Czech Debate on the Proposal of the Constitutional Treaty

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Created on Friday, 15 November 2002 00:00

Czech Republic being an accession country has not been so far too active in the Convention deliberations - for obvious reasons. However, the proposals that came up from the Secretariat, namely the document outlining the future skeleton of the EU Constitutional Treaty, has stirred the debate on this issue among the politicians, academics, think tanks and journalists. There are few particular issues that drew the attention of experts that appeared in the draft document. They were namely the name for a new entity to be created by the Treaty, the idea of a double citizenship and introducing the "exit clause" into the text. Further points that are, however, raising most question marks are the idea of the Presidency and the possibility of establishing the Congress of the Peoples of Europe. In the following sections, let us analyse the state of debate on these issues one by one.

The question of what should be the name of the entity created by the Constitutional Treaty seems to be quite a consensual one. European Union is the most appropriate label which should be given to the one and only entity created herein, vested with a clearly articulated legal personality. Not only that European Union is a name that most of the Czech population is already familiar with - most of people would probably not know at all that there are different entities called European Community or Euratom. If the name were changed in the due course, it could also raise some questions. Citizens could ask how come they were are suddenly joining the United States of Europe considering that we were negotiating membership in the EU.

As to the idea of a double citizenship, the current draft basically confirms status quo with one slight exception - in the current EU treaty, there is no mention of duties attached to European citizenship. The document does not elaborate on what the duties mentioned are. The draft also stipulates that the EU citizens are free to use any of the two citizenships they like, which is not possible to imagine in all the situations as the rights and duties arising from each are very different. It is still necessary to view the European citizenship as a derived one, resting on the membership of one (or more) of the member states. The treaty does not provide for any possibility of granting the European citizenship in another way, thus dismantling the false fears of those who claim that this could lead to an uncontrolled influx of immigrants seeking the EU citizenship.

A progressive idea appearing in the draft is that of the possibility to leave the European Union. It has been a question raised many times in the past. The rationale behind this is obvious - the acute danger of blocking constitutional reforms in the Union of 25. The ultimate possibility of "leaving" the Union can be viewed positively by some of the voters in referendum - if only for the psychological momentum that we are not bound "to be there for ever and ever". At the same time, some of the experts have pointed out to possible negative signs of this. It could equally be viewed as a lack of confidence in the European integration process and could be used by certain governments for making pressure on others in the circumstances where further negotiations would normally take place. Again, the draft does not stipulate any mechanism how this could happen. Some of the ideas that appeared in this connection speculate with the inclusion of a clause that if a member state repeatedly fails to ratify the Constitutional Treaty or its amendments, it would have to stay outside the structure. This would be a major breakthrough in one of the basic principles of international law, counting that an amendment of a treaty cannot come into force unless all the contracting parties ratify it. This sort of "qualified majority voting" on constitutional issues would seem very dangerous. Thus it would be more appropriate to think of other mechanisms - for example providing for the possibility of leaving the Union by the state itself (i.e. not implicitly by non-ratifying). If an adequate mechanism for closer co-operation or differentiated integration is developed, it can also solve some of the problems. Here, the states could go ahead with some policies without having to force the others to do the same. This could be partially enhanced by the division of the Treaty into constitutional and non-constitutional part.

The crucial issues that the debate has focused on mostly are the idea of introducing a new body - the Congress of Peoples of Europe, and the concept of EU Presidency.

The Congress does not have a great support at least among the Czech governmental representation in the Convention. Even though it was acknowledged that it is a new entity that the Czech Republic as a new member state could identify with, and in this way it could be "sold" to the citizens as such. Czech Republic could contribute more to the debate on what should be the role and powers of the Congress and help shaping it in a substantive way. Prevailing idea, however, considers Congress as quite a useless one. Firstly, it is not highlighted in the draft what should be the role and powers, and whether it would be a permanent or ad hoc body. It is possible to imagine that Congress could give further legitimacy for instance by approving - together with the European Parliament - a yearly legislative plan of the Commission. On the other hand, there are still doubts whether giving more role to the national parliaments at EU level can solve the problem of the democratic deficit of the Union, which seems to be a prevailing idea recently. One must not forget that the national parliaments derive their legitimacy from national elections, which do not often reflect the same sort of issues that are at a stake at the EU level. Czech representation is quite strongly against creating any new bodies. Furthermore, there is already a platform for national parliaments at EU level, representing by COSAC - an ad hoc agenda ascribed to the Congress could be easily dealt with by this body. COSAC itself has adopted a resolution calling for not creating any new bodies or institutions. It is also felt that Congress does not match well with the Czech tradition - it is rather seen as being inspired by the tradition of the French Congress, or the German Federal Assembly. This particular issue may well reflect personal ambition of Convention´s President, Mr Giscard d´Estaing, to get this body into the treaty. A sort of compromise that would probably be acceptable for the Czech representation would be making Congress a body for the preparation of possible constitutional amendments of the Treaty, thus practically replacing the Convention method.

Most controversy is raised by the issue of Presidency. It is because this problem cannot be so easily separated from others and is concerned with the overall constitutional balance within the famous EU institutional triangle. The main questions at a stake here are: Should we support the current system of rotating presidency, or have a sort of permanent presidency for a longer period? Or should we just strive to abolish this mechanism at all? Most of the experts agree that the current rotating system at the EU-25 could be lethal - already now it is reproached for the lack of consistency in formulating the strategic goals of the Union. On the other hand, the Czech representation in neither in favour of a strong EU president, the idea supported especially by the bigger member states of the Union. The draft constitutional treaty further does not refer to the President, but to Presidency of the Union. Another question that seems open is what would be the relation between the EU President and the Commission President - it could be equally dangerous for the Union to have too strong personalities that can often get in conflict. One of the solutions that the Czech representation is playing around with is merging the two - President of the Commission presiding the Council. In this respect, the President would combine both the political and bureaucratic feature, and it would very much depend on the individual personality which feature would prevail. This issue however still very much depends on the discussion concerning the role of other institutions. The scenario highlighted here would be more likely adaptable if for example the legislative powers of the Council would be enhanced and the executive powers will shift more towards the Commission which might then require the latter being more political and reflecting the composition of the European Parliament etc.

It is interesting to note that most of the positions raised and described in this paper seem to be recently discussed and co-ordinated between the representatives of the V4 (Visegrad) countries - i.e. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Just before this paper was written, there was an informal meeting of the deputy foreign ministers in Prague regarding the Convention proposal. In course of this fortnight, two conferences on the Visegrad group were held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. The way Visegrad tries to present at the EU level is also by approaching the Benelux countries as many "constitutional" issues could be of a similar interest. It will be interesting to see whether this would evolve into a more long-term phenomenon and lead to a creation of some sort of Benelux-Visegrad axis within the future EU. Visegrad countries could for sure gain a credible and well experienced partners in the three founding members. On the other hand, strengthened co-operation on some issues between these two blocks could create to another gravity centre within the EU, thus equilibrating and complementing already established axes of co-operation like the Paris - Berlin axis, Nordic States or the Southern - Wing block.

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