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The Report of the Three Wise Men1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Edmund Dell
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Extract

These days, the institutions of the European Community, and especially the Commission, are criticised for being, if anything, too effective and for submerging the sovereignty of member states in the interests of a concept of European union not universally shared. In the late 1970s the perceived problem was very different. The economic crisis following the breakdown of Bretton Woods and the oil price hike had caused a resurgence of nationalism within the Community and the reemergence of barriers to trade. ‘[S]ince about 1973, trade integration among the original six members has largely stagnated, as new market barriers outweighed new liberalising action, and economic growth was cut in half.’2 The one recent achievement, the European Monetary System (EMS), had been largely created outside the machinery of the Treaty of Rome. There was resentment within the Community at its failure to protect member states against the onset of crisis or to help them to find a way out of it. There was resentment at the way in which, at a time of crisis, France, Germany and the UK tended to ignore the Community, and their obligations under the Treaty of Rome, and to enter into consultations with the USA and Japan about matters which affected all member states.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 35 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

2 Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso, Efficiency, Stability, and Equity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 5.Google Scholar

3 Giscard had been the presidential candidate of the UDF (Union for French Democracy), a grouping of centre-right parties which normally, but not invariably, acted together with the Gaullists. Giscard had defeated the Gaullist presidential candidate in the first round of the 1974 presidential election and had then been elected President on the second round with the support of the Gaullists. The Gaullists were hostile to all federalistic tendencies within the Community.

4 Jenkins, Roy, European Diary 1977–81 (thereafter Jenkins, Diary) (London: Collins, 1989), 390.Google Scholar

5 The other sous-sages were Philippe Petit (French) and Carlo Trojan (Dutch).

6 COREPER is the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the member states to the Community. Acting at ambassador or deputy level, and meeting frequently, it has always been one of the most effective instruments of Community business.

7 Our arrangements also confused President Jenkins. He writes of our second meeting with him on 22 July 1979: ‘There has been a curious shift in the balance of power within the group since I saw them in January. Biesheuvel the Dutchman seems to me now the dominant figure, whereas Marjolin was so earlier. Dell has always been somewhat in the middle…’. In fact, in accordance with our system, Marjolin led for us at the first meeting and Biesheuvel at the second. There was no change in the balance of power. Jenkins, Diary, 485.

8 Marjolin, Robert, Memoirs, 1911–1986 (thereafter Marjolin, Memoirs) (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1989), 174.Google Scholar

9 See, for example, interview with Wolfgang Schäuble in the Financial Times, 21 Apr. 1992.

10 Report on European Institutions (thereafter Report) (Brussels: Council of the European Communities, 1980), 74–5.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 80.

12 Ibid., 74–5.

13 Benn, Tony, Conflicts of Interest, Diaries 1977–80 (London: Hutchinson, 1990), 384Google Scholar; Healey, Denis, The Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989), 439.Google Scholar

14 The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was agreed at a meeting of the European Council at Maastricht in December 1991 under a Dutch presidency. The principal achievement of the Treaty was to agree, subject to a British reservation, a phased progress towards economic and monetary union. It also created a so-called ‘European Union’ and incorporated some small steps towards political union.

15 Marjolin died in 1986.

16 The Luxembourg Compromise, the significance of which is discussed later in this article, in practice required unanimity on a wide range of Community business where the Treaty had authorised majority voting.

17 The Taoiseach is the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic.

18 Report, 25.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 26.

20 Art. 235 states that if Community action should prove necessary to attain one of the objectives of the Community, and the Treaty of Rome had not provided the necessary powers, ‘the Council shall, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the Assembly, take the appropriate measures’.

21 Report, 16.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 18–19.

23 Ambassador Dirk Spierenburg was one of the first members of the High Authority of the Coal and Steel Community. Later he was Dutch Permanent Representative to the Community. Other members of the Spierenburg Committee were K. Buschman, Paul Delouvrier, Giuseppe Petrilli and Dick Taverne. They reported in Sept. 1979.

24 The Final Act of the Treaty on European Union (The Maastricht Treaty) embodies a Declaration (No. 15) which states that ‘the Member States will examine the questions relating to the number of members of the Commission and the number of members of the European Parliament no later than at the end of 1992…’.

25 House of Commons, Session 1991–92, Foreign Affairs Committee, Europe after Maastricht, 223-i, 4.

26 Marjolin, Memoirs, 347. See also ibid., 353–4, for Marjolin's analysis of how the Luxembourg Compromise came into being.

27 Niels Ersbøll of the Danish Foreign Office explained that this was why Denmark objected to establishing the European Foundation by legislation under Art. 235.

28 Report, 40.Google Scholar

29 The Berlaymont was the headquarters of the Commission. The Charlemagne Building, next door, was the meeting place of the Council of Ministers.

30 Report, 71–2.Google Scholar

31 The European Council at Maastricht in Dec. 1991 was also defeated. The Final Act of the Treaty on European Union (The Maastricht Treaty) embodies a Declaration (No. 29) on the use of languages in the field of the common foreign and security policy. It states: ‘The Conference agrees that the use of languages shall be in accordance with the rules of the European Communities.’

32 The printed version did not emerge until 1980.

33 Report, 74.Google Scholar