With just 10 days left on the clock of his Prime Ministerial reign, Anthony Charles Blair is preparing to attend his final EU summit. It is expected that whilst in Germany on Thursday, Blair will give assent to plans for Britain to sign up to the "treaty on the functioning of the union" a document that many claim, is simply a repurposed version of the failed European Constitution. The original constitution was signed by EU leaders including Tony Blair in October 2004 - its ratification failed, when it was rejected by both the French and Dutch people in referendums in 2005.
Todays Sunday Times, quotes Monsieur Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, former French President and one of the amended treaties principal architects as saying. "The name is not important". Speaking to the French newspaper LeMonde, he said the public would "adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly”. The same Monsieur Giscard, revealed his true feelings about the European public's rejection of the previous version of the constitution in a lecture at the London School of Economics in 2006, when he said. "The rejection of the Constitution was a mistake which will have to be corrected."
This remodeled version, ratifies the European Union as a single legal entity with a "legal personality" allowing it to negotiate and sign binding international contracts and agreements. It confers upon this legal entity "exclusive competence" and determines that Member States may "exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised, or has decided to cease exercising, its competence." It also creates a position of European President within the European Council and a single foreign policy representative. Many constitutional experts feel this will erode the principle of national sovereignty and deal a significant blow to the power of nation states to govern themselves. The document states emphatically. "This Constitution shall have primacy over the laws of member states".
According to the Sunday Times, EU leaders have already discussed the idea of offering the new position of European President to Blair; a role which will undoubtedly carry significant prestige and no small measure of power. Given the legal primacy that the European Parliament assumes over all national governments this could effectively elevate Blair to an even higher level within the European elite.
UPDATE: Blair has sidestepped the European Presidential role, instead opting to take up a position as a special envoy for the Middle East Quartet with a portfolio focused on Palestinian economic reform.
Comment
It is plain that when the democratically expressed will of the people is not to pursue a path towards deeper European integration, those who consider themselves the only ones fit to decide, will consider such decisions "mistakes" to be ignored, corrected later, or treated as a temporary setbacks.
Of the 16 countries that have completed ratification, only 2 have done so via referendum; Luxembourg and Spain. Spain managed only a 42% turnout in its vote. France and Holland both rejected it. In all other cases, the Constitution was ratified by parliamentary vote and the people were not consulted.
The European Constitution has been rejected by half of the people who have actually had a chance to vote upon it; the fact that this means nothing to those pushing ahead with a mildly revised version, perfectly demonstrates the contempt the European political elite feel for the desires of those in whose name they pretend to govern.
Read a PDF reader friendly version of the Constitution here.
