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Building a bigger Europe
By CNN's Robin Oakley
LONDON, England -- The European Union is not likely to be renamed the United States of Europe, one of the ideas in the first skeleton version of a constitution for the European Union. Although the suggested name change -- other possibles listed include Europe United and the existing European Union -- has been the focus of controversy it is only one small element in a package which will have Europe debating for months. The skeleton constitution is being being drawn up by a 105-member Convention led by former French Prime Minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing. (Full story) Giscard's convention is seeking to frame a constitution for the new enlarged Europe of 25-plus nations envisaged after 2004. Its aim is to revitalise Europe's institutions to cope in the bigger Europe and to define which tasks should be performed by supra-national institutions and which should be reserved for the nation states. The convention is suggesting an early warning system to protect "subsidiarity", the idea that decisions should be taken at the closest level possible to the citizen, whether local, regional, national parliaments or in supra-national bodies. In addition it hopes to define a legal identity for the EU which would enable it to sign treaties and send representatives to international bodies. The convention wants to determine how the EU can best be represented in the wider world. In essence, Giscard and his team are seeking to answer the question once posed by Henry Kissinger: "What is Europe's telephone number?" -- i.e. when the rest of the world wants to have a definitive view of Europe's response to a situation, who does it call? One early suggestion from the convention is that citizens in EU member countries should have dual nationality, both as citizens of the EU and of their own countries. Another is that EU member countries should have a voluntary "exit route" to leave the EU if they do not like the way it is developing. Less likely to find wide favour is the idea of creating yet another European institution a "Congress", composed of the European Parliament and members of national legislatures, to go alongside the decision-making European Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. The early text also mentions a fixed President for the European Council, the gathering of national leaders. This would put an end to the six month rotating presidency of the Council at present , which frequently results in the EU changing the balance of its agenda every half year. But smaller countries are less keen on the idea, which they fear would lead to big-state domination. Valery Giscard d'Estaing has been known to compare the convention's work with that of the founding fathers of the United States. That is too grand a concept for many EU leaders, but the convention does suggest that the EU should enshrine its charter of rights for citizens in its constitution. The early skeleton draft of the convention's work is to be fleshed out in the months ahead and presented to the EU summit due in June. One key aim, after the low turnout in many countries in the last round of European Parliament elections, and in the first Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty, is to make Europe's institutions more open, relevant and appealing. But most of those concerned recognise that that will be an uphill slog unlikely to end in June.
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