Blair prepares for Rome
Heads of government will meet today in Rome at the start of a demanding set of consultations to finalise the EU’s first constitution.
Italy, which holds the rotating European presidency, wants to end negotiations under its governance by year end.
Next year 10 new member states will join the EU, enlarging membership from the 15 nations at present.
But outcome of internal wranglings among the 25 leaders at the intergovernmental conference is likely to reshape the draft to some degree.
The Treaty aims to make the EU “more democratic, more transparent and more efficient.”
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president who chaired the Convention on the Future of Europe which plotted the outline of the draft treaty fours month ago, was confident the treaty he helped create last June would survive the IGC negotiations.
Mr d’Estaing’s told EU leaders to leave the Convention alone. “As it is now, if the constitution were put to a referendum, it would be widely accepted. If we were putting forward a bad draft, I would not be so confident,” he said.
Jacques Delors, the former European Commission president, said yesterday: “If everyone fiddles about with 5 per cent, it won’t work.”
Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have backed Mr Giscard’s plan.
But 17 smaller member states have expressed concern about the balance of power between big and small nations. They have demanded the right to continue sending a commissioner to the EU executive in Brussels.
Under the draft, the European Commission will lose some commissioners.
Smaller countries also want to curtail the powers of the new president of the European Council.
Britain and Ireland want to retain the national veto in the area of tax, social security and criminal law and the budget rebate.
The UK also wants further clarification on the EU defence policy’s impact on Nato.
Tory foreign affairs spokesman said Friday that his part would campaign for a referendum on the proposed EU constitution.
The document was far from being a “tidying-up exercise,” he argued.
“The Government has copped out on this. They have decided they’ve sold out on this and they are not going to see much change.
“It is quite extraordinary that Spain is going to have a referendum, Ireland is going to have a referendum, Denmark is going to have a referendum, possibly France is going to have a referendum.
“Yet in this country the British people, according to this government, are not sensible enough to be allowed to choose.
“I think that is disgraceful and we will campaign to try to turn that round.”
