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Flogging A Dead Horse
All successful businessmen know that when a trade-mark brand does not attract customers, the next step forward is to sell the same goods but under a different name.
So, it appears, is the current plot concerning what was know as the European Constitution. Its new guise is expected to be a conversion to the EU's "basic law" charter.
The name-change from constitution to "basic law" is designed to win over those sceptics in France and the Netherlands who voted against the former plan just over one year ago.
Denmark, Poland and the Czech Republic have made clear no intention to ratify an EU constitution. Both Britain - whose prime minister Tony Blair promised its citizens a referendum - and Ireland have also put plans to progress with the treaty on hold. Blair has not declared the constitution dead, however, preferring instead to allow other EU members state the obvious: The constitution cannot become law unless it is approved by all 25 member states. The Economist, in a wide-ranging survey of the state of Europe a year after the treaty was rejected notes that provisions do exist to call a meeting if the constitution was passed by all but a few states, but its rejection by important, founder EU members such as France and the Netherlands dooms any attempt to sideline refuseniks into a "second division" Europe.
Erkki Tuomioja, the foreign minister of Finland, whose country takes over the rotating EU presidency in July says: "Everybody agrees it was a mistake to call it a constitution".
European heads of government, grappling with the muddle claim that the EU cannot function with 25 members under the the rules that exist. That number is to rise to 27 in the next two years - and when other members from the Balkan states and Turkey begin knocking on the door in the early years of the next decade, pressure to come up with a new document will become more intense.
The moribund constitution, designed by a committee chaired by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, would have linked a country's voting rights more closely to its population size. Hence Germany's keen support for the treaty - as the EU's largest member, it would have more power. Current voting rights put the Germans on a level footing with Britain, France and Italy, while Spain and Poland are (the Germans say) unfairly over-represented. The treaty would also reform (or abolish) the idea of rotating
presidencies.
German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir has told correspondents in Brussels that the rebranded version would retain these changes: However, Poland's new government has declared that it does not recognise voting rights concessions granted by the previous administration during treaty negotiations. Protests from Spain and Poland on voting rights threatened to derail the treaty when heads of government met to sign the document in late 2004.
Going through the back door to achieve much the same result will not convince the electorate of key European nations. France and Holland would resist attempts to force their citizens to vote again, even on a revised or stripped-down treaty. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any future French president calling a referendum on EU issues in future, unless he or she wanted to derail an EU project (Chirac has promised one on Turkey's membership; it is not inconceivable that his successor would threaten to put any liberalising measures emanating from the EU to the French people).
Euroscepticism is on the rise, still, in Holland and France. Despite the new Italian government under EU-friendly former commission president Romano Prodi, it's possible that as in France, the EU will be blamed for liberal reforms, and scepticism will rise there too. If the EU remains hell-bent on granting Turkey membership of the EU against the wishes of some countries where anti-Turkey feeling runs high, then protests could hit EU ratings. If there is anyone with an ounce of sense in the Council of Ministers and the European Commission they would recognise that if and when any new treaty or "basic law" is put to the ballot-box, its chances are slim.
