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Since the European Council of June, 2007, the
British government has asserted with increasing insistence that
it will not hold a referendum on the European Reform Treaty likely
to be signed at the European Council in December. Its opponents
argue with equally increasing fervour that the likely contents of
the new Treaty will be so similar to those of the abandoned European
Constitutional Treaty that the British referendum promised by Mr
Blair for that original text should logically also be conceded for
the new document. This is a specifically British debate, at least
as much Britain's current position within the European Union as
about the future supposedly ushered in by the Reform Treaty.
In reality, the Reform Treaty will be a relatively
small step in the process of the European Union's institutional
development, marking neither a major development in that process
nor a substantial change of direction. Those generally content with
the present condition of the European Union will find little in
it either to disconcert them or arouse immoderate enthusiasm. Those
fundamentally opposed to the current workings of the European Union
will rightly regard the Reform Treaty as another step in the European
integrative process which began with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
Underlying the surprisingly speedy settlement reached by the European
Council in June was a definite sense among many heads of government
that confidence in the European Union, both externally and internally,
was being undermined by institutional debates which were not themselves
of crucial importance. A relatively compressed ratification procedure,
with only a very limited number of referendums appearing likely,
will have been a considerable attraction for many heads of government
of the Reform Treaty they have now agreed in outline.
If in itself the Reform Treaty will not mark any
significant watershed in the European Union's development, the political
process from which it arises is one full of lessons for the Union's
future. For those most involved in the European Constitutional Convention
which produced the first draft of the European Constitutional Treaty,the
agreement of the European Council in June will have come as an especial
disappointment, since so much of the systematising and consolidating
work of the Convention to produce the Constitutional Treaty has
now fallen by the wayside. One lesson that might be drawn from that
chastening experience is that for the foreseeable future it will
be very difficult for the European Union to proceed other than incrementally
in its institutional deepening. In a Union of twenty seven members,
the lowest common denominator may well be the only basis on which
ratifiable agreements can be achieved.
Those member states of the European Union which
would ideally have preferred to go further, faster in their institutional
integration even than the original Constitutional Treaty are unlikely
be able to do so within the framework of the European Union for
many years to come, or perhaps ever, unless they resort to those
arrangements for "enhanced co-operation" which the Reform
Treaty contains. The political and technical difficulties associated
with such arrangements are, however, still formidable. It may well
be that even the most integration-minded member states will now
be content over the coming decade to make the greatest possible
use of the substantial integrationist momentum already contained
in such instruments as the Schengen Area, Justice and Home Affairs
and the Eurozone, all instruments on which the United Kingdom can
only exercise a limited restraining influence. Nor should the integrative
possibilities of the European internal market (broadly defined)
be forgotten. Environmental, trade and energy policy are all areas
of growing competence for the European Union. Those who feared or
hoped that the French and Dutch referendums of 2005 marked an end
to the integrative process which as the heart of the European Union
are unlikely to see their hopes or fears confirmed by the realities
of the coming years.
Brendan Donnelly is Director of the Federal
Trust and Chair of Federal Union. The opinions expressed are those
of the author and not necessarily those of Federal Union or the
Federal Trust. 9 September 2007
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