Article

2007-11-03 Europe

"Dear EU..." Valery Giscard d'Estaing speaks about the Lisbon Treaty

The EU's new treaty is the same as the rejected constitution - only the format has been changed to avoid referendums, says Valery Giscard d'Estaing, architect of the constitution.

And he's precisely the weasel who would know ...

In an open letter published in Le Monde and a few other European newspapers over the weekend, the former French president seeks to clarify the difference between former draft constitution - which was shelved after French and Dutch voters rejected the text in 2005 - and the new Lisbon Treaty which EU leaders agreed earlier this month.

"Looking at the content, the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty are found complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and inserted in former treaties," Mr Giscard d'Estaing said.

The former chairman of the European Convention - the body of over a hundred politicians that drafted the 2004 EU constitution suggests the new more complicated layout was only to avoid putting the treaty to a referendum. "Above all, it is to avoid having referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed," he says.

Mr Giscard argues that the Lisbon treaty represents a way for the EU institutions to take the lead after the "interference" of the members of parliament and politicians who were in the European Convention. "They are therefore imposing a return to the language that they master and to the procedures they favour, and in doing so alienate the citizens further," he said.

Mr Giscard's word are likely to fuel the calls for referendums in the UK and Denmark where the governments are arguing that there is no need for a public poll on the Lisbon Treaty because it is sufficiently different from the EU constitution.

Posted by Seafarious 2007-11-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 "Referenda are like gambling. There is no guarantee of a positive outcome."

-- a Danish EU advocate, forget her name.

Posted by gromky 2007-11-03 00:46|| 2007-11-03 00:46|| Front Page Top

#2 Val's also a little bent that Sarkozy will get the credit for putting together the final version that will be signed with the appropos pomp and circumstance in Lisbon, whereupon Their Excellencies will pose for pictures, get in aeroplanes and fly back to Bruxelles to bask in the glow of a job well done.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2007-11-03 00:55|| 2007-11-03 00:55|| Front Page Top

#3 The idea of a constitution that needs to have it's own vocabulary attached ought to scare the crap out of anything with a notochord.

Posted by Unealing Mussolini9293 2007-11-03 02:53|| 2007-11-03 02:53|| Front Page Top

#4 From everything I read, it seems extremely unlikely there will be a referendum in the UK and the Danes will be told to vote again until they get it right. We are being foolish in not stepping in to break this up. EUnity is a chimera hardly worth losing Britain over. What is going on is truly tragic.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-11-03 03:16|| 2007-11-03 03:16|| Front Page Top

#5 It's sad to see this sort of thing. You'd think it obvious that you can't make a nation without some cultural bonds, and the nations of Europe are still, Cosmopolitanism^TM to the contrary, different cultures.

There are obvious advantages (and some disadvantages) to economic cooperation and even partial economic unification, but until you can explain to a Spainiard why he should sacrifice his traditional farming priorities for those of Greece you shouldn't try to stretch the unification too far.

But to try to make a political union is really stretching things. I understand the appeal: an end of intra-European wars, becoming the 362.9 kg gorilla, and for places like Greece, a guarantee that the Colonels won't come back. But for people to be willing to sacrifice and even die for each other there has to be some bond: family, tribal, religious, even ideological. I don't see it there. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see it.

Forcing unification like this is just going to get under people's skin, and could lose the economic cooperation they profit from so well. If they were willing to wait a few decades new generations could build more trust and more of a common culture. Assuming there are new generations, of course.

A less amibitious and more patient approach might have worked, but I worry that all the benefits of cooperation are being pissed away in dreams of a Euro-nation.

Posted by James">James 2007-11-03 09:54|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2007-11-03 09:54|| Front Page Top

#6 We are being foolish in not stepping in to break this up

How precisely could we do that, NS?

Posted by lotp 2007-11-03 10:03|| 2007-11-03 10:03|| Front Page Top

#7 Tell the Brits it's a bad idea explicitly. Offer them and EFTA a better deal than NAFTA.

Tell the Euros they're on their own. Withdraw from NATO. Establish fixed-term bi-lateral agreements with interested friendly non-EU countries.

Tell the UN that the EU should get the British and French UNSC seat if they stqay in the EU, one only.

Abrogate all bi-lateral treaties with member states unless explicitly assumed by the entire EU.

Refuse to accept ambassadors from or send ambassadors to member countires. Brussels only.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-11-03 19:54|| 2007-11-03 19:54|| Front Page Top

#8 In other words, if they want to call themselves a single country, they'll get treated like one.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-11-03 22:44|| 2007-11-03 22:44|| Front Page Top

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