Europe Writes Itself a Constitution

The European Union will have a year of high drama and much action, some of it surprisingly productive. It will culminate with a Summit of EU leaders, chaired by the Italians, aimed at reaching a new constitutional settlement for the Union. The Italians hope that the lead­ers will negotiate a new Treaty of Rome. That would be highly symbolic, because it was the original Treaty of Rome of 1957, negotiated by the six founding members of the European Economic Community, which laid the basis for "ever closer union" among the states of Europe. A new treaty is intended to give the EU a constitution fit for a Union that will soon have 25 or more members.

The build-up to the Rome summit is already under way. A constitutional convention, chaired by Valery Gis­card d'Estaing, a former president of France, got going in Brussels in the first half of 2002. It will run until the middle of 2003 and then will present a draft constitution for consideration by the political leaders of the current 15 members of the EU. It will be up to the politicians to then hammer out a treaty.

The key issues are already clear. The convention is packed with keen integrationists – mainly drawn from the European Parliament – who will press for the EU to take a great leap forward. The integrationists (sometimes also referred to as the federalists) have a shopping list of measures they want to see included in a new treaty. They want the EU to have a single foreign policy to allow it to "punch its weight" in debates with the United States. This could mean establishing a single foreign policy spokesman – call him a foreign minister for Europe­ – and then getting European countries to decide common and binding foreign policy positions by majority vote. Many integrationists are also keen on the idea that the president of the European Commission – the EU's exec­utive – should be elected, either directly in Europe-wide elections, or by the European Parliament. Some are also arguing that the EU should be given powers to raise taxes, and should establish a common body of European crim­inal law and a pan-European prosecution service.

Giscard d'Estaing, however, clearly believes that many of these ideas are crazy-or at least wildly prema­ture. He will try to guide the convention away from its more radical ideas, by arguing that too ambitious a con­stitution will be rejected by European leaders. It is pretty clear for example that France and Britain will not sign up to a single European foreign policy, which may mean that they are out-voted by a gaggle of smaller nations. Spain and Italy are also currently run by centre-right gov­ernments, which are less integrationist than their centre ­left predecessors.

A new constitution and the acceptance of new mem­bers are the two biggest items on the EU's agenda. But there will be other important debates during 2003. The commission is trying to push through an ambitious re­form of the common agricultural policy, which would make it less egregiously wasteful and protectionist. The signs are, however, that the conservative countries, led by France and Spain, will shoot this down. Economic liber­als are likely to get a little more comfort from painstak­ing efforts to liberalize energy, postal services and the transport industry, and to create a single market of fi­nancial services. All of these measures should make some headway in the coming year. The big political event, how­ever, is bound to be the constitutional convention and the subsequent summit. It is the outcome of those de­bates which will determine if the European Union has a happy 2003.