LOOKING AT LEGISLATION
Page 57
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
HE EURORANSPORT OTE CONTEST
ERE are varied views about the new C drivers' hours rules slowly
..7.rging from Brussels. But there can y be one view of the decision-making cess which is so painfully grinding
m out, though there are many . .ctives, all uncomplimentary, to cribe it.
:ven now, four years after the rnmission started work in earnest on amending process, the best that can hoped for is that the new rules will ne into force in July, 1986. And no will be astonished if this slips back months.
',yen with only 10 EEC members the dict must be "So far, so bad". And ess than four months there will be 12 mbers. How will anything ever get ided in the enlarged Community? hat question preoccupied the heads ;overnment at their Milan summit in e.: And, in a totally superfluous )lic demonstration of the problem, n they could not decide on the ation.
-lowever, they did agree on the bleni itself — too much insistence on inimity in the Council of Ministers, EEC legislative body. In effect this es any one country a veto.
hit that is not what the Treaty of me says. It provides for most isions to be taken by what is known qualified majority. And, despite the Ian disagreement, it is implicitly epted that a return to this sort of tens for matters not affecting vital ional interests is inevitable.
lerwise the Community will flounder in even stickier swamp of indecision. Pb give each country one vote, as in United Nations, would enable the en smallest nations to impose their 1 on the Community. That would trly be unacceptable to large intries. On the other hand, small intries need to ensure that they can .tect their interests against their larger tners.
;o the Treaty of Rome provided an enious balancing system. Each country iS allocated a number of votes in the Council according to its population. From next January the position will be as follows: France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom 10 votes each Spain eight votes Belgium, Netherlands, Greece and Portugal five votes each Denmark and Ireland three votes each Luxembourg two votes This totals 76 votes, so a simple majority system would enable the Big Four (in the unlikely event of their being able to agree among themselves) to outvote the remaining eight. But there is a safeguard against this. For adoption a proposal needs 54 votes. So even if Spain sided with the Big Four a proposition would need the additional support of at least two of the smaller states to succeed.
This system was wrecked by de Gaulle's France exactly 20 years ago. France boycotted the EEC for six months until the so-called "Luxembourg compromise" was agreed. This agreement included the French view that “where very important national interests are at stake the discussion must be continued Until unanimous agreement is reached".
During the intervening 20 years the Community has doubled in size. -Many of the new members, and certainly Britain, have regarded the veto as a safeguard for their vital national
interests. And although the British public may have accepted continuing EEC membership as inevitable, any proposal to abandon the veto would be fiercely resisted. • But should it be used to block modest increases in the number of EEC international road haulage permits? Or the addition of minor categories of goods to the list of those exempted from permits and quotas. Or — nearer home — agreement on 40-tonne gross weight lorries for international haulage? All these, and many more, have been voted. Yet none can conceivably be regarded as affecting vital national interests.
But if these matters had been decided by qualified majority what would haVe been the outcome? On greater freedom for international haulage. Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands would be strongly in favour — a total of 33 . votes. Are the remaining 21 available?
Germany, of course, is still restrictive, though today this is more for reasons of geography rather than railway protection. A few years ago France and Italy would have been grouped with Germany, but recent years have seen a drift towards liberalisation. The attitude of Spain and Portugal can only be judged from bilateral negotiations, in which they have shown themselves restrictive.
So it would need both France and • Italy and one of the new members to achieve the necessary votes. It would be touch and go.
On lorry weights the position looks clearer. Only Britain (10 votes) and Ireland (three votes) opposed last December's deal. —There is no evidence that Spain and Portugal would join them. So there ought to be 63 votes in favour.
But not necessarily. Politicians have a • fellow-feeling that crosses national boundaries. Ministers are reluctant to put a colleague into an embarrassing position. Last December Mr Ridley probably told his fellow-Ministers that .he would be put into an impossible position by having 40 tonnes forced upon him. If there had been a vote enough might have abstained to defeat the proposal. In this case, paradoxically, Mr Ridley's threat to use his veto probably speeded up matters, since it enabled the rest of thc EEC to adopt a measure which Britain will have to accept in dtte course.
So qualified majority voting would not guarantee rapid progress on all transport questions. But it probably would have speeded up the drivers' hours review. Twelve months ago the Ministers laid down guidelines for their officials to follow. Within those guidelines are innumerable small points — how breaks should be split, the scope of exemptions, and so on, These are not matters for Ministers. They lend themselves to horse-trading among experts. But recent. events have shown. how this process can be almost neverending unless it can be brought to an • end by a vote. What a pity that it is now too late.