BRUSSELS, June 13: A landmark Convention on the Future of Europe adopted the first draft constitution for an enlarged European Union by consensus on Friday, 46 years after the founding Treaty of Rome was signed.
Visibly moved after 16 months of hard debate and bargaining, Convention president Valery Giscard d’Estaing and the 105-member forum rose for the EU’s anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, and toasted their historic achievement with champagne.
“I will now go and present on your behalf to the European Council (of leaders) in Thessaloniki our joint work which will provide the basis for a future constitutional treaty of Europe,” the former French president told the final plenary session.
But a majority of the 28 participating governments tarnished the celebration by signalling they would fight in negotiations later this year to preserve complex voting rules that give small states power disproportionate to their population.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said: “For me, the constitution is the most important treaty since the foundation of the European Economic Community (in 1957).”
Key reforms include the appointment of a long-term president of the European Council for up to five years, replacing the current rotating presidency, under which each member state takes the helm for six months.
The draft proposes an EU foreign minister and a slimmed-down executive European Commission of 15 full members, based on the principle of strict rotation to ensure equality of states. It foresees much more majority decision-making.
“This result is imperfect but it is more than could have been hoped,” Giscard said.
After the Thessaloniki summit on June 20-21, the Convention will still have to fine-tune part of the constitution dealing with EU policies. An Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) due to start in October will have the final say on the text.
FEARS: Reflecting fear of many in the Convention that governments will try to water down the text, Antonio Vitorino, the European commissioner for justice and home affairs, said the reforms were essential as a whole for an effective EU.
“Be like a doctor,” he said in an appeal to the 15 current and 10 future member states. “Wield the scalpel if you have to, but don’t forget that the patient has to be in sound health at the end, so don’t cut him up completely.”
Amid the general euphoria, Jens-Peter Bonde, a Eurosceptic Danish member of the European Parliament, sounded a dissonant note, saying the constitution would lead to an EU “superstate”.
“The real losers are our own peoples,” Bonde said.
Commission President Romano Prodi, a Roman Catholic, lamented the lack of any reference in the draft constitution’s preamble to God or Christianity, though the text does speak of Europe’s “cultural, religious and humanist inheritance”.
“To ignore 1,500 years of civilization is to create a vacuum in our consciousness, in our identity as Europeans,” he said.
Several federally-minded members of the Convention voiced regret that the draft left intact member states’ right of veto on foreign policy and taxation issues. Britain had resisted any dilution of this right.
One issue sure to feature in the IGC is an unresolved dispute over the future system for majority voting.—Reuters