The most important issue facing EU leaders at their summit meeting in Cardiff today and tomorrow is a discussion on the future of the European Union itself. Their host, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has invited them to examine the issue under various headings, including political arrangements to accompany EMU, completion of the unfinished business left over from the Amsterdam Treaty and how to improve the EU's political legitimacy. Other summit items include employment policy, the Agenda 2000 negotiations in preparation for enlargement and foreign policy matters concerning Kosovo, Turkey, the Indian and Pakistan nuclear tests and the Asian economic crisis.
There is considerable dissatisfaction with the EU as it heads into currency union next year and intensifies its preparations for enlargement. The Amsterdam Treaty failed to resolve some of the key institutional matters arising from enlargement and the need for a more streamlined and effective decision-making system to deal with the Union's growing agenda. More important, it threw up substantial evidence of popular disenchantment just at the point when the system as a whole requires more coherence and acceptability, and despite the treaty's theme of citizen-friendliness.
The summit agenda has been stimulated by varying political responses to this dissatisfaction. In their pre-summit letter to Mr Blair, Dr Kohl and Mr Chirac insist that "it cannot be the goal of European policy to establish a European central state, that is to say, a centrally structured Europe. We must rather do all we can to create a strong European Union, with the necessary scope for action and the capacity to preserve and foster the diversity and richness of Europe's political, cultural and regional traditions and characteristics". It is a message Mr Blair hopes to turn to his own political advantage, notably in its emphasis on subsidiarity - the need, as they put it, to ensure that "decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen".
While it is difficult to disagree in principle with this general approach (and especially with the need to clarify the goal of integration) it is, as always, contingent on political circumstances and particular national interests, which on this occasion conceal several misconceived or undesirable elements. Thus a sub-text of the Kohl-Chirac letter is hostility to the European Commission's independence and strength.
The Germans have recently had several bruising encounters with Brussels over state aids and mergers, which have reinforced the shift towards giving their regions more representation in EU policies. Parliamentary elections in September give a sharper focus to the defence of Germany's national interests, including net contributions to the EU budget. French policy has traditionally been hostile to a strong and independent Commission and on this occasion it plays to a similar streak in Britain.
But the need for a strong and independent Commission with the right to initiate EU legislation is all the more important as majority voting, the weighting of votes between smaller and larger member-states and their representation on it come back on to the agenda. Ireland has quite correctly made this a centrepiece of its policy. There are many things to do to improve political procedures in the EU and to develop its legitimacy, but diminishing the Commission's role is not one of them.