Nice Try

📖 The Scoop

EU member nations must decide whether to ratify the Nice Treaty. This report, written to inform these decisions, is highly critical of the Treaty but argues that it should be passed since it is 'repairable' and rejecting it would delay Eastern enlargement. It proposes two 'emergency repairs' to the Treaty. The authors marshal the best available empirical evidence and analytic techniques to show that the Treaty fails to meet its goal of adjusting EU decision-making to the realities of a Union with 27& members. Far from maintaining the EU's ability to act after enlargement, the authors argue that the Nice reforms reduce EU27 decision-making efficiency below what it would have been with no reform. Unless the Treaty is mended, future integration will be guided by intergovernmental initiatives in which large members play a large role due to their economic dominance. The Treaty also fails to resolve the ECB's 'numbers problem' - enlargement without reform would also damage the ECB's decision-making capacity. The Treaty does include an 'enabling clause' to help solve this problem: the report analyses the possible solutions and proposes specific reforms.

Genre: Business & Economics / Economic Conditions (fancy, right?)