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The final legal text may not emerge before October, but here is a simplified guide
THE new EU constitution:
- Consolidates all European treaties into a single document labelled a constitution for the European Union.
- Incorporates a Charter of Fundamental Rights into EU law for the first time. This includes many social as well as political rights. But its application is limited to European law.
- Contains the first formal statement of the primacy of EU law over national law, a principle previously established by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice.
- Commits the EU to the progressive framing of a common defence policy.
- Commits the EU to creating common rules on asylum and immigration by majority vote. But individual states can still control the level of immigration.
- Extends majority voting to many other new, if mostly trivial, areas.
- Gives the EU formal legal personality for the first time, enabling it to sign international agreements.
- Retains national vetoes over direct taxation, foreign and defence policy and financing of the EU budget.
- Adopts a new double-majority voting system. Laws will be passed if 55% of countries representing 65% of the EU's population approve. This will make it easier for the EU to legislate.
- Creates some important-sounding jobs. There will be a president of the European Council and a foreign minister. The president will serve for up to five years, replacing today's six-monthly rotating presidency. The foreign minister will combine the roles of the external-affairs commissioner and the EU's high representative for foreign policy.
- Limits the size of the European Commission, but only from 2014. The principle that all member states must have a commissioner at all times is abandoned.
- Gives new powers to the European Parliament to amend laws, control the budget and approve the choice of president of the European Commission.
- Includes subsidiarity provisions under which, if a third of national parliaments object to an EU law, the commission must reconsider it.
- Creates an explicit right for countries to leave the EU.
Brief outline of the main points of the Constitutional Treaty for Europe.
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