Gary Titley - "The EU Constitution In Terms We Can All Understand"

This is the text of a talk given by our Branch member Gary Titley, MEP, Leader of the British Labour Group in the European Parliament, at the Branch meeting on 2nd September 2004.

The Chair welcomed Branch member Gary Titley, MEP.

Gary began by saying that "Constitution" is only really a fancy name for another EU treaty. He explained that the Union's "rules" are set out in its various treaties and that there have been a number of these which have effectively amended the original Treaty of Rome. Some of the most notable ones are:

• The Single European Act in the 1980s
• The Maastricht Treaty in the 90s
• The Amsterdam Treaty
• Most recently, the Nice Treaty

There are several less important ones plus a number of Accession treaties, approved when new countries join.

If you want to find out what the rules of the EU are you have to have all of these treaties. As each, beginning with the Maastricht Treaty, was negotiated there were issues that couldn't be agreed and these were eventually approved in subsequent treaties.

With so many factors overlapping and because there are so many treaties the working of the Union has become very complex. The original rules were drawn up for six members and, on the whole worked reasonably well, things became more difficult with fifteen members and now that there are twenty five there is a danger that the whole system may "grind to a halt".

For some time there has been a need to look again at the treaties. As the Union has begun to mature, the member states have thought that they should do more things together, e.g. the Euro, common foreign policy. In addition there is a need to decide for which issues the individual states should be responsible. We need to look at how, in the Union, we make decisions too. Instead of the Intergovernmental Conferences each year, where the Prime Ministers of the Member States come together in a rush and often don't get agreement, things should be done more slowly and thoroughly.

The Nice Treaty was very bad and after it a Convention was set up of the 15 members plus the 10 Accession States and representatives of the European and National parliaments. Their objective was to look at how things could be done better in future. There was a web-based consultation with EU citizens, a youth forum and a conference of interested bodies. The Convention arising from this was sent to member governments. Actually, there were some very tense issues, especially between the small and large member states (in the past Luxembourg had six MEPs, whereas Bolton, with a similar population, had part of Gary!). The big countries were worried about the tail wagging the dog and the smaller ones concerned at the possibility of being dominated by the larger states. Another problem was intergovernmental cooperation, preferred by the large countries but not by the smaller ones.

There was also disagreement about how much of the member states' sovereignty should be transferred to the Union. But initially, the new Treaty, or Constitution, wasn't completely supported. In some countries it's actually been under attack for not going far enough. In its first part the Constitution emphasises the supremacy of the Member States and, in the UK it has been accepted by the House of Lords.

It sets out the Union's values and objectives and the far right has objected to phrases such as "sustainable development", "exclusion" and "discrimination". It brings together all the existing treaties, sets them out and simplifies them in language which is more easily understandable. It puts down in black and white what the EU can do and what it cannot do. There are a few areas where only the Union can act, some where the Union and member states must work together and a third list of topics where it can only "support" the actions of the member states.

One of the big areas for discussion has been how decisions are made. Unanimous decision making was sometimes difficult when there were six members, almost impossible with 15 and totally impossible with 25. This lead to the development of so-called "qualified majority voting"; but there are some topics where it is necessary for there to be unanimity. In other words there is still the possibility for individual states to use a veto on certain subjects.

The Nice Treaty changed the balance of voting to one impossibly complex. Under the Constitution each State will have one vote but, to win a vote, you will have to have 55% of the votes, representing 65% of the population of the whole Union. This stops very small countries from having a disproportionate weight.

The EU has three principle parts:

• The Council of Ministers
• The Commission
• The Parliament

When the EU had 15 members there were 20 Commissioners (the UK had two - Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten). In future each of the 25 States will have one Commissioner but that results in a far too large Commission (even 20 was really too large) and in 2014 the Commission will be reduced to 2/3 of its size (16.66 members??) with the small States having a rotation of Commissioners.

There will be a Charter of Fundamental Rights and the right, if a million signatures are gathered, for citizens to dictate to the Commission the action they must take on a particular subject. Additionally there will be big increase (from 34 to 70) of the areas in which the Parliament will be the decision making body.

At present the Presidency of the Union rotates every six months between the Member States. It's a very big job and very, very difficult for the small states. It's proposed that there will be a Chair (president) of the Council who will serve for 2½ years. The person will be the President or Chair of the Council of Ministers, not the President of the EU!

If 1/3 of the countries want to "go their own way" in a particular area they will be able to do so and there will be a clear right for Member States to leave the Union (there actually always has been and Greenland withdrew in 1986). There is a High Representative for Foreign Affairs (Javier Solana) who represents the Governments of the Member States. This person will be called the Foreign Minister and will represent the Council of Ministers.

If the Constitution is eventually agreed by all 25 member States it will then only be able to be amended by a unanimous vote. This is very, very unusual.

Much of what ill-informed people (egged on by right wing newspapers such as The Sun) object to is already in effect, e.g. European law already takes precedence over British law and this has always been the case since Britain joined the Union in the 60s.

If the new Treaty isn't ratified we will have to struggle on with the existing Treaties; but there is a great danger of the whole Union grinding to a halt.

Gary's talk was followed by questions and answers:

Graham thanked Gary for his extremely thorough, interesting and thought-provoking talk and for leading the discussion. He also thanked Alan and Joyce for the use of their home and for their hospitality and declared the meeting closed at 21:30.

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