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The new constitution for the EU, put forward by its convention last month, was seen by many as a 'tidying up exercise' consequent on expansion to 25 Member States. The opposing view in the UK forecasts the arrival of the European 'superstate'. Can the truth possibly be somewhere in the middle ?
Former President of France, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was presumably happy to come out of retirement to preside over the year-long convention charged with producing the European Union's first ever constitution. But if he saw it as a simple matter of codifying existing practice to take into account the organisation's expansion from 15 to 25 members, he soon had to get used to a level of disagreement and controversy more usual at the sharp end of politics. The division between the interests of the large and the small countries, a common EU problem, was the first locus of disagreement. The big nations wanted a powerful President of the Council of Ministers (now usually called the European Council) to be created while the smaller ones favoured a bigger rôle for the commission and the European parliament. Then he ran into religious controversy when a proposal to incorporate a statement on Europe's Christian heritage, advocated by some churches and countries such as Poland, was opposed by Turkey as a Muslim candidate for EU entry. Although first arguing that Turkish membership would mean 'the end of the European Union' M.Giscard left out any explicit reference in the final draft to Christianity, contenting himself with referring to the 'cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe'.
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Giscard bangs the gavel as convention president while Convention members Peter Hain and Joschka Fischer celebrate the end of its deliberations | |
Rumbling along beneath this surface noise was the question of British attitudes to the constitution and the specific concerns which UK politics imposed on our representatives on the convention. The aim of Peter Hain and the UK delegation was, throughout, to maintain a Europe of nation states with vetoes in such areas as tax, foreign affairs and defence. The British position was also consistently in favour of a permanent President of the European Council. The Commission, as personified by its president Romano Prodi, seemed to be at odds with the UK. They wanted qualified majority voting to be extended as far as possible and resented any new post of Council President as a rival to Sgr. Prodi. On the trade union side there were hopes that the incorporation of the charter of fundamental rights into the new constitution would give it legal force thus enshrining positive rights such as the right to strike, the right to a job and the right not to face discrimination. The charter had been left non-binding when first agreed due to the influence of the UK and other national governments.
In the final draft, which was arrived at only in the last few days before the deadline of the date of the EU summit which had to consider it, a something for everyone approach was adopted. The large nations got their permanent President, to be elected by the European Council by qualified majority voting, but the smaller ones have a rotating presidency of the lesser councils of departmental ministers so that they will all get a turn. It is clear that foreign and defence policy will remain in the hands of national governments in the last resort. However a new foreign affairs commissioner will be elected by the Council of Ministers under the qualified majority system and this method will be extended to areas such as asylum and immigration. The European Parliament will have a greater rôle as all laws will be made by the co-decision system, which requires parliamentary agreement, except where the constitution says otherwise.
The charter of fundamental rights is to be incorporated into the new treaty but, partly to assuage UK government fears, the draft constitution states it will 'not extend the scope of application of Union law'. Trade union reaction was muted with Emilio Gabaglio, ETUC observer at the convention, while admitting a step forward had been made, wary of 'interpretation clauses [that] will limit its practical benefits to workers and citizens in general'. John Monks, incoming ETUC General Secretary, did not think workers would see a major increase in their rights. An inter-governmental conference of all EU members will now need to consider the draft and make amendments which various countries including the UK have indicated they require. Each nation will have to approve the resulting treaty, some by referendum, and some provisions are unlikely to come into force before 2009.
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