European Union leaders are finding that success comes with a price. They meet today in Nice, France, for a critical summit that will modernize the EU and prepare it for new members and new responsibilities. Despite complete agreement that decision-making procedures must be changed, there is no consensus on what should be done or how. The only real reason to be optimistic about the prospect for some final agreement is this: The status quo is not sustainable.
The basic task this weekend is daunting: revise institutions designed for six countries so that they will work for five times that number. Thus far, EU procedures and institutions have been modified to accommodate its current 15 members, but the tweaking has gone as far as it can. The organization is already straining under the weight. The prospect of twice that number of countries will paralyze the EU, which would bring about its collapse. All the members acknowledge this, but that has not brought them any closer to a solution.
Institutional reform falls into three basic categories: modifying voting rules (extending the use of qualified majority voting), rebalancing voting weights on the Council of Ministers, and resizing the European Commission. Despite a year of meetings by experts, agreement has proved elusive in each area. All concede that more decisions should be made by majority -- rather than a unanimous -- vote, but they disagree on which issues. Each country holds different concerns dear, and they want to retain a veto on those. Unfortunately, governments cannot trade off support without undermining the entire reform effort. Similarly, all countries have to be represented in the European Commission, but giving each a seat would make it too big and unwieldy.