity nothing will happen, but moving to majority voting is unacceptable to them — so we have an inner contradiction. My proposal was to move towards a majority vote only the part of the tax system that could impair fair competition. We already have majority voting on subsidies that undermine competition, so there was a certain symmetry there. But even that was unacceptable. Another case on the other end of the spectrum: social security systems and worker protection in case of lay-offs. The convention wanted to move to majority voting, but practically all countries, either from the left and the right, opposed it. Either they wanted to keep this area and run it under their own philosophy or wanted the unions and employers to deal with it. So moving from unanimity to majority voting will remain a difficult question.

We succeeded in clarifying a question: where and how the Union intervenes. We made an open limitation of competences, which was never clearly made before. There was a strong demand from public opinion to know what the Union does and what the national governments do. That's now set, and it can be changed only by very difficult constitutional amendment. We have some exclusive competences of the Union where it's the main actor, shared competences where the Union and the states act more or less jointly. All the rest is common or national action by the states. It's clear and the instruments are adapted to that situation.

Up to now when you have an issue — employment or growth — there was always a confused demand that Europe should do something. I hope that in the future people will understand that Europe has its role to play and the countries have theirs. You have that in any federal state: education is at the state level, health regulations.

So you think you can head off the pernicious dynamic that all the bad stuff gets pushed to Brussels? I hope so. We did all we could for that. Whenever governments are embarrassed and face an issue they couldn't or wouldn't handle — but should — they all call for European action. That's doubly negative, because they don't do what they should and Europe has no qualification to act. So it's frustrating, and I hope that after our work it won't happen like that. If a matter isn't a European competence, the future chairman of the Union will say to the head of government, this isn't a European matter, you must handle it — do it!

What disappointments do you have about the final draft? I was disappointed that very little attention was paid to people. Very little. There was tension about institutions, about the respective rights of the states and the Union, quite a debate? but not much for the people. But I perceive a demand from the people, so we should have gone to meet them, halfway or at least a third of the way, but we didn't. For instance, I proposed regular meetings between the European parliament and the national parliaments. The people are represented largely by their national deputies, in the way they feel it. A common debate would have given people the impression there was the beginning of a beginning of a European political constituency. But this idea was not accepted because the European Parliament was afraid it would create competition, and the Commission didn't like it either, I don't know why. Beyond that, I tried to put in some lyricism, not for me, but for the people. I tried this in the preamble, and I wanted to have a mention of space exploration, something people could get excited about.

So you fear the European Union could remain unloved and ill-understood? You need to have sense of adhesion, and that's more than interest. You can't build a society purely on interests, you need a sense of belonging. This exists among the young people of Europe. But they're not in power. People in power in the world today aren't interested in the long term achievements, because they're only in power for a short time. So the idea that what they do will be fruitful in 10 or 15 years gets short shrift.

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