TMP Online

Labour Movement for Europe executive committee member, Owais Rajput, explains what the EU Reform Treaty means for us in this Q&A briefing below, but do you agree with his analysis? 

1. What happened at the June 2007 EU Summit meeting?

There is no doubt at all about what happened at the EU Summit meeting held in Brussels on 22nd to 24th June 2007. Taking into account the divergent decisions by EU member states - 18 to ratify the proposed European Constitution and two to reject it - the national leaders of the EU countries agreed to seek a compromise acceptable to all. They agreed to abandon the idea of a constitution, and instead draw up a Reform Treaty which would simply amend the already existing treaties, retaining many of the pragmatic reforms to the EU system envisaged in the constitution, but dropping controversial elements that had given cause for concern in some countries. In addition, some special provisions, including opt-outs, were agreed for Britain.

2. How much of the proposed Reform Treaty is the same as the original Constitution?

The Reform Treaty retains a large number of the less controversial elements of the abandoned constitution, which is why it is claimed that it is 90% identical. However, scientific research has concluded that humans and mice share 90% of the same DNA – which shows just how crucial the 10% difference can be! We no longer have a proposal to repeal all the existing treaties and replace them with a constitution. Nor a proposal to change the name of the EU’s external representative to “foreign minister”, nor what some criticised as the “trappings of statehood” such as a flag and anthem. The extra opt-outs for Britain make this a more different treaty for Britain than for other member states. What it does keep are some of the reforms designed to make the enlarged EU work more effectively and also to achieve better democratic scrutiny.

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Today, former minister for Europe, Keith Vaz MP, as called on the government to hold a referendum on the new EU Reform - you can listen to him here.  However, Labour Movement for Europe Executive Committee Member, Owais Rajput (pictured right with Gary Titley MEP), argues against below. 

Why must Britain vote on the new EU Treaty? There are dozens of subjects in which public interest in a referendum would be far greater than on obscure tinkering with the EU institutions. Restoring the link between pensions and wages, university top up fees, aspects of immigration, the death penalty and whether to host the Olympic games all spring to mind.

Calls for a referendum on the EU question do not represent a broad based wave of support for deciding matters by referenda, it is merely an opportunist move by the Eurosceptics in their single issue campaign on a subject the general public are not interested in.

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Outgoing Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has said the new EU constitutional treaty agreed by EU member states last week is “quintessentially” in Britain’s interests.  Here, the Labour Movement for Europe’s Owais Rajput, gives his take on the treaty, which will be finalised later this year.

Eurosceptics deride the package of reforms contained in the EU’s Constitutional Treaty as a “radical new departure” or a “revolutionary change” to the nature of the EU. It is not. It is a pragmatic set of adjustments in response to problems with the existing system.

The EU has enlarged from 15 to 27 members, making the decision making in the Council more cumbersome. The pragmatic response is to enlarge the area in which decisions are taken by a majority vote. This the treaty does, except in areas of vital national interest such as tax, foreign policy and national security.

The automatic “buggin’s turn” rotation of the presidency for a short six month period is widely criticised. The pragmatic response is to allow the heads of government to choose a person to chair their meetings for a longer period. This the Constitutional Treaty does, setting that period for two and a half years.

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