Europe: the Treaty of Lisbon without taboos

The atmosphere in Europe from the informal lisbon informal summit on October 18 and 19 is strange. Those who are happy with the agreement on the new “ Reform treaty »Feel obliged to overplay the feeling of victory, as if to exorcise demons which would have led to French and Dutch discharges from the constitutional treaty in the spring of 2005. Among those who voted against the Constitution while being favorable to European integration, many refrain from saying that they are actually happy to see the Union out of the rut, for fear of dedicating to a treaty of which many elements are strangely like constitutional treatments. Would it not be possible to express themselves on a European treaty by saying both its satisfaction and its disappointment ?

The reform treaty is a real advance for the European project, as was the constitutional treaty because – why hide it ? – It includes 90% of the new features that the latter included. And these 90% have as much value by the content of the provisions that they include as by the method which has enabled their development. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union, today “ High representative “, Whatever it is put in place, can only help the union to have a more united speech and action on the international scene. The fact that co-decision between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers becomes the legislative procedure “ ordinary And be extended to around forty areas, as is the qualified majority vote on the Council, constitutes a real step forward for European democracy. The prospect of a double majority vote within the Council, even postponed to 2014, is one of the instruments which should both allow greater clarity and greater efficiency of the decision to 27 and more. And how not to applaud the fact of having maintained the binding nature of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights ? Even shunned by the British and reduced to a few lines within the treaty, it remains a major text incorporating all the rights and values which found European identity. The spoiled children of European integration should perhaps take their gaze to the rest of the world more often, be proud of this charter and be aware of its fragility.

There are many advances, let’s not forget who we owe them. Not to the German and Portuguese presidencies, which held the reins of the Council in 2007, however remarkable in their determination to get the union out of the crisis. Not to the new French government despite its commitment to a “ Return of France to Europe and Europe in France ». These provisions, we owe them to an agreement, made up of representatives of European and national governments and parliamentarians, which met in 2002 and 2003, and who managed to find the agreement on which the heads of state and government have been going for for a dozen years. Even by admitting that part of the criticisms that have been formulated with regard to the Convention could be founded, not to recognize that it has been a major democratic progress compared to the diplomatic closed-lines that are intergovernmental conferences is bad faith and only leads to a result, that of encouraging managers to return to the method Cig Without prior reflection.

There Cig Who led to the reform treaty has certainly succeeded but by paying the price of an impression of an already since we hoped to be over, that of merchants between national interests without an overall perspective. However, if we consider essential to remedy the growing distance between European construction and the citizens on which it must rely, one can no longer ignore a reflection on the way of associating them with the most fundamental act of this construction, namely the revision of the texts which form its frame. Let’s not throw the baby-convention with the bath water from the constitutional treaty ! This “ disaffection A citizen for the European Union is a visible phenomenon for fifteen years and its causes, deep and complex, must worry European decision -makers. The European snail can enter its shell for a downpour but it will not resist the storm which threatens among the populations no longer recognizing themselves in this common project.

But this reform treaty does not solve everything. And he does not have this vocation. European integration is a work under construction, a synthesis of different political and cultural sensitivities, therefore necessarily imperfect. Let us recognize it, however: the reform treaty missed one of the objectives of the Laeken Declaration, at the origin of the Convention, which was that of simplification. The Constitutional Treaty had at least the merit of replacing existing treaties and increasing the readability of founding texts for the citizen. The best is the enemy of the good: the constitutional treaty, criticized for its length and complexity, will be replaced by a text endowing once again the treaties in force, with more declarations, new protocols, many derogations for certain countries and a method of voting on the Council until even experts have difficulty understanding … The outgoing Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, was not wrong to speak of Treaty of footnote ». A fundamental step in the future will therefore be to make these treaties more readable and to separate the constitutional part of elements of a legislative nature, including by differentiated methods of revision.

In addition, it is a pity that the council seems to have abandoned the idea of an appointment clause to take the time to look at the part of the treaties concerning the policies of the Union. The third part of the constitutional treaty aroused numerous reactions during the referendum campaign in France. It has become essential that its revision – to take into account the ambition of new objectives displayed or at least update its content in relation to the evolution of the community acquired – are the subject of a public debate, within a revisited agreement. Extended Europe needs to make visible the European project it wishes to carry in the geopolitical context of the XXI^e century and show what makes its relevance in globalization. Without this, the distance between this project and the European citizen will go by increasing in such a way that no diplomatic approach, even the most creative, will no longer be able to revive the engine of theUe.

Finally, the European Council did not take the opportunity of a renegotiation to approach the question of ratification. He was content, first of all, to give the impression of wanting to avoid the mode of referendum ratification. Without entering here into the debate on the relevance of the referendum to approve this kind of very dense text, nor implying that it has more value than a parliamentary ratification, it must be recognized that the two rejections of the constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands expressed themselves by this path. The risk is therefore to give the citizens the feeling to get around them because they said “ No “, Which will not help alter the image of a project carried only by elites. If parliamentary ratification seems acquired, it should not be synonymous with the absence of public deliberations. National governments and parliaments must undertake to organize real debates around ratification, through the media but also by the use of participatory democracy instruments.

Secondly, the European Council preferred to apply the ostrich policy with regard to the possibility of a new blockage of ratification. However, this is not a theoretical hypothesis. We can even judge it plausible in the case of the United Kingdom. Admittedly, the Lisbon Treaty now includes the content of declaration 30 which was annexed to the draft constitution and which provided that, if 4/5 of the member states had ratified the text and that some knew difficulties, the European Council would be grasped. However, not only does this clause assume that the treaty is ratified to be activated but its impact remains quite limited since it can be assumed that in the event of a crisis, the European Council would necessarily grasp the question. This threshold of 4/5 of the member states, however, has a certain interest since it is the first time that theUe envisages a level of membership in a treaty which would give it, if not legal scope at least political legitimacy. But it is undoubtedly necessary to go further and imagine that this threshold of 4/5 of States can lead to a form of group of pioneer states deciding to implement or conversely provoking the recalcitrant States to form a kind “ rearguard ».

Let us also be without taboos as to the analysis that can today be made of the relevance of the strategy of “ No ” In France. Some of the questions raised by the supporters of the Non were legitimate and the debate they made it possible to arouse welcome. But they were worth the rejection of the treaty ? They were worth it, many told us “ nonistens », Because the failure of the constitutional treaty would lead to a renegotiation which would make it possible to adopt in the short term a new treaty» more social ». What do we see from social in the reform treaty-except a protocol on services of general interest-which did not already appear in the constitutional treaty ? Do not mention at this stage the abandonment of the reference to free and not distorted competition in the Union’s objectives, on the one hand, this would require demonstrating the positive social impact that a competition “ distorted Can have. On the other hand, this essentially symbolic withdrawal obviously only makes sense in the context of a more general debate, undoubtedly become essential, on the future of European competition and industrial policies within the framework of globalization.

The truth is that if certain questions were justified, the strategy of “ No It was not. It simply enabled the most recalcitrant countries, such as the United Kingdom and Poland, to use this overhaul of the text to minimize its magnitude and all its political symbolism. However, these symbols were far from signing the advent of a European super-state. They were simply trying to make a little Europe dream again and make it more accessible. Is this really what the “ nonistens Wished to avoid ? The real battle today is elsewhere. It is within the European dynamics, within institutions, through the political and democratic debate which can certainly be improved but which is currently played on directives with concrete issues tomorrow transposed into national law. That energy lost in two years, when it could have been spent for the real political confrontations of today and the destiny of the Europe of tomorrow, in a globalized world which does not expect it.