4. The European Constitution

By Ron Dorman

My talk today is about the draft European Constitution that the European Convention on the Future of Europe has been discussing for about a year.

The European Convention has been meeting under the presidency of Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, and has now produced a draft Constitution for Europe.

But to begin at the beginning let me tell you how the Convention has been set up. Apart from Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the president, there is a Praesidium consisting of 14 Vice-Presidents, one of whom is Birmingham Labour MP Gisela Stuart. The Convention membership consists of 105 in all; two representatives from each national parliament of the Member and Applicant States, one representative from each national government and representatives of the European Parliament and the EU Commission. Our government representative is Peter Hain, Minister for Wales, and our Parliament’s Representatives are David Heathcoat-Amery and Gisela Stuart. Eighty per cent of the members of the Convention are federalists who want a more centralised supranational EU that will be a world power in its own right. This cannot but lead to further loss of national democracy and independence - the very basis of all our rights. It may also bring conflict with the existing sole superpower, the USA, because it wants to challenge the USA not on the imperialist policies it pursues but because the EU wants to compete with the US in imperialist ventures for resources.

The people of no EU country have asked for an EU constitution and they are not being properly informed about what is taking place. Nor will the people of Britain have a chance to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to anything proposed – this right is reserved for Parliament.

As so much time and effort is being given over to the constitution it is worth asking what is a constitution. According to Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus it is ‘the fundamental principles on which a state is governed, esp. when considered as embodying the rights of subjects’ as this one does.

So to have a constitution for the EU means 1) it is a state in the making otherwise a constitution is not required 2) we are all subjects of that state although we have never been asked whether we wish to be so. In plain English it is being imposed from the top and we, the people, are expected to acquiesce.

There is yet another point regarding the Constitution. The EU Convention debating the issue is calling it a Constitutional Treaty. The argument of those in favour of a super European state is that they are merely trying to simplify the Rome Treaty, the Single European Act, the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice Treaties and replace them with the Constitution. If that is the case the existing EU treaties should be repealed as they were agreed by their respective parliaments (and some cases by referendums) but there is no mention of that being done. It also raises the question of whether there can be such a thing as a constitutional treaty? We have already seen that a constitution relates to the principles on which a state, for example Britain, is governed but treaties do not do this they govern relations between states. Clearly therefore a treaty and a constitution cannot be mixed but the politicians and their legal experts know that better than me.

It is instructive to note what Gisela Stuart is reported by The Independent (13 March) to have said about the Constitution. It quotes her as saying ‘It could make the EU more bureaucratic, complicated and remote from its voters. She went on to say ‘I am by birth a Bavarian, I know what it is like to be a Bavarian; I am by choice British, I know what it is like to be British. The argument is that, if you strip out my birth and my Britishness I will become a true European. I think this is opening a Pandora’s Box’.

The question arises as to why so much time has been spent on producing the draft Constitution. The reason is that the EU is well advanced in the creation of a superstate. Look at the facts. The EU already has many of the features of a federal state where governmental power is divided between the federal EU institutions, national and provincial (regional) levels and EU law takes precedence over national law. It has its own Judiciary (Eurojust and Court of Justice) and embryonic police force (Europol) and a common arrest warrant. The EU has clearly defined borders, free movement within them and its own immigration and asylum policy. It has its own currency, monetary and economic policy and CFSP, is developing an army (Rapid Reaction Force) and we are all citizens of the EU whether we know it or not. As you can see there is not much more to be done in setting up the state when the constitution is in place.

The EU Constitution is set to supersede our own unwritten constitution. This is clear from a report by Thomas Ferencji that appeared in Le Monde on 13 April. It said a phrase has recently been inserted into the text of the draft Constitution which specifies that EU law trumps national law. Peter Hain, the British government representative on the Convention, tried to stop this sentence being inserted because he said that public opinion would misunderstand it. But Jean-Duc Dehaene, one of the Convention’s Vice-Presidents retorted: ‘Your problem is that you are afraid of saying clearly to European citizens just what the European Union is’. Peter Hain gave in and the sentence was inserted.

I now come on to some of the articles in the draft Constitution to illustrate what I mean.

Article 1 refers to the decision to establish ‘a Union of European States which, while retaining their national identities, closely co-ordinate their policies at the European level, and administer certain common competencies on a federal basis.

This the first time ‘federal’ has crept into EU documents as far as I know. Also note it talks of retaining national identities but not about national independence. Obviously national identity can be accommodated in a federal state but by its nature national independence cannot. The article goes on to state the ‘Union is open to all European States which share the same values and commit themselves to promote them jointly’

Reference to closely co-ordinated policies should be carefully noted. Till now Member States were only required co-operate on policy issues therefore the new wording represents a major step towards integration.

Article 5 is about Union citizenship. It states that every citizen of a Member State is a citizen of the Union and enjoys dual citizenship. ‘The article establishes the principle that there shall be no discrimination between citizens of the Union on grounds of nationality’.

From this statement it would appear that a foreign national could become Prime Minister of Britain, an MP or a Judge and our national rights could become acquirable automatically by nationals of any other EU State as we could theirs. It should be noted this is not stated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Article 6 aims to make the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was politically endorsed in Declaration 23 of the Nice Treaty, binding in EU law as part of the Union State Constitution. Fundamental Rights are at the heart of national constitutions but do we want this one? The only reason for seeking to give the EU a human rights competence is a desire to turn the EU into a state, with a Constitution and human rights code that gives its Supreme Court, the ECJ, the final say over what our rights are. This would be a powerful weapon for subordinating national local courts and constitutions to central control. We have already seen what havoc EU directives, that is laws, have done to agriculture, fisheries and the railways and now the Post Office without going further down this road.

Yet there is more. Charter Article 25 is about Rights of the Elderly to live with dignity and independence but says nothing about funding to ensure these aims are fulfilled. But we all know the plight of care for the elderly due to underfunding which is a national scandal.

Under Charter Article 52, Scope of Guaranteed Rights, it says: ‘Subject to the principle of proportionality, limitations may be made only if they are necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union and the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others. Given that the general rights of the Union are more important than the fundamental rights these rights are not so fundamental after all!

Article 8 of the Constitution sets out the obligation of loyal co-operation of Member States vis-à-vis the Union, and the principle that the acts of the EU Institutions are implemented by the Member States. This EU obligation of loyalty shows the constitutional/political superiority of the Union over Member States and the federal character of the Union.

Article 38 states that the Union budget is to be fully financed by own resources and sets out the procedure for establishing it. This seems to imply the end of national contributions by governments to the EU and total reliance instead on levies and taxes, such as VAT, imposed directly on EU citizens and enterprises thus making the EU independent of Member States as in a federal state. It should be remembered VAT is an EU imposed regressive tax that hits lower paid people most, a tax imposed on all new Member States, and has yet to be fully harmonised under existing EU directives and will mean people in Britain paying more VAT than at present.

Article 30 of the Constitution ‘would set out implementing procedures in the sphere of common defence policy’. The Amsterdam and Nice treaties empower the EU to engage in military actions beyond its borders, ie to take offensive action, but this is only likely to happen if it suits the larger Member States. For example, I cannot imagine the EU going to war because Luxembourg feels aggrieved over an issue with another country outside the EU although Luxembourg, Belgium, France and Germany announced on 30 April they had agreed to form a common defence. France, one of the countries in the common defence system, possesses nuclear weapons, a weapon of mass destruction, that should be destroyed. What is good enough for Iraq is good enough for the EU, America, Russia and any other country. The world in 2003 is a very dangerous place and must be made safer.

Article 34 claims to set out the principle of participatory democracy where the Institutions are to ensure a high level of openness, permitting citizens’ organisations of all kinds to play a full part in the Union’s affairs. Anyone who knows anything about the way the EU operates will tell you this is using the word democracy to hide the true nature of the EU. Article 18 gives a truer picture of the reality the EU envisaged. This article states that the unelected Commission will retain a legislative monopoly of initiative and act as the guardian of the treaties. It confers on the Commission President powers similar to those of a Prime Minister with the right to shuffle cabinet portfolios, require the resignation of Commissioners and for him to have a to have a significant role in their nomination.

The draft Constitution is envisaged as being divided between fundamental and non-fundamental elements with the former called Part 1: Constitutional Structure, requiring treaty ratification for any subsequent amendment, and the latter, Part 2: Union policies and their implementation, which may not require that. It has been suggested that States that do not ratify the Union Constitution should be forced to leave the Union or have some other type of relationship with it. This could mean that some Member States could accept the Constitution under enhanced co-operation provided for in the Nice Treaty but remain optional for others. The aim is to get the Constitution signed in Rome in December.

It is clear from what I have said that, whatever the future of Britain, it cannot be independent unless it breaks free from the EU and democracy cannot function. Only where countries have national independence is democracy possible.

The lesson is clear; Britain must withdraw from the European Union as soon as possible if we are to retain what is left of our freedoms. But we must do more than that, we must regain what has been lost and further improve on the democracy we had before Britain entered the EU. This means urgently explaining to our people what is taking place and to do that we need all democrats to help build a mass organisation.