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1. The Emphasis

The essential elements of the analysis and the recommendations emphasized in the White Paper can be summarized in a few simple propositions:

• On the whole, European integration is a great success.
• If, notwithstanding this, many Europeans "feel alienated from the Union's work" and if the turnout in elections to the European Parliament is decreasing, these facts reflect a perception of European policy as being either ineffective or excessively detailed and intrusive.
• Much of this is a problem of either poor public relations or intentional misrepresentation: "Where the Union does act effectively, it rarely gets proper credit for its actions", and "Brussels is too easily blamed by Member States for difficult decisions that they themselves have agreed or even requested."
• To the extent that real difficulties do exist, they can be overcome if the Union is able and willing to "revitalise the Community method" according to which "everyone should concentrate on their core tasks: the Commission initiates and executes policy; the Council and the European Parliament decide on legislation and budgets... and the European Parliament controls the execution of the budget and of the Union's policies" (p. 29).

Compared to present practices, this would require the following changes:

• Council and Parliament should limit their involvement in "primary" European legislation to the definition of "essential elements.., leaving the executive" [i.e., the Commission] "to fill in the technical detail via implementing `secondary' rules" (p. 20) without being bothered by national representatives in management or regulatory "Comitology" procedures (p. 31).
• The Commission on its part would then promote "openness" and transparency by providing more (online) information about all stages of European decision processes; it would promote "participation" by extending its efforts to involve and consult subnational and local governments, "civil society" and "network-led initiatives" in preparing its legislative initiatives; and it would promote "effectiveness" by collaborating more closely with affected industries, local and regional governments and "civil society" in the implementation of European legislation, and by prosecuting national governments accused of violating European law more vigorously.

There is, of course, more in the text, and much of it is quite reasonable, but this thumbnail sketch seems to capture the essential understanding of the institutional problématique, and of the strategic vision promoted by the authors of the White Paper. Their significance, however, becomes clear only in relation to the issues which are not discussed at all in the White Paper.

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