Deciding the future – the kairoi of the declarations

and the European project; the movement is one of continuous progress rather than abrupt leaps and radical change. Thus, the debate and the reforms are conceived as perpetuators of a smooth

transition that gradually moves the EU towards the fulfilment of its ends.

Finally, the constitutive dichotomies’ loose mediation between and blending of well-known, opposed positions allow the speakers to address specific national concerns and to participate in the project of creating common European meaning simultaneously. The speakers’ usage of

constitutive dichotomies to establish meanings that are common enough to facilitate a continued European dialogue and different enough to be adapted to the diverse expectations of nationally situated publics is a central feature of the debate on the future of Europe. This characteristic mode of meaning formation, the workings of which have been explained through the analysis of the speeches’ topoi, allows a general process of European debate to arise on the basis of diversified national positions. Moreover, the extensive use of constitutive dichotomies means divergences may persist in spite of the existence of the common process. National and European processes of

meaning formation are interrelated, but neither subsumes the other; rather, they are mutually

constitutive and recursive, they are established and altered in (re)productive tension with each other.

The declarations are conditioned by opinions and expectations that exist prior to their moment of creation, and they in turn set possibilities and limitations for continued debate and future

agreements. In the following I shall study how the turning points of the debate become possible and how they facilitate further discussion. This means a shift from the focus on topoi as employed by the individual speakers, to an analysis of the kairoi in which the EU speaks as a collective actor.

A kairos is not just a moment in time, but a ‘right’ moment. In the classical Greek conception kairos is associated with the rhetorical utterance in both the sense that the rhetor must speak at the appropriate moment and in the sense of speaking the words that befit the moment (Sutton, 2001, p. 413). Kairos arises when the time has come for something, and it is a quality of properly adapted things (Andersen, 1997, p. 22). The utterance can thus be seen as a response to the various conditions of the speech situation, but the concept of kairos also has a creative dimension;

there is a sense in which the right moment is only established when the utterance is made (Sipiora, 2002, pp. 4-5).

As a result of Lloyd F. Bitzer’s (1992) conceptualisation of the rhetorical situation and Richard E. Vatz’ (1973) direct contradiction of Bitzer’s claims, the responsive and the creative perspectives on the relationship between utterance and situation are today usually understood as being in stark opposition to each other. The concept of kairos, however, encompasses both the understanding of the situation as preceding and conditioning the utterance and the view that the moment only becomes meaningful in and through the utterance. The tension between these two understandings is not resolved in kairos, on the contrary the tension is understood as being productive – it is in the relationship between “slavish propriety” and “solipsistic novelty” that meaning is made (Miller, 2002, p. xiii).

The concept of kairos encompasses another tension, namely that between unity and plurality. This tension is not unrelated to the first one, but rather helps explicate the relationship between the situation-as-given and the situation-as-created. Even in the most compelling situations the speaker has a choice of how to respond; he or she must consider how situational aspects and textual features will function together and choose the rhetorical strategies that seem best suited to creating a coherent and meaningful communicative unit of text and context. The choice is both an ethical and an aesthetic one: given the circumstances, the speaker has to decide which course of action to advocate, and he or she must decide how the recommendations are expressed most appropriately (Kinneavy, 2002, pp. 61-62 and 64-65). Kairos emerges as a combination of these

two dimensions; it only becomes apparent what the appropriate answer to a situation is, when this answer is formulated in the right way (Sipiora, 2002, p. 5).

The understanding of the utterance as both a response to and an articulation of kairos is central to Ramírez. He writes:

In kairos the accidental, on the one hand, and the intentional and freely chosen, on the other, come together dialectically. Kairos thus has two faces: the circumstance or occurrence is the objectively given side, the ground for that which is to arise; the insight, ability to act, and practical wisdom is the subjective side, that which sows and causes the harvest […]. Kairos is a merger of both these faces (Ramírez, 1995, p. 175, my translation).

Moreover, Ramírez recognises the connection between the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of kairos; it is the combination of these two elements in the kairotic moment of the utterance that constitutes the meaningful rhetorical act (Ramírez, 1995, p. 222). The question of how given circumstances and choices of content and style merge in the utterances and create possibilities for further discussion is pivotal to the following analyses of the Nice and Laeken Declarations.

The decisions upon the Nice Treaty’s “Declaration on the future of the Union” and the Laeken Declaration provide turning points of the debate on the EU’s future. Being turning points, the declarations display the dual nature of kairos vividly; they both conform to a given moment and reform it – are conditioned and conditioning. The declarations are expressions of a moment in which decision is appropriate and through their articulation in and of that decisive moment they shape consecutive developments. The declarations are doubly situated, so to speak, and it is this duality that I seek to explore in the following. The investigation contains two dimensions: how does it become the right time for the declarations? And what sort of right time do the declarations create?

But the two sides cannot really be separated as past and future conditions merge in the declarations’

unique presents; therefore, I shall seek to attend to both dimensions in conjunction. While focusing on the texts, the investigation also brings in the press coverage of the summits at which they were created, and the six speeches are mentioned as instantiations of the debate leading up to and connecting the two turning points.

6.2.1. The Nice Declaration

Judging from the three speeches that preceded the Nice summit the need to continue the reform process after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nice was commonly recognised well before the content of the Treaty had been agreed upon. And as it became clear that the only possible result at Nice would be a complex compromise with the prime function of safeguarding national interests, a change of the revision procedures also seemed to be necessary. Only altering the mode of reform could support the claim that making another effort would be worthwhile. Before the Nice summit there may not have been consensus on granting the debate official status, but as the negotiations continued without resolution, the call for a deeper and wider debate offered an ever more appealing way out of the bind between lofty European ambitions and stark national positions.

With the benefit of hindsight the situation was summed up neatly in a commentary published in Süddeutsche Zeitung on the opening day of the Laeken summit: “A year ago, as the strongly delayed reform of the European Union failed at Nice, the 15 heads of state and government took their escape in the future. ‘Fear not,’ they called out to the Europeans, ‘for we will begin a post-Nice process’” (14/12/01A). Thus, the recognition that the Nice Treaty did not live up to the leaders’ ambitions and the citizens’ expectations provided the background for the Nice Declaration, and the process initiated in the declaration aimed at correcting the procedural deficiencies of earlier treaty revisions.

At Nice the emerging consensus on continuing the reform process and organising it differently was codified. The “Declaration on the Future of the Union” sets out the general procedural plan and agenda for the new round of reforms. The declaration establishes the overall time frame, agenda, and purpose of the ensuing debate, proclaiming that the reform process is to culminate in the convening of an IGC in 2004. The leaders were neither willing nor able to give up their control of the final decision on the revisions – changing that part of the procedure would demand a treaty revision in itself. Since existing rules stipulate that a new treaty can only be formally recognised by an IGC, the reference to such a conference is in fact the mark of officiality, the guarantee that the process will result in actual reforms.

The Nice Declaration opens the new round of discussions and presents the novel idea that eventual decisions should be preceded by a deeper and wider debate, but it leaves open the questions of how the debate about the reforms should be created and conducted. The task of setting up “…appropriate initiatives for the continuation of this process” (Nice, ll. 17-18) is relegated to the Council meeting to be held at Laeken in December 2001.

6.2.2. The Laeken Declaration

The writing of the Laeken Declaration was stipulated directly in the Nice Declaration, wherefore agreement on the Laeken text would be a sign that the process initiated at Nice was running its due course. The advent of the Laeken summit meant that the time had come to make good the promises of Nice. In the time-span between the Nice and Laeken summits the debate took on an interim nature: in this period discussions followed the agenda of the debate that was set in the Nice

Declaration, but were also directed towards the pending institutionalisation of the debate, which the Laeken Declaration was to execute. This duality is most apparent in Jospin’s and Lykketoft’s speeches; here there are both references to the decisions taken at Nice and forecasts of the agreements to be reached at Laeken. In the first respect Jospin says: “…the heads of state and government, united last year in Nice, have decided to engage in a profound reflection on the future of the enlarged Union. […] It is in this framework that I inscribe my remarks today” (Jospin, ll. 12-14). Lykketoft focuses on the four points that the Nice Declaration puts on the agenda, structuring his discussion of institutional reforms around them (Lykketoft, ll. 521-523). In anticipation of the decisions to be made at Laeken, both Jospin and Lykketoft declare their support for letting a convention prepare proposals for reform before beginning the IGC (Jospin, ll. 328-332, Lykketoft, ll. 534-540). Lykketoft sees a convention as a possibility for creating broader popular discussion, and Jospin refers to the success of the Convention that prepared the Charter for Fundamental Rights as justification for using the method again.

Jospin’s and Lykketoft’s unreserved endorsements of setting up a convention indicate that consensus on creating such an institution had been established prior to the Laeken summit. In accordance with this consensus, the Council did not consider whether a convention should be set up, but turned directly to the issue of which composition and mandate the Convention on the Future of Europe should be granted. In the three interim speeches there are no indications as to the

Convention’s composition, but it is clear that the agenda for discussion is conceived more broadly than stipulated by the Nice Declaration. Lykketoft is the only speaker who refers directly to the agenda decided at Nice, and all three speakers agree that a debate on the goals and purposes of the EU should precede the discussion of institutional and procedural reforms.

The willingness to initiate a broad and fundamental debate proved to be a commonly held sentiment, as the press coverage of the Laeken summit clearly indicates. While it was readily agreed that the Convention should be given a broad mandate, the coverage of the Laeken summit reports prevailing disagreement as to how fundamental the reforms should be and what status the

final results of the Convention should be given. Should the EU be totally restructured or should its current modes of operation simply be adjusted? Should the Convention have any binding force or should it be a merely consultative organ? Also, there was disagreement on the Convention’s composition up until the last minute.

It is the general understanding of the press coverage that agreement on the Laeken Declaration was partially conditioned by the leaders’ perception that yet another failure to reach a common decision would demand a fatally high price in the form of loss of public credibility and support. Such considerations may have led the politicians to accept the composition and leadership of the Convention even if they did not consider it to be optimal, but the strategy of leaving some issues unresolved was also employed in order to ensure agreement. Thus, the Laeken Declaration states that the Convention’s final document “…may comprise either different options, indicating the degree of support which they received, or recommendations if consensus is achieved” (ll. 207-208).

While the declaration presents the Convention’s recommendations as a starting point for the following IGC, the press coverage points out that if the Convention reaches a strong consensus, its recommendations will become impossible to ignore. The declaration’s weak formulation satisfies those leaders who do not wish to grant the Convention any formal powers, but leaves open the possibility that the Convention may take on its own dynamic, thereby asserting itself and ensuring that its proposals will not be negligible.

The open-endedness that allowed for agreement on the Laeken Declaration also reflects upon the agenda-setting function of the text. Through its many open questions and loose formulations about the most controversial issues, such as the possibility of creating a European constitution, the declaration strikes the general tone of the debate, but does not set any prior limitations on the possible outcome. Vague as it may be in pointing the debate onwards, the declaration does establish a firm base and general framework for the coming debate. In doing so, the text draws upon and sums up the experiences made and insights achieved in the debate so far.

Thus, the first section of the Laeken Declaration reasserts the constitutive tensions between the EU’s past achievements and future challenges, between the citizen’s expectations and the EU’s current priorities, between the EU’s potential for playing a leading role in a globalised world and its present capabilities. The debate arises out of these highly charged relationships and is directed to alleviating stress and realising potential.

6.2.3. Openness and closure in institutionalised kairotic moments

The reflection and creation of kairos in the declarations is reminiscent of the use of constitutive dichotomies as means of constituting the space for further discussion in the speeches. Both declarations reflect that the debate in certain respects has reached its fruition, but the decisions taken deal with redirection, not closure, and the moments created in the texts are beginnings more than they are ends. Both declarations seek to create new possibilities for discussion in replacement of the phase that they conclude. The speeches and the declarations in a sense are related to each other as action and reaction: the speeches initiate discussions that it is the institutionalised role of the declarations to conclude. However, the declarations take recourse to intermediary decisions and abstract formulations in order to fulfil situational demands for decision-making without closing the discussion. The declarations, then, contribute to substantiating and populating the spaces of

discussion that were opened by the speeches; they aim at facilitating the debate by establishing its agenda and procedures, not at closing it.

The declarations represent institutionalised decisive moments, but the texts also create the possibility for further interventions in the debate. In their orientation towards the future the declarations set out guidelines for the continuation of the discussion, but they do so in the vague manner that is also the speakers’ strategy of choice. In this respect, the Nice Declaration seems clearer than the Laeken Declaration, but the former also recognises that many issues remain unresolved and explicitly piles the burden of resolution upon the latter. The Laeken Declaration takes on this task and is quite clear in its institutionalisation of the debate, but in its presentation of the issues to be discussed and the terms of discussion it employs the whole range of constitutive dichotomies and thereby avoids foreclosing any part of the discussion.

Both declarations move the reform process onwards and create new openings without limiting the possible final results of the debate. The openness is, however, not just a reflection of the intent to invite a broad discussion, but also reflects the lack of substantial agreement among the decision-makers. The declarations are reflections of the degree of agreement that existed among the political leaders of Europe at the time of their creation. They demonstrate that the politicians can agree to continue the discussion, but that they have not reached any substantial consensus on the eventual outcome. Moreover, the open invitations extended by the declarations indicate that the broader debate, whether it is conducted in its general public or its institutionalised form, cannot have but an advisory function. The initiatives set up by the declarations do not themselves have the

power of closing the discussions; that privilege rests solely with the IGC and is thus bound up with the procedures of reform whose inadequacy the new initiatives are meant to soothe.