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Back on track

The agreement reached by European Union leaders at the recent Lisbon summit on a new treaty for the 27 member states could end a six-year period of uncertainty over the political and institutional future of the world’s largest trading bloc. The so-called Reform Treaty, due for signing in December 2007, is a cleverly crafted substitute for the draft constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. While realistically abandoning the concept of a EU constitution, it addresses the complexities of decision-making and integration in an enlarged union. It sidesteps sensitive issues of national autonomy and identity that could turn volatile. The treaty envisages an elected (by qualified majority voting) president of the EU Council — comprising all the Heads of State and Government — for a two-and-a-half-year term instead of the current rotating six-monthly tenure. The provision for a more coherent articulation of foreign and security policies with full protection for the autonomy of member states, greater power to national parliaments to scrutinise common legislation, and giving up the principle of unanimity as the basis of decision-making in many areas are other advances. The Lisbon summit sealed difficult negotiations only after a provision safeguarding the right of countries to delay the implementation of majority decisions was included at the instance of Poland. While east European countries that used to belong to the Soviet bloc are in the process of completing reforms of their administration and democratic institutions, several west European nations face the challenge of maintaining competitiveness under conditions of globalisation. Italy’s claim for parity with France and the United Kingdom on the number of seats in the European Parliament has been accommodated without violating the prescribed ceiling on the strength of the house.

The prospects of entry into force of the Reform Treaty, set for mid-2009, will depend on ratification by individual states through parliamentary adoption or a referendum. Although Ireland is the only state where a plebiscite is constitutionally mandated, the power of euroscepticism has led national oppositions to pressure governments to call for a referendum on this big question. It may seem politically expedient for parties of the Centre-Right to assert the merits of a direct mode of eliciting public opinion. But a failure to recognise the potential for populist abuse of this device can expose them to the charge of pursuing a short-sighted, divisive, and indeed sectarian agenda on a fundamental issue with long-term implications.

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