The Observer, February 25, 2005
Volume XXXVII, Issue 19
Buffalo Bias: European Union ill prepared for new constitution
President Bush spent most of this week in Europe, where he has been debating policy with his European counterparts. Regardless of our personal views of Mr. Bush, it's clear that he is representing our country, but who is representing Europe? Individual heads of state? The European Union? The answer has proven to be elusive and ambiguous at best.
On this side of the Atlantic, we tend to refer to Europe as a single entity, but despite the fact that Europe has been moving closer together since the end of World War II, it remains anything but homogeneous, and complete cohesion is not likely to be coming any time soon.
Recently, however, speculation about the future of Europe has taken on a more immediate tone: the 25 member states of the EU have started the process of approving a new European constitution.
The constitution was signed last October, but it is essentially worthless until all 25 members of the EU have individually approved it. The deadline for ratification is November 2006, which is not as far off as it sounds, and several member states have begun the process. Slovenia, Lithuania, and Hungary have already ratified the constitution by parliamentary approval; Spain approved the document last Sunday in a nationwide referendum.
At first glance, these approvals appear to bode well for final ratification, but the actual picture is much more complex. Spain has benefited from EU subsidies, so its relatively easy (77 percent) approval of the constitution follows naturally. However, voter turnout in Sunday's referendum was not much more than 40 percent, given that a large percentage (nine of 10 people in a recent poll) had no idea what was actually in the mammoth treaty.
So, President Bush met with French president Jacques Chirac, German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British prime minister Tony Blair, and Russian president Vladimir Putin. But he also became the first U.S. president to hold parallel talks with EU leaders. (I say "EU leaders" because that is how the BBC's website identified them; the use of such a vague term is indicative of the fact that pan-European consciousness lags behind bureaucracy.)
Whether the Brussels meetings will serve as the inflection point in European integration remains to be seen; reading too much into them is overly optimistic. Just because the EU (whose membership does not extend to all of Europe) is being treated as a single entity does not mean that it actually is one. Europe is still very heterogeneous – in language, in politics, in economic and social policy – and if all these differences are to be overcome, it will take a long time. The aim of the EU has never been to make Europe a cookie-cutter society, but serious extant differences in policy and vision cannot be glossed over by three of 25 ratifications.
If the constitution does pass, its impact may well be mitigated. What the constitution aims to do is streamline policy-making: it will loosen the requirements for reaching a majority and for unanimity in the European Commission, and it will make the rotating presidency a permanent position. It will not change the right of nations to opt out or veto provisions they do not like. Countries can opt out of certain requirements before agreeing to EU treaties – Denmark in particular is famous for its stubbornness – and thus reduce the uniformity of the treaty's application. However, even if passed, the constitution will not signal unity: the new EU foreign minister will only be able to promulgate foreign policy agreed upon and approved by all 25 member states, which, frankly, seems a bit much to ask.
So far, the trend has been to add additional layers of bureaucracy without removing existing ones; that is, EU laws supersede some but not all of national legislation, and new EU agencies that are created do not always replace corresponding national agencies but rather exist in addition to them.
For these reasons and others which vary from country to country, it takes a long time to enact sweeping new policies in the European Union. There is precedent for delay: the major treaties in place now – the Treaty of Nice and the Treaty of Maastricht – were initially rejected.
There is no consensus even among those who oppose the constitution – some think it does not go far enough in integrating Europe, and some think it goes too far. Some balk at the prospect of a continent-wide legal system or the continued ceding of fishing rights.
The past year has already brought significant changes to the European Union – namely, the addition of 10 new members who will be the recipients and not the providers of aid from the European Central Bank. Moving quickly to solidify this new EU could be a wise decision; it could also be an immense failure.
It's been 50 years since European integration began, but passing a European constitution next year still seems premature.
