Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

a decision-taking system designed for six member-states and already cumbersome for twelve, much less fifteen, would simply grind to a halt with fifty European Commissioners (two from each country), or a European Council representing twenty-five member-states—each with a power of veto. The likely difficulties were all too well foreshadowed at a meeting in Nice in December 2000. Ostensibly called to lay the groundwork for enlargement and to devise a new voting system in the EU Council of Ministers—one that would weight member-states’ votes by population while still ensuring that majority decisions could be reached—the conference ended in acrimonious and deeply embarrassing horse trading. The French insisted on maintaining parity with Germany (despite a population disparity of twenty million people) while countries like Spain and Poland, the latter accorded observer status at the meeting, sought to maximize their own future voting strength in the Council by selling their backing to the highest bidder. The unseemly scramble for influence at Nice, as leading European statesmen like Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder spent sleepless nights bargaining and bickering for status and influence in their common European home, illustrated the price that was now being paid for previous neglect of constitutional niceties. By bringing the Union to a new low, Nice led directly to the establishment of a ‘European Convention’: a sort of unelected constituent assembly authorized ...