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Publishers Abstract:
On October 29, 2004, immediately after the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was signed in Rome, the President of the French Republic applied to the Conseil constitutionnel in order to hear whether authorization to ratify the new treaty would require a revision of the French Constitution. As to the Constitutional Treaty (CT), the Conseil constitutionnel ruled that permission to ratify may only be granted after a revision of the Constitution. This is the third time the Conseil constitutionnel has considered that a European treaty is incompatible with the French Constitution. Previously, the Conseil reached the same conclusion with regard to the Treaty of Maastricht in a decision of April 9, 1992 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in a decision of December 31, 1997. Following the present ruling, a constitutional law was passed on February 28, 2005, by the Parliament. The law amends the Constitution in the sense that it now states that France can participate to the European Union under the conditions established by the CT. With the constitutional obstacles out of the way, the door is now open for ratification of the new Treaty. A referendum on ratification of the CT is set to take place on May 29, 2005.
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