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In addition to the dubious identity of the speaker and the question of timing, Fischer's vision for the future is not without substantive problems, to which I shall devote this last part of this comment.
First is his conception of the nation-State as a natural reality coupled with his fashionable defence of national traditions: "a European federal State (Europäischen Bundesstaat) replacing the old nation-states and their democracies as the new sovereign power shows itself to be an artificial construct which ignores the established realities in Europe." Incidentally, he rejects the idea of a European federal State while he embraces the concept a European federation (Europäischen Föderation), which even appears in the title to his speech. The subtleties in the distinction between federation and federal state are beyond my understanding.
More to the point, every time I hear the word "tradition", and Fischer repeats it several times at crucial passages of his speech, I fear the worst. The idea of the nation-State, let us say it clearly, is as artificial or, for that matter, as natural as the idea of a federal State. The terms natural or artificial are in this context meaningless. All political realities are essentially historical and cultural, bounded by time and dependant on human will. The European Union itself has always been, from its inception in the European Coal and Steel Community (1951), outside and beyond the traditional or established "realities" of Europe. It was indeed intended to overcome those established realities. But at present the Union itself is already an established and growing reality in Europe.
The dangers involved in this nostalgic traditionalist discourse are many. To begin with, it may put irrational brakes to integration, closing doors for no good reason where doors should be open. From the cultural point of view, the traditions of the European nations are old and tired traditions. They have been quite decadent for decades now. Their democracies are not without problems themselves. To start a speech on the finality of European integration by holding that these crepuscular traditions are to be preserved at all risks seems to me to be a particularly unprincipled way of limiting from the outset what the possible renaissance of a truly European culture - and democracy - could bring in the future. Besides, who is to preserve those national traditions? How are they to be preserved?
Regarding more concrete aspects of his speech, the new Parliament Fischer proposes would have two chambers, one of them composed of representatives belonging at the same time to the national parliaments. This idea, a step back to the system that existed before 1979, seems to me to be particularly unfortunate. Who would such double representatives represent? Would they have time to simultaneously follow European and national politics? Would they contribute in any meaningful way to the shaping of a European political process and discourse?
Fischer then repeats that the nation-States "will continue to exist and at European level they will retain a much larger role than the Länder have in Germany." But how to put a permanent brake in the federative process? The federation or, for that matter, the federal State or the confederation and all what lies in the continuum between these ideal concepts, are all instances of the federative process. This process, like any process, can hardly be conceived as a static position that should be preserved forever. It can be but a continuous movement in which centrifugal and centripetal forces are always at work, determining its political evolution and the sharing of powers and responsibilities among the various levels of government. There is no way to create a federation of whatever kind and assure beforehand that the States will always have a larger role than that of a German Land. The federative process is an open process or is not.
Only at the end of his speech does Fischer argue for the need to establish Europe anew with a constitution, perhaps by a reduced group of Member States. Such an avant-garde or centre of gravitation will be open to all, if they comply with certain requirements which are not specified. "The last step", adds Fischer, "will then be completion of integration in a European Federation. Let's not misunderstand each other: closer cooperation does not automatically lead to full integration, either by the centre of gravitation or straight away by the majority of members. Initially, enhanced cooperation means nothing more than increased intergovernmentalization under pressure from the facts and the shortcomings of the "Monnet Method". The steps towards a constitutional treaty - and exactly that will be the precondition for full integration - require a deliberate political act to reestablish Europe."
Reestablish Europe, nothing less... This passage sounds to me as expressing the will for a rearrangement of what already exists, from the point of view of a federalism that turns out not to be so federal when closely examined. Fischer would like to make tabula rasa of what already is in place to end up doing something very similar, but differently... As to the requirements to enter the said centre of gravitation, I do not really see what kind of requirements à la Maastricht could legitimately be imposed in order to proceed to political union, besides the democratically expressed will of the given State, perhaps with the necessary direct intervention of its citizens in taking such a crucial step.
Finally, the idea of an "reinforced intergovernmentalisation" (verstärkte Intergouvermentalisierung) is the most dangerous element of Fischer's proposal. The States of the so-called gravitation centre may decide to use their political Union only to dilute the valuable achievements of the past. They may not choose to do so, but it is a daring risk to take in political terms. Incidentally, he founds the need to use intergovernmental methods (to integrate politically!) in the shortcomings of the "Monnet Method". Any analyst would rather point to the much graver shortcomings of the intergovernmental method in the non-Community pillars of the Union. The Community method may have shortcomings, to be sure, but they are not as "short" as those persistently revealed by the intergovernmental method.
This reflection points to something which is surprisingly lacking throughout Fischer's speech. He ignores or forgets the progressive constitutionalisation of the treaties effected by the European Court of Justice throughout the last four decades with the acquiescence, sometimes express through treaty amendments, sometimes implicit, of the States. Upgrading the treaty into the current constitution of the Community has produced a constitution by default, a provisional legal fiction in want of something better, but one that is at the same time normatively warranted, workable and advantageous to most of the actors concerned. It is a redundant waste of energy to try to strike again deals and reach constitutional agreements that are already up and running. Any constitutional project for the future of Europe must take seriously its constitutional present, building on it, not negating it.