UK wants rights charter dropped from constitution

The UK has told the German presidency of the EU that it wants the Charter of Fundamental Rights dropped from any new treaty, but Berlin insists it cannot accept such a move, according to diplomats.

The UK has made it clear that the charter, which was part of the constitution text agreed in 2004, must not be in any way legally enforceable, even if it becomes an additional protocol as some governments have suggested.

German Socialist MEP Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, said that the British were "trying to destroy the treaty" with a list of elements they wanted taken out. But, he predicted, the German presidency would not agree to drop the charter. "The presidency is not willing to cut away such an important [part of the] substance of the constitutional treaty," he said.

Leinen, who was a member of the convention which drafted the charter, said that he felt "betrayed" by the UK which has signed up to the charter twice, once when it was endorsed by EU leaders at Nice in 2000 and again in 2004 when Prime Minister Tony Blair signed the constitution. The UK’s representative to the convention on the charter Peter Goldsmith had "got everything the UK wanted" in terms of safeguards that the document did not create new competences.

Leinen said that the charter merely listed "rights and freedoms that citizens already enjoy".

The UK only accepted the incorporating the charter into the constitution on condition that there were guarantees that it would have legal force solely in relation to EU law and would not grant any new rights at national level. The UK was concerned that it might be used to extend workers’ and social rights.

A questionnaire sent by German diplomats to their counterparts in national capitals in April asked whether they could accept replacing the full text of the charter by a "short cross-reference having the same legal value".

The UK has the support of the Czech government for downgrading the charter. Prague is concerned that keeping the charter could leave the door open for the EU to extend its powers into questions of workers’ rights, employment and social policy. But including the charter in any renegotiated text is a key condition for Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed that a new treaty must emphasise the EU as a "community of values" including the protection of social and human rights. German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok has warned that without the charter setting out citizens’ rights, the EU’s "legitimacy crisis could get worse".

But London’s position may receive a boost by the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as French president on Sunday (6 May). Sarkozy might be happy to abandon the charter, which has become unpopular in France amid fears that it could be used to curtail certain rights such as the right to abortion.

Opposition to the charter is one of London’s strongest ‘red lines’ as discussions over a new set of institutional reforms speed up.

Blair has said that he wants a traditional "amending treaty" rather than a constitution, arguing that technical changes would not require a referendum. Blair will attend the June summit, which will agree a limited set of issues to be addressed when the constitution is renegotiated, before handing over power to Gordon Brown, the UK finance minister.

The UK has also stated that it cannot accept any move to qualified majority voting for police and criminal law co-operation although this was agreed in the constitution. But it is still in favour of a fulltime president of the European Council, ending the current six-month rotating presidency, and of an EU foreign minister.

Next Tuesday (15 May) EU leaders’ negotiators on the new treaty will meet for the first time in Berlin to try to clarify what EU governments can and cannot accept as part of a new treaty. Germany wants this list of items to be as limited as possible so that negotiations can be wrapped up before the end of the year.

The UK has told the German presidency of the EU that it wants the Charter of Fundamental Rights dropped from any new treaty, but Berlin insists it cannot accept such a move, according to diplomats.