(Bloomberg) — European Union government envoys in Brussels and the bloc’s executive arm will seek to accommodate Emmanuel Macron’s reform plans amid frustration over his drive to change how the bloc makes decisions and takes in new countries.
The EU Commission will propose an overhaul Wednesday of the expansion process, after Macron demanded it, torpedoing a push to start accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia until the changes are done. The draft of the proposal seen by Bloomberg points to an aspirational push to focus on “fundamentals,” such as the rule of law and functioning democratic institutions, in conditions attached to the acceptance of new members.
The process of granting membership is already subject to prolonged negotiations that can take years or even decades, and conditional on regular assessments, while individual member states can block progress at each stage.
By reaffirming the focus on “negative consequences” and “reversibility” if candidate countries backtrack on the required reforms, the proposal by the Commission is aimed at providing political cover to Macron to give the green light he denied in October for membership talks with the western Balkans.
EU governments are wary of further delaying the start of accession talks, as the prospect of membership is seen as anchoring fragile Balkan states to a reform path. When Macron vetoed the process last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, usually measured, deployed the full power of her words to rebuke him.
Europe’s Future
On another front opened by a brainchild of the French president, EU government envoys in Brussels will seek a common stance on the “Conference on the Future of Europe” — a two-year-long deliberation intended to invigorate European unification.
The concept is based on ideas laid out by the French President in 2017 from Pnyx, a hill that was the center of Athenian democracy almost 2,500 years ago, and later adopted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Diplomats involved in the discussions said the scope, structure and aims of the process are unclear, while EU institutions are at loggerheads over which one will be in the driver’s seat. Most member states want to make it clear from the start that the Conference won’t lead to changes to EU treaties, a toxic issue after the traumatic experiences at the start of the century, when citizens rejected treaty changes in referendums.
France is leading a small group of member states that say Treaty changes shouldn’t be excluded, according to a diplomat familiar with the deliberations, while Paris is also the main backer of ambitious institutional reforms, such as transnational lists of candidates for European elections.
Macron’s backers in Brussels say that the French President is the only EU leader pushing the bloc — traditionally immersed in inertia — to discuss its strategic direction. For critics, his unrealistic ambition is disrupting, rather than advancing the decision-making process.
Past experience shows that pioneering proposals often hit a roadblock of competing national interests in Brussels. The latest example is Macron’s idea for a joint euro-area budget, which — after years of negotiations — ended up as an agreement for a miniature financing instrument of less that 20 billion euros to be spread among the currency bloc’s 19 economies over the next seven years.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nikos Chrysoloras in Brussels at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at [email protected], Michael Winfrey
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.