European constitution
On 18 July 2003, the final draft of the constitutional treaty (officially Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe) for the European Union was published by the Praesidium of the Convention on the Future of Europe.The objectives of the draft Constitution are, mainly, to simplify the over-lapping series of Treaties and Protocols providing the current legal constitution for Europe, and to enhance the functioning of the future Union when 10 new countries from Eastern Europe join the existing 15 member states on 1 May 2004 (see EU enlargement).
In some parts of Europe, the Convention and its resulting constitution received little public attention until December 2003, when European heads of state met (14 December) to finalise the document. Elsewhere, the text has been the subject of much controversy, particularly in recent weeks in the United Kingdom, where its opponents see it as the start of moves towards a federal European superstate. Several UK groups and political parties, including the official opposition Conservative Party, have demanded a national referendum on whether or not to ratify the treaty, calls that have so far been resisted by the Government.
During the later stages of the drafting process, two countries, Poland and Spain, vigorously opposed the revised rules for decision making in the Council of Ministers, one of two EU bodies responsible for adopting legislation. The existing rules, agreed in the Treaty of Nice but not yet implemented, give an enhanced weighting to Poland and Spain that is disproportionate to their relative populations. These countries argue, however, that it is necessary to weight voting in favour of smaller countries in order to provide a counter-balance to the larger member states, and in any case that the Nice treaty has not yet even been implemented, so it would be unfair to alter it.
Talks in Brussels on 14 December 2003, originally intended to finalise the text for the constitution, stalled over this one issue and were abandoned. The constitution now looks highly unlikely to be adopted in its current state, if at all.
The draft constitution makes provision for:
- the European Charter on Human Rights,
- a president of the European Council elected by European governments and the European parliament,
- convergence in foreign policy (subject to certain conditions),
- establishment of a European foreign minister,
- introduction of majority votes in many fields of politics (designed to streamline decision-making and reducing veto rights of individual countries in order to limit the amount of national bargaining notoric in European politics),
- clear assignments of responsibility to the institutions of the EU, in particular locking of the principle of subsidarity,
- a more democratic and simplified decision process in the Council of Ministers (compared to the current situation),
- an increased role for national parliaments and the European Parliament in the scrutiny of draft EU legislation,
- adjustments to some terminology to make it easier to understand (e.g. 'European Regulation' becomes 'European law', 'European Directive' becomes 'European framework law').
See also: