Thoughts on the

EU Constitution

Britain's referendum on the EU constitution was indefinitely postponed today, throwing the future of the treaty even further into doubt.
Although the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, insisted it was not for "one country alone" to determine the future of the constitution, he announced the government was shelving to hold a nationwide vote and incorporate the treaty into UK law.
The decision on a way forward for the treaty - rejected by the French and Dutch in national referendums - will now lie with this month's EU council of ministers summit, Mr Straw said.
But divergent views on how to proceed were already on show across Europe, as Poland's foreign minister said in Warsaw he expected his country's referendum to go ahead in the autumn. The French president, Jacques Chirac, has also called for other EU states to continue with their polls - with votes in sceptical Denmark and the Czech republic still to come.
In an emergency statement to MPs in the Commons, Mr Straw said: "Until the consequences of France and the Netherlands being unable to ratify the treaty are clarified, it would not in our judgment now be sensible to set a date for second reading."
He added: "We reserve completely the right to bring back the bill providing for a UK referendum should circumstances change. But we see no point in proceeding at this moment."
The European Union bill had already been introduced to the Commons, but no date had been set for its big "set-piece" debate on its second reading.
The foreign secretary today said there was a need for further discussions with EU partners and decisions from EU governments.
For the Tories, the shadow foreign secretary, Liam Fox, declared the constitution "dead", and said it would have been "bad for Britain and bad for Europe".
The former Army doctor - and potential Tory leadership candidate - joked: "I may no longer practice medicine, but I can tell a corpse when I see one, and this is a case for the morgue."
Mr Straw told the Commons the government had no intention of introducing the treaty's provisions by the "back door".
However he added that if the European commission or the council were to suggest the introduction by other means of specific measures which strengthened the role of national parliaments, it would be "absurd" to put those to a referendum and they should be agreed to straight away.
Neil O'Brien, a spokesman for the no campaign, said: "Jack Straw has today explicitly refused to give voters an assurance that the EU will not still implement parts of the constitution without a referendum.
"Just days after the no votes they are clearly thinking about how to go ahead by the back door."
Mr Straw warned a noisy House of Commons: "The EU does now face a period of difficulty. In working in our interests, and the Union's interests, we must not act in a way which undermines the EU's strengths and the achievements of five decades."
This morning the prime minister's official spokesman insisted Tony Blair was "not running away" from a referendum but said it did not "make sense" to press ahead after the French and Dutch no votes. No date for a British referendum had yet been set, it had been expected in spring 2006, making Britain one of the last member states to hold a referendum.
Today in Warsaw the Polish foreign minister, Adam Rotfeld, said his country's vote, pencilled in for the autumn, may take place on October 9 coinciding with presidential elections to ensure high turnout.
Earlier this morning Mr Blair's spokesman insisted Britain was not pre-empting the EU council later this month.
"What we are doing is reflecting the fact that we are in uncertain times," he said. "In uncertain times you should not just give a knee-jerk response." In the Commons', the Liberal Democrats called for three key segments of the constitution to be preserved.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, demanded that the council of ministers open up its proceedings by taking decisions about new EU laws in public. He also urged that million-strong "citizens' petitions" across the EU be considered for legislation and called for a review of decision-making at the lowest possible political level - the "subsidiarity priniciple".
Tony Blair takes over the revolving presidency of the EU on July 1, while a summit of EU leaders later this month is expected to make clear where the 25 members now stand on the constitution.
The constitution itself would create a permanent EU president, on a two-and-a-half year posting, a permanent foreign minister, a diplomatic corps and extend the policy areas for qualified majority voting (reducing member states vetoes).
However, a large number of French voters turned against the constitution for seemingly enshrining the pro-market "Lisbon agenda" of making the EU the most competitive economic block in the world at the expense of the traditional "social market" espoused by France and Germany.
Dutch voters were also concerned at the perceived reduction in powers for the EU's smaller states and for the knock-on effects of inflation from that county's adoption of the euro.
? Meanwhile, Britain's annual budget payment to the EU will this year be reduced by more than ?630m, the EU commission announced today.
The one-off sum is separate from the unique ?3bn rebate the UK receives each year, and is a reduction in Britain's gross payment, due to a new recalculation of the data on which contributions are based - growth rates, inflation, trade and exchange rates.
The British clawback of about ?630m is by far the biggest individual reduction, followed by a reduction of about ?225m for both Germany and Poland, ?110m for Spain and about ?40m for Ireland. The annual EU budget is around ?700bn.

Posted By: GripperStebson on June 7th 2005 at 00:38:02

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