Playing down those great expectations

Germany’s attitude to resurrecting the moribund EU constitution can best be summed up by the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci’s phrase: "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been seeking to play down expectations that Berlin could restart the constitution talks, while Germany’s top diplomat in Brussels Wilhelm Schönfelder warned last week: "We can’t perform miracles." He added: "As the German presidency, we will not be able to solve the problem as such. We will only be able to make proposals for a roadmap filled with as much substance as possible." But in the same speech he outlined the most optimistic scenario yet for getting a deal on revising the constitution.

Schönfelder, Germany’s permanent representative to the EU, said that there could be agreement on a new treaty by the end of 2007 following a short intergovernmental conference under the Portuguese presidency in the second half of 2007. This timeframe was essential if a new treaty was to be ratified by 2009 in time for the European Parliament elections, given that the ratifications take 12-18 months, he said.

The German ambassador announced that Berlin had appointed two sherpas, Uwe Corspeius from the chancellor’s office and Reinhard Silberberg, state secretary at the foreign office, to work with other national capitals on proceeding with work.

Although Schönfelder did not spell out exactly which parts of the current constitution text should be retained or changed, the general line from Berlin is that as much as possible of the existing document should be maintained. Keeping to the ambitious timescale of the end of 2007 for a new deal would mean the barest of re-negotiation. In terms of recasting the text, leading German members of the European Parliament from Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) have expressed support for a stripped-down treaty. Both Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the EPP-ED group and Parliament’s president-in-waiting, and Elmar Brok, chairman of the foreign affairs committee and the CDU’s leading constitutional affairs expert, have called for the first two parts of the treaty to be maintained. Part I deals with the main institutional changes like creation of a full-time president of the Council of Ministers and a European foreign minister while Part II is the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Brok has said that Part III could be dispensed with or downgraded as "85% of it is not new", containing existing treaty provisions.

German politicians say publicly that they do not support the call of French interior minister and the centre-right’s leading presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy for a mini-treaty. Under Sarkozy’s plan, a revised text would contain only the institutional reforms contained in the constitution. The French and German centre-right part company over Part II, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, with Berlin insisting that it is maintained as proof that the Union is a "community of values" while it causes political problems for France with its secular traditions.

Sarkozy’s European affairs adviser, MEP Alain Lamassoure, has been touring national capitals explaining the mini-treaty idea. The main thrust of his approach is to get an agreement from all member states not to hold referenda to avoid a new text being rejected again. His line is that there is no need for referenda on Part I because there was a broad consensus among EU leaders on the institutional reforms while Part III caused the political problems, particularly in France, even though it mainly restated existing aspects of the constitution.

Despite Lamassoure’s progress and Schönfelder’s optimistic 2007 deadline, senior diplomats are deeply sceptical that the constitution could be renegotiated so quickly. They believe that the treaty talks will inevitably be wrapped up with the review of the budget scheduled for 2008-09, despite the desire of the Commission and the German presidency to end the treaty talks before embarking on budget discussions. Moreover, ruling out any referenda (apart from the two inevitable ones in Ireland and Denmark) would seem to be a very risky, not to say cynical, strategy, given the surprises that the voters in France and the Netherlands delivered last year.

There are few reasons for too much "optimism of the intellect" just yet.

Germany’s attitude to resurrecting the moribund EU constitution can best be summed up by the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci’s phrase: "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."

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