New Constitution to Make EU More Decisive on Joint Policies
By BRANDON MITCHENER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BRUSSELS -- Europe would be able to act more decisively in key areas under a new European Union Constitution taking shape this week.
The draft constitution lays the groundwork for the soon-to-be-25-nation EU gradually to become an economic and political superpower that could rival the U.S. For example, it would have a new foreign minister who could coordinate joint policies on issues such as weapons of mass destruction, which divided Europe before the Iraq war. It also could boost the EU's ability to combat international terrorism, fight protectionism and prevent the spread of SARS-like public-health threats.
At the same time, in a bid to win support from nations that fear a European juggernaut that would trample their individual interests, the constitution spells out more clearly that the EU draws its power from sovereign nation-states whose policies the union is designed to reinforce -- not replace.
"These are proposals that build bridges," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Friday, following a week of tense discussions intended to build consensus on the need to strengthen the union's ability to act.
He and many other delegates to the EU constitutional convention hailed the prospect of simplified voting rules that could eventually eliminate national vetoes in all areas of EU policy making, including tax and defense matters. The vetoes, which have allowed single countries to block initiatives ranging from international peacekeeping operations to tax collection, have long been the biggest stumbling block to the union's effectiveness.
Under compromise proposals to be presented this week to the 105 convention delegates, the union also would get a high-level chairman, elected by heads of state and government for as long as five years, to replace its current confusing, rotating six-month presidency. The union's bigger countries hope the chairman -- who likely would be a former head of state or government -- will provide greater continuity in dealings with other nations.
To assuage smaller countries, the constitution also strengthens the role of the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, which they regard as the main champion of their interests. Successors to the current commission president, Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister, would have greater say in setting the union's strategic priorities and managing the commission.
Eventually, these two leadership positions could evolve into a single, even more powerful president, under a change worked out last week that would allow the commission president one day to run the EU executive branch, as well as lead EU summits and represent the union abroad to other heads of state.
The convention has until Friday to make changes to the draft constitution before it is presented to EU heads of state and government next week. EU governments also can make changes before submitting it to national parliaments for ratification. The constitution isn't likely to come into force for two to three years, and majority voting wouldn't start until 2009 at the earliest. Still, the current draft enjoys widespread support and spells out big changes ahead in how the EU operates. Here is a rundown of highlights:
Security
A recent poll requested by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who heads the constitutional convention, showed two-thirds of Europeans favor a joint foreign policy and three-quarters a joint defense policy.
The constitution wouldn't create a European army or allow any EU official to send national troops into war under an EU flag anytime soon. But it would create a European armaments-procurement agency that could reduce duplication and inefficiency created by incompatibilities in national procurement systems. "What makes it very difficult to do things together in Europe is if you have three tanks and two different fighter planes," said Inigo Mendez de Vigo, a member of the European Parliament who sits on the convention's steering committee. "This is a way of integrating the armies without integrating them" and a necessary precondition to more-ambitious joint defense initiatives.
While that could result in better-outfitted armed forces to help the U.S. and other allies in world crises, U.S. defense contractors worry it also could lead to preferences for European armament suppliers.
The constitution would replace two EU special envoy positions with a single, more powerful EU foreign minister who could advance proposals on common policies such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. His proposals could eventually be subject to a majority vote, as opposed to the current unanimity requirement, which allows countries to block EU initiatives indefinitely. EU diplomats say one reason the union's members clashed over Iraq was that the EU didn't have a stated policy on weapons of mass destruction -- the reason cited by the U.S. and U.K. for intervening there.
An expanded use of majority voting, meanwhile, could prevent "abuse" of national vetoes, Germany's Mr. Fischer told fellow EU government ministers last week, referring to situations such as a recent yearlong standoff between Greece and the rest of the EU that delayed the creation of an EU rapid-reaction force for peacekeeping operations.
The new voting rules also apply to immigration, asylum policy and border controls. That would make it easier for the EU to fight terrorism and cross-border organized crime such as smuggling illegal immigrants. It also would help the U.S. and other countries pursue terrorists across borders by negotiating EU-wide treaties on such issues as extraditing suspected terrorists and exchanging airline passenger lists, rather than hammering out agreements with individual countries.
Under the compromise, most issues could be decided by a simple majority, provided the votes also represented 60% of the EU's population. Vetoes on tax and defense matters -- still strongly defended by the U.K. and others -- wouldn't be replaced unless all member states agreed, and then the threshold for approving EU-wide initiatives would initially be higher, requiring two-thirds of EU member-states and 80% of the union's population.
The Economy
The constitution calls for expansion of majority voting in some areas of economic policy that have long been subject to national vetoes, including energy and rules governing patents, opening the door to increased competition. In the past, for example, national vetoes have slowed the opening of protected national electricity markets.
Individual countries still could use vetoes to block EU action in tax policy, social-security policy and public health care for the foreseeable future, but Mr. Giscard d'Estaing hopes EU governments would agree to a clause that would allow those areas, too, to be subject to majority voting one day, without the need for a constitutional amendment. Majority rule in tax matters would have prevented Italy, for example, from holding up an EU initiative to fight tax evasion until Italy got its way on an unrelated issue involving milk quotas.
Public Health
The European Commission has long complained that the EU has more weapons to fight chicken flu -- or other animal ailments that only indirectly affect humans -- than to fight bioterrorism or diseases in humans such as severe acute respiratory syndrome. That is largely because member states were leery of the union dictating how to run hospitals and public-health systems, many of which are state-owned.
Jolted by the specter of bioterrorist attacks, the constitution's authors decided -- with member-states' blessing -- to include public-health matters in the list of policies where the EU shares legislative and executive power with national governments. An exact description of the union's authority in that area is still being drafted, but people familiar with the matter say the proposals would open the door to the creation of a European Center for Disease Control and possibly even allow EU health authorities to quarantine an entire country in the event of an epidemic such as SARS.
Write to Brandon Mitchener at brandon.mitchener@wsj.com
_______________
Крайно време е за Европейски Съединени Щати, с Евробуш, Еврочейни и Европауъл
By BRANDON MITCHENER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BRUSSELS -- Europe would be able to act more decisively in key areas under a new European Union Constitution taking shape this week.
The draft constitution lays the groundwork for the soon-to-be-25-nation EU gradually to become an economic and political superpower that could rival the U.S. For example, it would have a new foreign minister who could coordinate joint policies on issues such as weapons of mass destruction, which divided Europe before the Iraq war. It also could boost the EU's ability to combat international terrorism, fight protectionism and prevent the spread of SARS-like public-health threats.
At the same time, in a bid to win support from nations that fear a European juggernaut that would trample their individual interests, the constitution spells out more clearly that the EU draws its power from sovereign nation-states whose policies the union is designed to reinforce -- not replace.
"These are proposals that build bridges," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Friday, following a week of tense discussions intended to build consensus on the need to strengthen the union's ability to act.
He and many other delegates to the EU constitutional convention hailed the prospect of simplified voting rules that could eventually eliminate national vetoes in all areas of EU policy making, including tax and defense matters. The vetoes, which have allowed single countries to block initiatives ranging from international peacekeeping operations to tax collection, have long been the biggest stumbling block to the union's effectiveness.
Under compromise proposals to be presented this week to the 105 convention delegates, the union also would get a high-level chairman, elected by heads of state and government for as long as five years, to replace its current confusing, rotating six-month presidency. The union's bigger countries hope the chairman -- who likely would be a former head of state or government -- will provide greater continuity in dealings with other nations.
To assuage smaller countries, the constitution also strengthens the role of the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, which they regard as the main champion of their interests. Successors to the current commission president, Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister, would have greater say in setting the union's strategic priorities and managing the commission.
Eventually, these two leadership positions could evolve into a single, even more powerful president, under a change worked out last week that would allow the commission president one day to run the EU executive branch, as well as lead EU summits and represent the union abroad to other heads of state.
The convention has until Friday to make changes to the draft constitution before it is presented to EU heads of state and government next week. EU governments also can make changes before submitting it to national parliaments for ratification. The constitution isn't likely to come into force for two to three years, and majority voting wouldn't start until 2009 at the earliest. Still, the current draft enjoys widespread support and spells out big changes ahead in how the EU operates. Here is a rundown of highlights:
Security
A recent poll requested by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who heads the constitutional convention, showed two-thirds of Europeans favor a joint foreign policy and three-quarters a joint defense policy.
The constitution wouldn't create a European army or allow any EU official to send national troops into war under an EU flag anytime soon. But it would create a European armaments-procurement agency that could reduce duplication and inefficiency created by incompatibilities in national procurement systems. "What makes it very difficult to do things together in Europe is if you have three tanks and two different fighter planes," said Inigo Mendez de Vigo, a member of the European Parliament who sits on the convention's steering committee. "This is a way of integrating the armies without integrating them" and a necessary precondition to more-ambitious joint defense initiatives.
While that could result in better-outfitted armed forces to help the U.S. and other allies in world crises, U.S. defense contractors worry it also could lead to preferences for European armament suppliers.
The constitution would replace two EU special envoy positions with a single, more powerful EU foreign minister who could advance proposals on common policies such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. His proposals could eventually be subject to a majority vote, as opposed to the current unanimity requirement, which allows countries to block EU initiatives indefinitely. EU diplomats say one reason the union's members clashed over Iraq was that the EU didn't have a stated policy on weapons of mass destruction -- the reason cited by the U.S. and U.K. for intervening there.
An expanded use of majority voting, meanwhile, could prevent "abuse" of national vetoes, Germany's Mr. Fischer told fellow EU government ministers last week, referring to situations such as a recent yearlong standoff between Greece and the rest of the EU that delayed the creation of an EU rapid-reaction force for peacekeeping operations.
The new voting rules also apply to immigration, asylum policy and border controls. That would make it easier for the EU to fight terrorism and cross-border organized crime such as smuggling illegal immigrants. It also would help the U.S. and other countries pursue terrorists across borders by negotiating EU-wide treaties on such issues as extraditing suspected terrorists and exchanging airline passenger lists, rather than hammering out agreements with individual countries.
Under the compromise, most issues could be decided by a simple majority, provided the votes also represented 60% of the EU's population. Vetoes on tax and defense matters -- still strongly defended by the U.K. and others -- wouldn't be replaced unless all member states agreed, and then the threshold for approving EU-wide initiatives would initially be higher, requiring two-thirds of EU member-states and 80% of the union's population.
The Economy
The constitution calls for expansion of majority voting in some areas of economic policy that have long been subject to national vetoes, including energy and rules governing patents, opening the door to increased competition. In the past, for example, national vetoes have slowed the opening of protected national electricity markets.
Individual countries still could use vetoes to block EU action in tax policy, social-security policy and public health care for the foreseeable future, but Mr. Giscard d'Estaing hopes EU governments would agree to a clause that would allow those areas, too, to be subject to majority voting one day, without the need for a constitutional amendment. Majority rule in tax matters would have prevented Italy, for example, from holding up an EU initiative to fight tax evasion until Italy got its way on an unrelated issue involving milk quotas.
Public Health
The European Commission has long complained that the EU has more weapons to fight chicken flu -- or other animal ailments that only indirectly affect humans -- than to fight bioterrorism or diseases in humans such as severe acute respiratory syndrome. That is largely because member states were leery of the union dictating how to run hospitals and public-health systems, many of which are state-owned.
Jolted by the specter of bioterrorist attacks, the constitution's authors decided -- with member-states' blessing -- to include public-health matters in the list of policies where the EU shares legislative and executive power with national governments. An exact description of the union's authority in that area is still being drafted, but people familiar with the matter say the proposals would open the door to the creation of a European Center for Disease Control and possibly even allow EU health authorities to quarantine an entire country in the event of an epidemic such as SARS.
Write to Brandon Mitchener at brandon.mitchener@wsj.com
_______________
Крайно време е за Европейски Съединени Щати, с Евробуш, Еврочейни и Европауъл
а и вчера тези гадове британците решиха да си отложат референдума за еврото с цяла година...хм Блеър бил про-евро настроен, дрън дрън, ми да си уволни министъра на финансите тогава :roll:
, то и за самите европейци не е много хубаво, защото много им се оскъпява търговията с Америка...чудя се дали този долар не е някакъв американски трик, заради проблемите в търговията между ЕС и САЩ със стоманата например, заради протекционизма на Щатите и заради санкциите, които ги очакват от СТО, точно поради тази причина...конспирации пак :twisted:
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