Race against time

“The constitutional project that consisted in the abrogation of all the existing treaties and their replacement by a single text denominated Constitution, is abandoned”. So declares the first lines of Annex 1 of the “Conclusions of the Presidency”, containing the nub of the decisions taken by the European Council in Brussels on 21-22 June. NEW TREATY BY 2009. The political and diplomatic marathon between the leaders of the 27 states of the EU had some unchallenged protagonists: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Polish twins, President Lech and Premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski, British Premier Tony Blair and his Dutch counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The questions on the order of the day were numerous, but the main mission of the summit was to define the mandate for an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) that would revise the existing treaties (Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice) and revamp the EU Constitution, so as to achieve a new “Reform Treaty”, thus overcoming the impasse into which the Union has been precipitated over the last two years. The IGC obtained the go ahead from the heads of state and of government. It will work in the second half of the year under the chairmanship of Portuguese Premier José Socrates; the new treaty, undoubtedly shorter than the 448 articles of the Constitution of 2004, should be subjected to ratification (probably parliamentary, not by referendum) in all member states “before the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009”. MANDATE OF THE IGC. To understand the decisions taken by the summit we need to return to the “Conclusions”: 32 packed pages, half of them dedicated to the next treaty and the other half concerning the fields of “justice and internal affairs”, “economic social and environmental affairs” and “external relations”. The compromise reached on the night of 22 June affirms: “The IGC is invited to draft” a “reform treaty” that would modify the existing treaties “with the aim of reinforcing the efficiency and the democratic legitimacy of the enlarged Union and the coherence of its external action”. After having sanctioned the renunciation of the constitutional process, the document specifies step by step the issues on which the ICC will have to work, according to a “closed” mandate. YES TO A LONGER-TERM PRESIDENT, NO TO SYMBOLS. The “simplified” treaty should make provision for a longer-term president of the European Council, who would serve a term equivalent to 30 months. The High Representative for External policy (the role now occupied by the Spaniard Javier Solana) will still have limited powers in “external action”, but at the same time will be reinforced by a European diplomatic service. In the field of external policy and in that of common security and defence, the UE should be able to proceed in concert, though without this “prejudicing” national policies. The symbols of the Union (flag, anthem, motto, holiday) will not be inserted in the new treaty. Not will the Charter of Fundamental Rights, though reference will be made to its “binding” character. MAJORITY VOTE, BUT IN TEN YEARS’ TIME. The question of the dual majority vote in Council (55% of countries with 65% of citizens), strongly opposed by Poland, was approved, but will only provisionally come into force in 2014 and will only become fully operational in 2017. In the three years of “transition” a country will be able to request returning on individual dossiers to the voting system sanctioned by the Treaty of Nice in 2001. The possibility of creating “blocking minorities” on specific questions remains. The mandate given to the IGC includes the task of re-designing a more restricted Commission, on which not all member states would be represented, but only – and by rotation – two thirds of members. The European Parliament will have its own powers boosted in the legislative field. National parliaments will be given more time to examine EU directives, express their own opinion and request if necessary a change of route (a question on which Holland insisted). INTEGRATION: SLOW STEAM AHEAD. Altogether the EU confirms its wish to process united, even if – as various leaders affirmed – it will be “a less strong Europe”. The “two speed” Union or a Union of “reinforced cooperation” will remain possible options, as in the case of the single currency and the free circulation of people (Schengen); even if London has obtained an “opt-out” clause, which it could if necessary invoke to opt out of a process of integration which it judged too rapid. Any reference to “free and undistorted competition” has also been abolished from the priority objectives of the Community: this was at the insistence of French President Sarkozy. Last but not least, the supremacy of EU law over national law is reaffirmed, at least in the sectors of EU competence, which hitherto had been safeguarded only by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.