FALLMUNC
Background Guide: European Union (Constitution)
The EU Reform Treaty
The
European Union drafted a constitution in Brussels on 18 June, 2004.
Its primary goals were:
·
to replace the overlapping set of existing
treaties that compose the Union's current informal Constitution
·
to codify human rights throughout the EU
·
to streamline decision-making in what is now a
27-member organization
·
to define
the powers of the EU, stating where it can
act and in what cases the member states retain their right of veto
·
to identify the role of the EU
institutions
Hopes to ratify the
Constitution crumbled, however, when France and the Netherlands rejected it
in referendums in 2005. The European Union has now dropped plans for the
constitution and has decided to amend two existing treaties instead. The
amendments will be contained in a new Reform Treaty, and will replicate many
of the new changes that went into the draft constitution.
The precise text of
the treaty will be decided by an inter-governmental conference (IGC) in the
second half of 2007. This conference was
launched at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on
July 23, when
the EU’s Presidential Cabinet presented a first draft of the Reform Treaty.
More than 90% of the constitution has been carried over into the Reform
Treaty, but there are some differences:
The plan is to
conclude the conference at a summit in Lisbon on the 18th
and 19th
of October. The treaty could be signed straight
away, or in December, and ratified by member states in 2008, in time for the
European elections in 2009.
As history has shown, however, it is likely that
things will not go as planned. As representatives to the EU, you should be
able to discuss what your country likes and dislikes about the Reform
Treaty, what they would add, what they would change, and whether or not the
country would agree to ratify. This is an important issue for the European
community, affecting not only the present but the future for many years to
come. And as an emerging leader and the largest communal economy in the
world, the EU must be sensitive to how its actions affect the rest of the
world as well.
Sources for Further
Research
