Institutional reform of the European Union under debate

At the summit meeting of the Council of the European Union (EU) in Amsterdam in June 1997 it is hoped that a revised version of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) will be presented and-such is the desire of a number of EU members states-adopted that also includes substantial reforms in the institutional sphere. When the head of state and government leaders signed the treaty establishing the European Union in Maastricht in February 1992 they expressed their desire in the preamble ''to enhance further the democratic and efficient functioning of the institutions so as to enable them better to carry out within a single institutional framework, the tasks entrusted to them.'' Furthermore, they specified in Article N(2) that the institutional reform of the EU should itself be an object of reform. In view of the forthcoming enlargement rounds there was a general awareness that substantial reforms would be essential in a future EU with up to 24 members in order to ensure any ability to act effectively. Five years after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht and shortly before the EU Council's Amsterdam summit precisely those aspects relating to institutional reforms are the focus of controversy between the members of the EU. More specifically: the future relationship between and, the powers of the Council the Commission and the Parliament, the question of the nature and procedure of decision-making in the EU Council and in the Council of Ministers of the EU, and of making the EU more flexible. Carlo Masala, who is researching on problems relating to EU integration at the Institut fuer Europaeische Politik und Wirtschaft of the University of Cologne, attempts to clarify these questions in the following article.