As the European Union approaches the first stages of an enlargement that may eventually double its membership, the limited scale of the changes to its institutional structures likely to be effected at this year's Inter-Governmental Conference has begun to worry seriously some of the major players - most notably Germany, but also France and several other partners.
Taken together with doubts as to whether Britain will ever agree to a sufficient "deepening" of EU institutional structures to enable an enlarged Community to act effectively and coherently, this has led to fresh emphasis on the need to develop the concept of "flexibility": the right of a group of members to move ahead on their own towards a more highly developed federal-type structure - leaving the remainder to join this process at their own pace - or perhaps even not at all.
The last couple of weeks have seen the emergence of a series of proposals along those lines that have received insufficient publicity here, perhaps because of our current domestic preoccupation with inflation, corruption and events in Northern Ireland.
Some time ago Jacques Delors suggested that the six founding members of the Community should conclude a "treaty within the treaty" to form a "federation of nation states" within the existing Union.
Now two former statesmen, Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, have made a similar but more broadly-based proposal that would involve the 11 EMU members, including Ireland, embarking "on a new path, aiming at integrating some of their political competences on the basis of a federative approach" that would create "additional institutions: a council, a parliamentary structure which could have operational links with national parliaments, but probably not a commission".
This "Euro-European" core would be required to "respect all the commitments of the large European Union" and to ensure that "the new institutions cannot enter into conflict with the competence of the existing institutions". But it would, of course, dominate and effectively control future EU decisions.
The issues that these two former leaders see this new EMU-based federation addressing are wide ranging. They include "decisions on new international law; arms limitations and wars elsewhere in the world; managing global trade; dealing with the effects of global warming; dampening the global population explosion; handling the streams of refugees and displaced persons; and, most urgently, making the present chaotic financial markets into a stable and viable global system".
Schmidt and Giscard warn that failure to create such an integrated European core to tackle these issues would "satisfy those in Washington who aspire to maintain some control over Europe, facilitate America's global geo-political aims - and sometimes illusions".
While they accept a limited enlargement involving the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, Schmidt and Giscard insist that radical reforms along the above lines should take place before any further members are admitted.
Three days later it was the turn of the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer.
He noted that the institutions of the EU had been created for six member-states - and they only just about function for 15. The steps currently being taken in the IGC will not in the long term be sufficient for integration - for with these limited institutional adjustments enlargement to 25 to 30 members could hopelessly overload the EU's capacity for absorption.
Just what would an EU with 30 heads of state and government be like? Will there be 30 presidencies? How long will council meetings last - days, maybe even weeks? How are 30 states supposed to balance interests, take decisions, and act? How could one prevent it from becoming completely non-transparent, its compromises from becoming stranger and more incomprehensible, and its citizens' acceptance of the EU from eventually hitting rock bottom?
There is a very simple answer to all this, Fischer said in a recent speech: a transition from a union of states to full parliamentarisation as a European federation - with a European parliament and government that really exercised legislative and executive power. Such integration must take the nation states along with it, on the basis of a division of sovereignty between the two levels, incorporated in a treaty setting out the responsibilities of the two levels.
In contrast to the present situation, where Community law, which has grown up incrementally, stretches down into the national level in all kinds of ways, core issues and matters that absolutely must be regulated at the European level would in this system be clearly denominated, and "everything else would remain the responsibilities of member-states . . . In such a federation the principle of subsidiarity will be constitutionally enshrined."
This would be "a lean European federation . . . based on self-confident member-states, and it would also be a Union which the citizens could understand, because it would have made good its shortfall in democracy".
"The EU will," Fischer continued, "at some time in the next 10 years be confronted with this alternative: Will a majority of member-states take the leap into full integration and agree on a European constitution? Or, if that doesn't happen, will a smaller group of member-states take this route as an avant-garde?"
One possible step would involve the conclusion of a new European framework treaty, on the basis of which "the federation develop its own institutions, establish a government which within the EU would speak with one voice on behalf of the members of the group on as many issues as possible, a strong parliament, and a directly-elected president".
The British government will probably try to head off the dropping of the existing power of any one state, or small number of states, to veto a move ahead by others towards greater integration.
There have been two key strands to Irish foreign policy since we joined the Community. First, to join in moves towards closer political as well as economic integration, thus enabling us to share fully in the making of all decisions that will affect us. But, second, to seek to preserve the institutional balance that has protected us from domination by larger countries.
In the face of these new moves towards creating a powerful federal structure at the heart of the Community, we must urgently and, if necessary, radically review our position. We need to concentrate our diplomatic efforts, in association with other smaller states with which we share interests, upon ensuring that the kind of inner EU federation that may emerge is one in which the structures and policy orientation are compatible with our interests and ideals.
This is the major challenge now facing our new Minister for Foreign Affairs.
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie