The Treaty Establishing A Constitution for
Europe, a draft of which has just emerged from the constitutional
convention in Brussels, would, if adopted by the Council of Ministers,
be the coup de grace for the European nation states. If the Government
were to submit to such a constitution, it would be acquiescing
in the abolition of our parliamentary democracy and the creation
of a European superstate. The moment of truth, long feared by
Labour and Conservative governments, when Britain might have to
choose between EU membership and national independence, may soon
arrive.
Article 1 reads: "This constitution
establishes a Union within which the policies of the member states
shall be co-ordinated, and which shall administer certain common
competences on a federal basis." This bald assertion of federalism
may yet be amended as a sop to the British. The omission of "ever-closer
union", the Treaty of Rome's original definition of its purpose,
is being portrayed as a concession to British sensibilities. It
is nothing of the kind. Once the European federation is a fait
accompli, there is no need to invoke an ultimate aim that has
already been attained.
The weasel word in this treaty, however,
is not "federalism", but a phrase that sounds more innocuous:
"shared competence". This, its guiding constitutional
doctrine, states that, while the EU and the nation states may
share competence in domestic and foreign policy, the EU's policies
and laws must always have primacy. National governments and legislatures
may act only where the EU has chosen not to "exercise its
competence". Shared competence extends to foreign and defence
policy; to the economy, including monetary and fiscal policy;
to health, social security, transport, justice, agriculture, energy,
the environment and trade. The Charter of Fundamental Rights,
which Tony Blair said would never be binding, is "an integral
part of the Constitution".
This treaty amounts to a coup d'etat by
a clique of a coterie of a cabal. The text was drafted by a triumvirate
of arch-federalists: two commissioners, Michel Barnier of France
and Antonio Vitorino of Portugal, with the former Italian prime
minister Giuliano Amato. The other members of the praesidium -
including its chairman, Valery Giscard D'Estaing, and the British
representative, Gisela Stuart MP - agreed to it, ignoring the
rest of the convention.
Mr Blair now has a choice. He could
veto the treaty, in which case Britain could face exclusion from
full EU membership. Or he could put it to a referendum. The third
possibility - that he might sign it, even in a diluted form -
sounds unthinkable, yet it appears to be being thought. A prime
minister who condemned his country to puppet status would be unworthy
of his office.
