New cutoff to finalise European treaty

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/world.aspx?ID=BD4A421024

BERLIN — European Union (EU) governments face an end-of-year deadline to draft a new constitution or risk prolonging decision-making paralysis into the next decade, leaders said.

EU leaders agreed yesterday to put a new governing treaty in place by mid-2009, making the end of this year the effective deadline to write the rules to allow time for ratification by the 27 member countries, the Danish and Belgian prime ministers said.

Yesterday leaders endorsed a “Berlin Declaration” that sets the mid-2009 deadline for establishing a “renewed common basis”. The text leaves out the word “constitution”, a term that has evoked fears of an all-powerful EU.


“We must conclude at the latest in December this year to make sure that a new treaty can enter into force before June 2009,” Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at the EU’s 50th anniversary celebration in Berlin.

Voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the constitution in 2005, throwing the EU into institutional limbo and slowing the march towards a more integrated Europe. Divisions have widened since then.

The EU used yesterday’s ceremony to mark the signing of the founding Treaty of Rome by six countries on March 25 1957 to restart the process of overhauling its decision-making machinery.

Asked whether an accord this year is realistic, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said: “I hope so. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to have ratification in every country before 2009.”

EU rules have evolved piecemeal since 1957, with a complex “qualified majority” voting system governing business laws and regulations. Sensitive areas such as taxes, spending, immigration and foreign policy are subject to national vetoes.

All EU leaders signed off in 2004 on the constitution, which would streamline decision-making. It requires unanimous ratification. So far only 18 of the 27 have done this.

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