Europe, Headlines

POLITICS-EU: Constitution Has a Long Way to Go

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Jun 21 2004 (IPS) - As European Union leaders mull over the successes of last week’s European summit in their home countries, an even tougher task lies ahead – convincing a sceptical electorate to agree.

European Union (EU) leaders agreed a Constitution for Europe, which aims to respond to an expanding bloc, late Friday evening (Jun. 18) after intense negotiations spread over almost two-and-a-half years.

Leaving the talks Bertie Ahern, Irish Prime Minister and head of the EU’s rotating presidency said European leaders had achieved a fundamental advance for the European Union.

“The text enables everyone to say that their specific concerns were accommodated. We have listened to each other and understood each other’s concerns. This is a win-win solution,” he added.

The body that drew up the draft Constitution started its work in February 2002 and finished some 16 months later. Since then EU governments have been fine-tuning the text.

The final text agreed Friday contains over 400 articles and includes some big innovations.

When the new treaty comes into force, the bloc will get a new EU foreign minister and a permanent chair of the European Council.

The new voting system, which caused a great deal of disagreement between member states at the December summit, will be based on a double majority of both member states and population.

The European Parliament’s powers will also be strengthened, and further changes include an article to reduce the number of Commissioners to two thirds of the number of member states from 2014.

The Constitutional Treaty also provides a solid legal basis for development cooperation and humanitarian aid as both policies are considered as shared competence with a clear legal basis independent from other external policies such as Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and trade.

Many civil society groups have welcomed the inclusion of sustainable development, human rights, fair trade, respect of international law and poverty eradication as “strategic objectives” of the Union and its external policy.

Simon Stocker, director of the Brussels-based non-governmental organization Eurostep welcomed the “positive outcome” of the negotiations and the “specific provisions on development cooperation within the Constitution that define poverty eradication as overarching objective of EU development policy and underline the principle of coherence of EU policies with development objectives when they are likely to impact developing countries.”

While much of the media has concentrated on the claims and counter claims of success made by the leaders in the negotiations, many newspapers in France, Belgium and Italy have focused on the rigid opposition of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who ensured that national vetos will continue to apply in key areas, including taxation, and foreign and security policy.

“Blair is playing his cards right,” said the French daily Le Figaro. “Ever since he announced that the Constitution would be put to a referendum in his country, he has had a very good reason to be inflexible in Brussels. This is one of the great paradoxes of the EU – its most sceptical member has the upper hand.”

EU leaders now face the difficult task of selling their ideas at home.

Before coming into force, the document has to be ratified by all 25 member states, several of which – Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg – have already committed themselves to a referendum.

Poland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France may also hold a referendum.

As the talks closed Friday, Ahern urged leaders to “engage in active campaigns” to inform people in their home country about the Constitution.

However, with a low turnout in the European elections earlier this month and a big swing towards euroscepticism in many of the bloc’s member states, this could prove almost impossible.

John Palmer, political director of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, says member states face a tough task ahead.

“With referenda due in nine or 10 countries, the entire project is still highly vulnerable to rejection in any one member state,” he said. “For the present, however, the overriding political priority will be to win the battle for hearts and minds in all 25 member states to ensure the ratification of the Treaty over the next two years so that it can be actually implemented.”

The Netherlands, which will assume the EU’s rotating presidency in July, will oversee the tidying up of the text and translation. A formal signing ceremony of the Constitution is expected in September. Some weeks after that, the ratification process in the member states will begin.