Presidency: two treaty texts better than one

The German government is proposing splitting the EU constitution into two parts as a way of winning support for a revised treaty.

Proposals prepared for a meeting of EU leaders’ senior advisors in Berlin yesterday (15 May) envisage a basic treaty containing the institutional arrangments, competences, objectives and values of the EU and a separate text dealing with policies - including whether decisions are taken by unanimity or qualified majority voting.

The German presidency of the EU is trying to reach agreement on the outline of a treaty before the European Council of 21-22 June.

German Social Democrat Jo Leinen, chairman of the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, set out how the approach might work. He said that dividing the constitution into two parts would "open up better possibilities for their ratification and revision". It would also make the new treaty "clearer and more understandable", he said. The second part would set out which treaty provisions were being amended by a new agreement based on the constitution. Leinen said that this second treaty on the EU’s policies could be limited to just 70 articles, reflecting the changes agreed under the constitution. The original part III of the constitution contained 425 articles but included all the existing provisions from previous treaties.

German Christian Democrat Hans-Gert Pöttering, the president of the European Parliament, confirmed the approach speaking in Berlin on Monday (14 May).

The approach will also be welcomed by those governments including France, the UK and the Netherlands, which want to avoid holding referenda on a new treaty because it will allow them to stress that the new text simply modifies existing treaties.

Alain Lamassoure, EU affairs advisor to newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy, told European Voice that the approach of dividing the constitution into two parts was "in line" with Sarkozy’s desire for a simplified treaty which could be ratified quickly. But he confirmed that the UK and Poland would present the biggest obstacles to getting agreement on a new treaty if they insisted of "opening up the Pandora’s box" of the global package agreed in 2004. Poland’s insistence on renegotiating the voting weights and the UK’s refusal to agree to move to qualified majority voting (QMV) for new areas of justice and home affairs co-operation amounted to reopening the box, he said.

Sarkozy, who will mark taking office as French president today (16 May) by visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has said that a simplified treaty must include moving to QMV for all police and judicial co-operation.

The German government is proposing splitting the EU constitution into two parts as a way of winning support for a revised treaty.