Commentaar EuropaWorld: "EU-grondwet nuttig als basis voor nieuwe werkwijze EU" (en)

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - Much has been said by both senior politicians and commentators following the result of the French referendum last Sunday, in which the French electorate voted massively to reject the new European Constitution.

Most of this is arrant nonsense. Little of it will, I suggest, survive the next couple of weeks, let alone stand the test of time.

The first such nonsense propagated, among others, by the French President, Jacques Chirac, and the Commission President, Mr Barroso, is that ratification of the European Constitutional treaty should carry on as if nothing had happened in the expectation that the local difficulties in France and the Netherlands - and any others that may arrive along the way - can somehow be smoothed away.

The problem is that such difficulties cannot be smoothed away. Moreover, it might reasonably be asked how a citizen, or even a parliamentarian, is expected to vote in favour of a European settlement that does not embrace certain core countries?

When Spanish voters approved the Constitution they did so on condition that France would be beside them. It is patently beside them no longer. They would therefore be within their rights to ask to reconsider. And where would we be then?

Nonsense to suppose second vote

The second piece of nonsense is to suppose that France might be asked to vote again.

Why it should be supposed that French voters might change their minds a second time around is not addressed by the advocates of this line, who include the current President of the European Council, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker. No, clearly, the result stays, unless and until there is a different treaty to vote upon.

That, too, has been suggested, principally by the French 'no' campaign. And it, too, is a piece of arrant nonsense, given the wide range of views on what Europe should be about, even in the French 'no' camp itself, let alone across the other 24 member states. Who, anyway, would be prepared to submit such a treaty to another referendum?

Blair's bloody nose

A fourth piece of nonsense is being put out by the frustrated leaders of the 'no' campaign in Britain, who fear they have been deprived of their opportunity to give Mr Blair a bloody nose.

They intend to remain in existence to ensure that no particle of the rejected constitution is slipped in by what is called 'the back door.' For all I know other 'no' campaigns are planning the same thing.

One might ask why they don't band together and raise a million signatures to petition the European Commission? If the Commission responded, would they have let a particle of the Constitution in by the back door? Would they rather the Commission didn't respond? Or what would they want done at all about those clearly permissive parts of the treaty, like the right of any state to leave the Union?

Will the 'no' campaign now fight to keep unwilling countries in, I wonder? And will they insist that Ministers should continue to meet in the Council behind closed doors, barring access to press and public?

Paralysed by the decision processes

But the biggest piece of nonsense is the received wisdom that rejection of the Constitutional treaty will bring Europe grinding to a halt, paralysed by the decision processes laid down in the Nice Treaty and the right of every one of the 25 member states to veto vast chunks of European business.

Here it is worth re-iterating, that the European Union already has a Constitution. If it did not, how on earth do people think it operates?

The present Constitution is made up of the existing treaties from Rome to Nice. Those who argued that the new Constitution was overly long should have been forced to carry the existing treaties about in a shopping bag.

The bulk of what is in the new Constitution is already there in the old one. So it is not a question of not letting pieces of the constitutional furniture in by the back door, for most of it is in the living room already, as it were: indeed, we are already sitting on it.

But as it is, the provisions do not work as well as they might and with another ten (shortly twelve) member states sitting on the sofa - to continue the analogy - the springs may give out. Hence the talk of paralysis.

Who gains from overthrowing such a compromise?

But it is in no-one's interests, not least the French and the Dutch, for the European Union to be paralysed.

Member states have a great deal on their plates at present and freed from the incubus of ratifying the Constitution, they will want to get on with it. It is in everyone's self-interest that Europe's decision making is as efficient as it can be.

Having sweated for six months last year under the hard tasking of Mr Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, to arrive at a compromise over votes in the Council, why will Member States not wish to adhere to it?

Who gains from overthrowing such a compromise? Certainly not the French whose voting share in the Council would increase by a third.

Similarly member states can, and I would argue will, agree informally not to use the veto in those areas where they have already agreed to give it up. Self-interest will dictate that the European Council will decide to act as though the treaty provisions were in force. If Britain can act on the basis of a largely unwritten constitution, so can Europe.

Indeed, it is tempting to argue that had Mr Ahern gone on to occupy the post envisaged by the new Constitution of (semi) permanent President of the European Council - marshalling and managing European leaders in pursuit of a common objective - the ratification process might not have run into its current sands.

If it is to do its work properly the European Council needs a chair who presides for longer than six months.

Faced with the imperative of reviving the European economy, I predict that the 25 European heads of Government will simply elect such a chair - constitution or no constitution.

He or she will have no official role, no official power and probably not even a European office, but who doubts that Mr Ahern, say, could still be highly effective in such circumstances?

European Foreign Minister

Again take the question of the European Foreign Minister. Many people were worried that this appeared to confer a badge of statehood on the Union.

Yet at present, under the existing treaties, we have in effect two Foreign Ministers, one in the Commission and one in the Council. True they are not called Foreign Minister - but as Shakespeare says 'what's in a name?'

They are there because the European Union, given its size and commercial importance, cannot opt out of world politics. The Foreign Minister's work is not dictated by some grandiose ambition of the men and women in the Berlaymont, but by the imperatives of terrorism, disaster, conflict, famine.

The Union is already charged with tasks such as driving forward Europe's economies, of playing a role in peace and development; of making enlargement work, of dealing with matters such as climate change. It must surely have the right to use the best organisation it can to fulfil them within the ambit of the present treaties.

The new Constitution may therefore be dead but its spirit can be used to revive the ways of working set out in the existing treaties.

This is not to ride roughshod over the French or the Dutch, to take on new powers or to plan a superstate - just to respond in the most practical way to the demands of 27 countries living and working together in a tough, old and dangerous world.

The author is editor of EuropaWorld