European Governance: Common Concerns vs. The Challenge of Diversity

The Commission’s White Paper on European Governance (COM (2001) 428) is as remarkable for what it says as for what it does not say. In combination, the emphases and the omissions seem to reflect a vision that is defined by the institutional self-interest of the Commission and its opposition to Member States and, at the same time, by a remarkable lack of concern about the real challenges confronting the Union and its Member States. I realize that this may appear to be an unfair judgement since the authors sought to avoid issues requiring amendments of the Treaty that might come on the agenda of the next Intergovernmental Conference (or Constitutional Convention). But even if recommendations were to be limited to changes permissible under the Treaty, they still could have been developed in the context of an unconstrained analysis of the challenges the Union must face.