Nice: No Plan B?

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday October 09, 2002 19:29 by Phuq Hedd

Article by Kirsty Hughes of Financial Times carried by CEPS

Kirsty Hughes' FT article speculates that there are in fact TWO possible Plan B's and that those that are busy telling us there's no Plan B are being "economical with the truth". The choice that faces the other EU members would be to go ahead with enlargement, which does not need the Nice Treaty but does remove larger countries' second EU Commissioner or to delay enlargement until they can gerrymander the Constitutional Structure of the EU to their own advantage. Hughes points out that Prodi let slip that Nice was NOT essential to enlargement earlier last year and that this is confirmed by the fact that a conference on the EU constitution is coming up. So, enlargement is NOT the issue, therefore business and government want this for other reasons (privatization? free-markets?)

Some excerpts:
"A political uproar would certainly ensue. But would this really mean disaster for enlargement? Given the importance of enlargement, it is surely politically irresponsible, as well as implausible, for the Danish presidency and the European Commission to insist that they have no plan B. Their energies should be focused on ensuring enlargement stays on track irrespective of the Irish referendum."

n fact, there are two possible plan Bs in the event of a "No" - the catch being that the first would keep enlargement on track, while the second would be seriously damaging. The first option would include those elements of Nice that are vital to enlargement in candidate countries' accession treaties, due for ratification in 2003. Crucial elements would be the number of votes each country has in the Council of Ministers, the number of MEPs in the European parliament and the allocation of one European commissioner to each member state (the large countries losing their second commissioner)."
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