With the G20 meeting in London behind him, Drs. Wepke Kingma, director for European Integration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, addressed the European seminar on the question of power and the strategy of small states in a time when the ‘community method’ of decision-making was becoming less relevant. The Georgian crisis saw a highly active French Presidency and the current economic crisis has witnessed a whole succession of high-level meetings at heads-of-government level. In both cases the Commission was rather absent from the spotlight. Moreover, at the European Council level, the power of large states increases since one country can block initiatives, or since a combination of large states can exert intolerable pressure on the position of small states.

Dr Kingma argues that small states interests did not necessarily suffer. First, the two crises were atypical and anyway the issues often lay within the intergovernmental areas of the EU’s business (ECFSP and Georgia) or with national competencies (national bank rescues). Moreover, the European Council is beginning to resemble the Council of Europe – a lot of talk, no chance of being out-voted, no action. Third, QMV has been extended to ever more areas of European decision-making, and is no longer restricted to technical issues. Fourth, the European Council is meeting more regularly (6-8 times a year instead of 2) so it has become easier to push controversial issues to the Council. Finally, there is an interesting tendency within the Commission itself. On paper it is an ‘independent scared clan of European idealists’ but nowadays each member states assumes that its Commissioner is there to defend its national interest. As a result, the President of the Commission tends also to deal directly with the European Council – a tendency hat will be aggravated once there is a long-term fixed President of the Council, who will listen not to the Commission, but to the Council.

Small states cannot reverse these trends, but must adjust their behaviour accordingly. In the first instance, this involves more direct diplomacy with London, Paris and Berlin – to gain information, and possibly influence among the large states. Second, small states must get as close as possible to the President of the Commission and his direct circle. Finally, since more matters get decided in the European Council, small states must insist that the process is transparent and free from last-minute surprises. All proposals must pass through the ministerial and ambassadorial meetings that precede Council. The tendency towards decision-making in the European Council had not meant an increase in Executive power, at least in the Netherlands. This stemmed partly from the constitutional position of the prime-minister in the Netherlands which, unlike the German Chancellor or the French President, gives him no responsibility for foreign affairs or for any other specific area of Dutch policy. He is responsible for the unity and coherence of Dutch policy as a whole. A second constraint is imposed by the fact that Dutch cabinets, unlike those of the United Kingdom, are always coalitions, which limits is power to hire and fire. Thus the foreign ministry is still the ministry responsible for all states in the preparation and defence of European policy. Of course there is tension, and the European Council gives the prime-minister access to information, and thus power, but in practice the prime-minister cannot operate outside the foreign ministry. After that, and the question session, we went out to the "Plein" to watch Dutch politicians and officials passing-by or relaxing in the sun.