By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Jan 13 2004 (IPS)

Negotiations on a new constitution for Europe should be concluded soon, a leading think-tank here says.

The European Policy Centre (EPC) is urging the new Irish presidency of the European Union (EU) to kickstart moves towards a new constitution. EU leaders failed to agree a constitutional treaty at an intergovernmental conference (IGC) in December.

Without a constitution the EU risks drifting into a "directional crisis, leaving it ill- prepared to deal with the radically transformed global context it finds itself in," EPC political director John Palmer told IPS Tuesday.

As the Irish government seeks to revive the constitutional process, the EPC has highlighted some immediate steps needed to bring the momentum back to European integration.

Ireland replaced Italy at the head of the European Council Jan. 1 in the six- month rotating presidency. The European Council brings together heads of state or government of the 15 member states and the president of the European Commission (EC). The EC is the executive arm of the EU.

"Member state governments must be pressured into making the constitution a reality," the EPC said in a paper ‘After the IGC – a two speed Europe or a no speed Europe?’ released Tuesday.

The draft Constitution aims to give the EU new shape ahead of the inclusion of ten more countries in the EU in May. The new members are Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Negotiations over the constitution collapsed at the IGC under a dispute over voting weights between France and Germany on the one hand and Spain and Poland on the other.

Poland and Spain insisted on maintaining the number of votes they were allotted three years ago, though this would give each of them almost the same voting rights as Germany with about twice the population of either country.

Palmer says the failure of the December IGC goes deeper than the impasse over the constitution.

The failure was the culmination of an "annus horribilis for the EU" marked by "bitter divisions among member states over the war in Iraq, a protracted period of economic stagnation, and a sense of drift in fulfilling the ambitious objectives for economic, social and environmental renewal set out in the Lisbon process," he said. The Lisbon process is meant to implement a strategy set out at a summit in March 2000 to bring economic, social and environmental renewal in the EU.

Palmer says that despite disagreements over proposals for the new constitution such as the size of the Commission, the measure of majority voting, the role of the proposed European foreign minister and the process for reviewing the Constitution, "the reality is that the draft constitutional treaty remains the only coherent – and indeed democratic – basis for continuing negotiations."

As the EPC made its recommendations, a European Trade Union Conference (ETUC) delegation presented a 10-point plan to Irish Prime Minister and now head of EU presidency Bertie Ahern. The ETUC delegation comprised union president Candido Mendez, general secretary John Monks and general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) David Begg.

ETUC said Ahern must establish a new constitution with a strong social dimension.

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