IV. Perspectives

IV. Towards a New Institutional Balance?

An individual analysis of each institution prompts, from a more general perspective, a need to discuss possible expectations about the future relations between the organs and, thus, for the effectiveness of action in the EU system as a whole. As in previous rounds of Treaty reform, the Constitutional Treaty has not ended the ongoing debate whether the Union's institutional architecture is best described in 'intergovernmental', 'supranational' or 'community' terms. In fact, given the considerable differences of opinion from the outset, a consensus over the present document is likely to have been achieved mainly because of the significant number of ambiguous provisions.

Nevertheless, one can note a perhaps surprising fact. The letters of the Treaty can lead to a "strengthening of all organs" [Graphic] and thereby strengthen the trend towards fusion. Such an upgrading of institutions displays a trend towards personalisation of life in Brussels: the installation of a full-time President of the European Council in Brussels and the creation of the new post of Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, but equally the strengthening of the President of the European Commission may enhance the continuity and visibility of political leadership; given the inter- and intra-institutional tensions within and between the institutions, it is to be expected that the EU will become an arena of intensive quarrels over competences between single key office holders and lead to an even stronger merger of responsibilities. In an initial phase the respective spheres of influence can be gauged and thereby change the previous institutional balance in the living Constitution.

These inter-institutional developments could be overlapped or even reinforced through a transformation of the decisional logics within the system: it remains to be discussed whether the modified rules for decision making will lastingly impact on the real behavioural patterns of actors within the newly given constitutional forms for the institutional architecture by creating new offers and constraints. Reflections on possible reactions to the new opportunity structure leads one to expect, at least in the initial stage, new patterns of behaviour for the "living constitution". With view to calculations for the respective capacity to push through their positions, members of the Council, possible groupings in the Commission as well as larger factions in the European Parliament will tend to enter permanent 'partnerships' or 'coalitions' across sectors and organs. Current voting patterns by actors of respective policy networks would come to be replaced but which did not lead to the creation of 'solid' majorities or minorities within and between the participating organs; the increase of involved actors, however, could lead to a more sustained search for coalitions across organs, which may depart from similar interests as well as the relative weight of votes in the Council and support by members of the European Parliament. From such a multi-level game and an increase in the number of players in all three organs, together with their respective weights, there could result a logics of decision making, which differs noticeably from previous behaviour. In the light of the new intra-institutional dynamic it is to be expected, that Treaty practice until today cannot be continued so easily between and within the organs.