HURRAH FOR AN END TO EU NAVEL GAZING By Hugo Brady On July 23rd European leaders will open fast-track negotiations in Brussels on a ‘re f o rm treaty’ to make the EU work better. The proposed treaty should end years of pointless agonising over what to do with the EU constitution, agreed in 2004 but killed off by referendums in 2005. Much of proposed treaty will be taken from the wreck of the constitution. But controversial aspects are being amended or dropped and the new text will be stripped of any pretensions to be a US constitution-style founding chart e r. The t re a t y ’s remit will now be simple. It should enable smoother EU decision-making and a more effective f o reign policy, without seriously altering the balance of power between the 27 member-states and the Union’s main institutions: the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice. If negotiations conclude as expected, by October 19th this year, the new treaty will be ratified by the end of 2008. Its changes will come into force from 2009 onwards. Parliaments in Britain, the Netherlands and elsewhere will debate whether the text should be put to a popular vote. But it seems likely that only one country, Ireland, will hold a re f e rendum (more for political reasons than clear legal necessity). Even the re f e rendum-happy Danes are satisfied that the treaty will not involve transfers of sovereignty and hint that they will forgo a plebiscite. Hence the vast majority of member-states will choose to ratify thro u g h their national parliaments. With luck, the EU may be about to move on from its disastrous experiment with the constitution.
Changes worth sticking with EU member-states have agreed a blueprint of the new treaty, eked out at an all-night summit in Brussels on June 23rd. The summit, chaired by Germ a n y, agreed to rescue a number of key institutional reforms f rom the failed constitution. But while the constitution would have replaced all previous treaties with an e n t i rely new legal order; the reform treaty will amend only the existing EU framework. Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Poland and the Netherlands won changes at the summit that alter or water down the 2004 text, some significantly. Britain was especially successful in ensuring that some clauses – which were domestically highly controversial – will apply differently or not at all to the UK. The reform treaty will mean:
★ A change in the six-month EU pre s i d e n c y The member-states will improve EU co-ordination by replacing the six-month presidency of the European Council with a permanent president. This will be a non-executive job – the person will have no formal powers save his or her powers of persuasion and the force of personality – but will be full-time. The president’s term will last two and a half years, renewable once. The six-month rotating presidency was acceptable with an EU of 12 or even 15, but is simply impractical in an EU of 27 members. With the exception of foreign affairs, the various sectoral meetings of the Council ( a g r i c u l t u re, employment and so on) will be chaired by teams of EU countries, each serving for 18 months and working with the permanent president.
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