Prodi warns of threat to unity of EU

The EU is in grave danger of fragmenting and losing what has made it strong if the role of the Commission is further undermined, the President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, warned yesterday.

Mr Prodi's speech to MEPs in Strasbourg was a traditionalist defence of the uniqueness of the "Community method", and reflected his determination both to shape the emerging debate on the long-term architecture of the EU and to halt a growing predisposition of leaders to bypass the Commission in creating new structures.

The urgency of reform was also stressed by France's President Chirac. Speaking at a ceremony in Dresden to mark 10 years of German unification, Mr Chirac called for a determined effort to agree treaty changes at the Nice summit in December.

"Europe needs a good agreement. I call upon all memberstates to be prepared to make the gestures which will permit us to get there," he said.

In a passionate defence of the supranational role of the Commission as defender of the common good, Mr Prodi insisted that "any future trend towards an inter-governmental approach would create conflicting centres of power within the European structure. It would lead to fragmentation when unity is what is needed."

"It is not because of our action that we have lost credibility, but our inability to act," he told MEPs to applause.

Mr Prodi's comments were strongly supported by the Irish Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, who said that small countries had a particular interest in defending the delicate institutional balance of the EU and specifically the role of the Commission. The latter, he said, reflecting Mr Prodi's comments, played the part "of the conductor of an orchestra in balancing the interests of the member-states. If we didn't have it, we would have to invent it."

Appealing to MEPs' sense of exclusion, Mr Prodi described the Amsterdam arrangements as "transitional" and warned that "the present organisation model is not sustainable in the long term . . . and confuses the roles of the Council of Ministers and the Commission in a way that could ultimately jeopardise both struts of the institutional system and exclude parliament from any effective power."

Similarly, he argued, the wish of some member-states to establish new agencies under the ambit of the council, with their own executive authority, undermined the "Community system".

More generally, he said, "you cannot on the one hand deplore the lack of effective and united European action and on the other be content with the weakness of the instruments available to the Community for carrying out such action". "Without the requisite changes," he said, "the prospect of almost doubling the number of member-states will pose formidable problems for effective decision-making. Failure to introduce such changes could throw the Union into crisis."