Convention set to unveil European constitution
The Convention discussing Europe’s future was finalising its plans for a constitutional treaty today, after 16 months of gruelling work designed to streamline the expanding European Union.
Convention chairman Valery Giscard d’Estaing always hoped the result would be a definitive new rule book for running Europe, requiring little more than a nod of approval from EU leaders later this year.
He was over-optimistic: the “consensus” document which will be unveiled in a fanfare in Brussels today leaves a lot to be thrashed out in an “intergovernmental conference” which will be launched in October, running until next March at least.
But the collection of ideas in the “draft constitutional treaty” is seen something of a triumph for the 105 Convention members who have argued, sometimes bitterly, over a range of options, from cementing the EU as a collective of nation states to establishing a full-blown federal Europe, run from Brussels.
The Convention talks have been through even more changes, and the result is partly a re-writing of existing rules in simplified form, and partly new ideas designed to avoid gridlock when the current 15 member states are joined by 10 more next May.
The Convention draft will be delivered to EU leaders in Greece next week.
