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The idea of renaming the EU the "United States of Europe" has also been banished from the text.
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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/Print...677021,00.html
Blueprint for an EU president
Staff and agencies
Monday May 26, 2003
The Guardian
Plans were published today for a controversial new European constitution with an elected president and foreign minister.
The latest proposals from the convention on the future of Europe would also commit member states to "unreservedly" backing an EU common foreign policy, if approved unanimously at an intergovernmental conference.
The draft, unveiled in Brussels today, says the EU shall in future have "legal personality" and incorporates a legally binding charter of fundamental rights, including labour and social policies.
All reference to a federal Europe was dropped, however, after heated talks last week between the prime minister and former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who has been drawing up the new blueprint.
The idea of renaming the EU the "United States of Europe" has also been banished from the text.
The draft constitution is part of an effort to streamline the EU in readiness for the accession of 10 new member states in May 2004 and marks the end of more than a year's work by a 105-strong convention of national government ministers, MEPs, MPs and the European commission.
Peter Hain, the Welsh secretary and UK representative on the convention welcomed the new document.
"This is good progress for Britain. We are burying once and for all the fantasies of a Brussels superstate," he said.
"Europe will remain a union of sovereign nation states with governments such as Britain's in charge. By deleting the word 'federal' it is a clear signal that the rest of Europe shares Britain's views.
He continued: "We have important battles still to fight including on cross-border social security measures, ensuring the proposed new foreign secretary remains firmly under the control of governments and not the commission and getting a rigid fire break preventing the charter of rights from changing our domestic law.
"There is still months of negotiation to go after the convention ends in June and we are determined to protect our red-lines before the treaty is agreed a year from now."
In contrast, the Conservatives immediately condemned the latest version of the document.
Timothy Kirkhope, a Conservative MEP and representative on the convention said: "The British government is pulling the wool over the eyes of the British people.
"Mr Blair may have convinced Giscard that the UK should retain control over its taxation and defence policy but these concessions have been won at the expense of other key areas.
"If the charter of fundamental rights does become a legally-binding text, the NHS would be forced to employ doctors and nurses who may not speak English, trade unions would find it easier to take strike action and Britain would be forbidden from extraditing mass murderers such as Osama bin Laden to the United States and other countries where they may face the death penalty.
Mr Kirkhope added: "Tony Blair has also betrayed the British people in the area of justice and home affairs. Qualified majority voting is set to become the norm in this area, a move which will result in the loss of the British right of veto. The UK will have to subscribe to a European asylum and immigration policy and the creation of a European public prosecutor."
But the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Dr Vince Cable, welcomed the draft, saying: "It is entirely right that, with 10 new countries about to join the EU, we should have a proper written agreement of how Europe will operate.
"The Tories want a referendum because they think the British people will vote to leave Europe entirely. This is simply not the case. What the British people do want, is to control their own destiny, via parliament and the ballot box at every general election.
"The Liberal Democrats want a full debate on the draft convention when parliament returns next week. It is for our parliament - elected by the people of this country - to decide whether the new convention requires a referendum of the people.
He added: "The Liberal Democrats would support a referendum if the Convention proposes significant constitutional change.
"Unlike the Conservatives we have every confidence of winning a referendum on Europe because the British people are level-headed and pragmatic and recognise the benefits of being at the heart of Europe."
The future Europe, as envisaged by the 105-strong convention, would have a new president elected by EU leaders to serve as the EU's figurehead for at least two-and-a-half years. He or she would be a serving or former prime minister of one of the member states.
In addition, EU leaders would also elect a foreign minister to conduct the union's common foreign policy and carry out any foreign policy mandates agreed by the member states. Defence and security policy initiatives undertaken by the EU would also come under his or her remit.
On foreign policy the document declares: "Member states shall actively and unreservedly support the union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity. They shall refrain from action contrary to the union's interests or likely to undermine its effectiveness."
This does not answer British and other concerns about any repeat of the situation of the Iraqi crisis, where there was no hope of any common EU line, or any chance of a spirit of "loyalty and mutual solidarity".
If similar circumstances arose again, say EU insiders, the EU "foreign minister" would simply have to sit on the sidelines with no "common" policy to coordinate.
The commission, meanwhile, would get a president elected by the European parliament rather than by EU leaders, a move to satisfy those wanting to see the commission's autonomy reinforced as a counterweight to national influence in the EU .
On running the economy, the draft text has been diluted to state: "The union shall coordinate the economic policies of the member states, in particular by establishing broad guidelines for these policies."
The section of the proposed constitutional treaty on the economy does now include a reference to coordinating employment policies - offering more scope for argument over whether new inroads are being made into national sovereignty.
The aim is no longer stated that the EU should function in some areas "on a federal basis", although when the draft's "preamble" is published later this week, it will still commit the member states to an "ever-closer union".
Today's "revised draft of the first part" of the constitutional treaty will be reviewed once more by the full convention later this week, then given its first assessment by EU leaders at a summit in Greece next month, according to Mr Giscard's spokesman.
The spokesman said other parts of the draft text would be delivered later this week, but there was still some discussion in the convention: "This is a text that is still open to improvement. It can be improved. It is not the final version".
Mr Blair has emphasised that new treaty requires the unanimous agreement of all EU leaders, and that anything not in Britain's interest will be vetoed.
But the Eurosceptic campaign is expected to intensify in the next few months as today's convention's proposals are thrashed out in an intergovernmental conference. A sustained campaign is already underway by the Conservative party and the rightwing press for the government put the issue to a national referendum.
Mr Giscard yesterday tried to win over sceptics in the UK, insisting he was not "destroying Britain".
However he also said he would be "very pleased" to see a referendum in the UK on his ideas.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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