The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : BRAVO EUROPE

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Monday, Jun 21, 2004

Opinion

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BRAVO EUROPE

AFTER SEVERAL SETBACKS, the European Union now has an achievement that it can be proud of — an agreement among the 25, often fractious, member-states on a Constitution. Arrived at after two days of hard-headed bargaining that bordered on the snappish, the Constitution aims to simplify decision-making in an expanded Union. Following its ratification by all the members — in six of those, including Britain, by referendum — the Constitution will replace four cumbersome treaties that now govern the E.U. and were designed for the smaller 15-member club it was until recently. As much as it clearly demarcates the lines of policy-making between the E.U. and the Governments of its constituents, the 333-page document is a massive stride towards the vision of European integration. The achievement is all the more laudable considering that the two-day summit at which the Heads of Government agreed on the final draft was held in the shadow of the European Parliament election, the first after the E.U. enlargement in May. Unfavourable to several ruling parties across the continent and favourable to eurosceptics and europhobes in Britain and Poland, the election was expected to make a deal on the Constitution difficult. It is to the credit of the leaders who assembled at Brussels that despite their electoral bruising, they were able to arrive at a groundbreaking consensus on a crucial issue for the Union.

In a sense, the leaders had no choice. The alternative was to place the credibility of the European Union and, in fact, the very vision behind it on the line. A summit on the Constitution last December ended in disarray because of fundamental disagreements on how much sovereignty each member-state was ready to cede to the E.U. by way of voting rights and, in the case of Britain particularly, vetoes on issues such as taxation, foreign policy, and national security. If the collapse of those negotiations raised doubts about political will for integration across the continent, the European Parliament elections were another blow. But aside from the fact that voters used the opportunity to punish their Governments and that political parties hostile to integration made gains, the elections revealed shocking levels of apathy among Europeans for the idea of Europe. Just over 45 per cent of the electorate — the lowest since 1979 — turned out to vote in the elections that were held between June 10 and June 13. The turnout was lowest in the newest member-countries that had only last year voted enthusiastically to join the Union. It prompted a European Commission statement that unless Europe became the arena for decisions that had a direct impact on the life of Europeans, "one can hardly expect to involve people convincingly." The leaders, especially those spearheading the efforts at integration, must have been acutely conscious that a failure to agree on the Constitution this time would only add to the Union's existential woes.

Of course, this does not mean the end of all battles within the European Union. The public name-calling between France and Britain over who should become the next European Commission president, which resulted in the summit postponing the decision, shows that the friction between E.U. constituents will continue as long as there are contentious and rivalling national interests. Talks for admitting Turkey into the club, which may be held next year, are likely to set off more feuding. But by finalising the Constitution, which is at the heart of integration, the member-states have demonstrated that the rumours about the death of a unified Europe are (as Mark Twain famously observed after reading his obituary in the press) "greatly exaggerated."

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