French MEP sees way out of EU constitutional crisis

BRUSSELS - As proposals to chop, add to or scrap the EU constitution continue to crop up almost daily, a French MEP believes he has found the solution to the bloc's institutional impasse by keeping the text exactly as it is but introducing a radical ratification procedure.

Gerard Onesta, a Green deputy and vice-president of the European Parliament, argues it is pointless to open "Pandora's box" and renegotiate the treaty – the painstaking result of two years of convention and one year of intergovernmental fine-tuning – as member states will never be able to agree on a text that satisfies them all.

Instead, based on what he says were the three main fears of the French citizens who voted no to the treaty in May 2005 – lack of citizen involvement; the feeling that the treaty would set things in stone and the fear that the EU's policies were being constitutionalised - Mr Onesta has worked out an alternative solution.

The content of the over 300-page treaty should remain exactly as it is but should be divided into two parts, each with a separate ratification procedure.

The first part would be the actual European constitution, containing the objectives and aims of the treaty plus the charter of fundamental rights, while the second part would just be a European treaty, containing only the policies of the bloc.

"People were worried that the policies of the union were being constitutionalised," says the French MEP whose proposals include moving one of the current objectives of the EU's constitutional treaty of creating an "internal market where competition is free and undistorted" to the treaty part.

The European Constitution, by this time a slim and manageable document of about 100 articles, would be ratified by an EU-wide referendum, and would need half of member states representing half of the bloc's population for it to be considered approved.

The treaty part, by contrast, would need to be ratified by all 27 national parliaments.

Ratification revolution

The most "revolutionary" part of his plan would be to introduce a revision clause afterwards whereby if 80 percent of governments and 80 percent of national parliaments agreed, the treaty could then be amended.

"That is the hardest point, I know," said Mr Onesta, who said that is why he set the bar so high at 4/5 of member states.

Justifying having a revision clause at at all, he says there are "some ridiculous policies dating back 50 years" in the constitution, whose current third part essentially reprises past EU treaties.

Member states may in the future think they want to revise the energy policies dating from the 1950s and add something about renewable energy, he suggests.

Mr Onesta, who has been a constitutional expert for the Green group for several years, says his proposals satisfy the Yes camp in France because it keeps what they voted for and the No camp because it takes into account their fears that "Europe is being made without [them]."

He claims it has also got a broad nod of approval from Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the architect of the original EU constitution, and from senior socialist MEP Pervenche Beres, who campaigned for a No during the 2004 referendum.

Meanwhile, he believes that Plan A+ could provide a way out of the current ratification blockage where 18 member states have said yes, two have said no (France and the Netherlands), four have indicated they are prepared to ratify if necessary (Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark) and three are sceptical of the whole project - the UK, the Czech Republic and Poland.

He points out that all member states regardless of what they do and say now did sign up to the treaty in 2004, and his proposal would not change the content.

Reopening the text would lead to a "mini, mini treaty," believes Mr Onesta where the lowest common denominator remains leaving a sort of Nice Treaty plus and a victory for the tide of liberalism currently sweeping Europe.

The current Nice Treaty represents a "posthumous political victory" for ex-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, suggests Mr Onesta.

The great unknown

"If she wanted a Europe without frontiers and without borders, she has it with the Treaty of Nice. The environmental constraints are not enormous, there aren't any social constraints and the democratic life, represented by the parliament, is also very weak."

But while he believes he has an answer for most of the questions thrown at him such as what to do with countries that do not have referendums such as Germany (call it a "consultation of the people"), or what about the legal problems of having a trans-national referendum (ask the people if they agree to have a trans-national referendum on the same day as asking them whether to approve the constitution), he is still uncertain about one country - Britain.

According to Mr Onesta he is "not too worried" about Denmark and recent polls in Poland are positive towards the EU, but Britain remains "the great unknown."

He said if it really comes down to all countries having said yes and it is a choice between "more efficiency and more democracy and entering a new era, or another No - and that would be forever - there will be a very interesting debate in Great Britain."