European Union leaders signed a declaration yesterday aimed at breaking the deadlock over a stalled draft constitution and relaunching debate over how to renew the European Union (EU)'s political rule book. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering sealed the Berlin Declaration calling for a "renewed common basis" for the 27-member bloc by 2009. The ceremony was the centerpiece of the EU's 50th birthday party marking the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which established what was then the European Economic Community.
Even as the leaders signed the document and praised European unity, there were renewed signs of disagreement on how to proceed with updating the EU's political decision-making structures, stalled since French and Dutch voters rejected a draft constitution treaty in referendums in 2005. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi declared that Europe's "period of mourning" was over, and that the EU must recover some of its "creative madness" in getting the discussion going again.
European officials have to debate how much of the old draft to resurrect, but Prodi advocated sticking close to the old draft, saying "we now need new rules, but without starting from scratch." He called the old treaty "a very solid basis" to work from, while others stressed the need for a significant reworking of the rejected text.