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President Prodi's Speech on The EU draft Constitutional Treaty

Ladies and gentlemen,

On 25 May 1787, 55 delegates met in Philadelphia to write the Constitution of the United States of America.

The representatives of the thirteen States -- Thomas Jefferson, who was not at the Convention, later called them "an assembly of demigods" -- met for four months. And when their deliberations were over, the US had a constitution, which remains one of the most remarkable documents in the history of liberal democracy.

On 28 February 2002, 105 delegates from 28 European States met in Brussels to discuss a constitutional treaty for the European Union. After discussions lasting 16 months, the President of the Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, presented the draft Constitutional Treaty to the heads of State and government of the European Union.

The result, which is still to be discussed by the governments at a special conference starting in October, marks a milestone in European integration.

Over the past fifty years European integration has been an unprecedented success.

The continent where some of the most terrible conflicts and the worst atrocities in all human history originated has been reunited and transformed into a land of permanent peace and security. Borders that had been marked in blood for centuries can now be crossed without a passport.

People who had always borne arms against each other now use the same currency.

The Constitution for Europe drafted by the Convention crowns a glorious period of European history, and provides the basis for our continent to move forward in the decades to come.

Let me therefore give you my views on the draft Constitutional Treaty.

I will first outline the context in which the Treaty was conceived. Then I will look at the good and the bad news in the Treaty and offer a few thoughts on how the European Union should develop in the future.

* * *

The debate on the future of Europe came at a particularly sensitive time in international relations and the life of the European Union.

Both the Iraq crisis and enlargement weighed heavily on our minds.

The debate in the Convention obliged us all to weigh up the opportunities and challenges arising from the unification of our continent and to reflect on the lessons to be drawn from the Iraq crisis.

Let me start with enlargement. Last December we finalized accession negotiations with ten countries. (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus) These countries will join the Union in May next year. Meanwhile, negotiations are going ahead with Bulgaria and Romania so they can join shortly afterwards, and, with the necessary adjustments, joint work is continuing with Turkey.

But the enlargement process will not be complete until the whole Balkan region is part of the Union and the European continent has been entirely unified.

Countries and peoples that fought each other for centuries will finally live in peace under the same roof as members of the same family.

There is a paradox in the process of European integration. Over the years we have taken on more members and more policy tasks, but we have avoided real institutional change. No treaty change has delivered dramatic institutional reform. Yet, one after the other, they contributed to generate radical changes.

Also the draft Constitution does not go the full mile, but it is a quantum leap in the right direction.

We still have a problem in international relations, but this very problem is pushing us to have an in-depth, honest and transparent debate on the type of Europe we want to build. We have started a real political debate. The very success of integration makes this unavoidable. The Iraq crisis and the state of international relations means we cannot put it off any longer.

The war in Iraq stirred the feelings of Europeans because reconciliation and peace are the very foundations of the European Union.

We Europeans feel the deep need to express our common soul which does not mean that we are in opposition to the United States. We have very similar values as the Americans but, sometimes, we can find different solutions.

This difference -- which was played out in full public view -- is marked by widely divergent views on the instruments to use. But they do not affect the ultimate goal of our policies or cast doubt on the solidity of our alliance or indeed the whole web of transatlantic relations, our shared history and the extension of our links.

This does not mean that the Europe we are building will have the same character and the same institutional structure chosen by the United States.

The European Union is and will always be a Union of people and nations, never forgetting the nature or undermining the importance of national states.

Our effort is now to clearly define what we have to do together in Brussels in order to make our voice heard in the globalized world and what should be done in Paris, Rome, Warsaw or Dublin.

Europe is not and will never be a melting pot. It will be a Union of diversities where the roots, the languages and the traditions of the different European peoples will be preserved.

This is the substance of the great European model and this is the obvious difference from the United States.

But our diversity is the exemplary solution for the needs of today's world.

Therefore, if we fail to put into place effective procedures and instruments necessary for forging a European foreign policy, this would be a loss not only for us but for the entire world.

We must face this challenge with imagination and determination. We cannot just sit back. The questions we have to answer are both difficult and crucial.

One of the few merits of the Iraq crisis is that it is forcing us to talk honestly about the essential nature of coexistence and the way we do things together. We should not be afraid of frank and open debate. Solutions can only emerge from exchanges of views.

* * *

I have always believed that our duty was to carry through enlargement and the reform of the Union's institutions at the same time. As they stand, our institutions and procedures, which were designed for a Community of six fairly homogenous States, no longer meet the requirements of a larger, more diverse Union.

The work of the European Convention is now about to end. The approach adopted by the Convention has proved its effectiveness. For the first time it has enabled the full range of European and national viewpoints to be voiced in a broad-based, open and transparent debate.

What was paradoxical in this debate was that everyone admitted the need for radical institutional reform but nobody could overcome the political difficulties to really go this way and abandon deeply rooted national interests and tradition. The big States sometimes pushed for more intergovernmentalism, which would have slowed down the pace of an enlarged European Union. Consequently, the small States were put on the defensive.

Both were wrong. Without radical institutional reform, the European Union risks a decision-making crisis with unforeseen implications.

To you in America there is nothing new in the struggle for power between large and small States. A similar debate took place in the US Constitutional Convention here in Philadelphia.

There were two competing proposals on the table. The Virginia Plan embraced the concept of central government with governing institutions based purely on the population. The other proposal was the New Jersey Plan. It called - as you know better than me - for decentralised government and an institutional structure based on equality between States.

The Connecticut compromise -- the "Grand Compromise" -- found middle ground between these two approaches.

As James Madison wrote in The Federalist: "The government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation."

Thus the lower House of Representatives was based on size of population while the upper house -- the Senate -- was based on equality between the States.

Confronted with such an example, could the members of the European Convention do any better than follow in the footsteps of their American forerunners?

We also decided to adopt in the decision making process of the Council the double majority system. If approved by the Intergovernmental Conference, a legislative proposal will require the backing of no less than half the Member States representing no less than 60% of the Union's total population. This solution is not as straightforward as the American solution, but it is close enough.

So what else exactly did we achieve? When assessing the result of the Convention, it is important to remember what the mandate from the Member States called for:

• a better division and definition of powers in the Union;
  
  
• simplification of the Union's instruments;
  
  
• more democracy, transparency and efficiency.

In terms of substance, the draft Constitutional Treaty takes major steps forward as regards the Union's new tasks and the institutional architecture:

• The incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Constitutional Treaty will ensure that citizens' rights are strongly protected. This is our equivalent of the Bill of Rights.
  
  
• Conferring a single legal personality on the Union will enable it to take on a higher profile internationally, including more effective representation in international forums.
  
  
• The draft Constitutional Treaty, even if still too long, will represent a significant simplification of the existing four Treaties.
  
  
• The joint legislative procedure will apply generally, with a few rare exceptions, so the Council (i.e. the upper house) and Parliament (i.e. the lower house) will adopt legislation together.
  
  
• The clarification of the Union's powers will enable citizens to distinguish more clearly between the Union's responsibilities and those of the Member States, while preserving the flexibility of the Union's system;
  
  
• The new provisions on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the introduction of a European Foreign Affairs Minister will help to enhance the Union's role on the international stage;
  
  
• The provisions on defence will make it possible to improve military capabilities. This will mean that Member States willing and able to do so can engage in structured cooperation that will strengthen the credibility of the Union's foreign policy. In perspective a unified European command will simplify the work of Nato which remains the real foundation of our defence.

But there are still new challenges in some important areas.

• Qualified-majority voting has been extended to far more areas than in the present Treaty, but it is still not sufficient for the needs of an enlarged Union with thirty or so members. I consider it essential to lift the unanimity rule - that means veto right - in other relevant areas too.
  
  
• The respective roles of the Commission and the Council need to be better balanced in order to avoid overlapping and the doubling of bureaucracies.
  
  
• The decision of not having a Commissioner for each Member State in this historical phase may create a gap between the Union and the Member States.
  
  
• Welcome progress has been achieved in economic governance, but not enough in the external representation of the euro.
  
  
• Lastly, I regret that the Convention did not insert a revision clause into the Treaty to allow certain provisions of the Constitution to be amended by a reinforced majority procedure. Preserving unanimity for institutional changes will make any change almost impossible.

The Commission will seek to secure improvements on these points at the Intergovernmental Conference that will have the task of finally approving the Constitutional Treaty.

* * *

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Some observers claim that European integration has ground to a halt. This claim is untrue. Though institutional change has been slow, policy changes have been impressive: the Single Market, the Euro, the Enlargement, are unprecedented in history. Common Foreign and Security Policy is shaping up. Many observers think that this is coming too slowly. The reason is simple: this issue goes to the very core of national sovereignty and is the outcome of a democratic process.

The Union, as we already hinted, is different from a traditional national state. It is a system of multi-level governance where the supranational, national and regional co-exist.

For George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention, it appeared "little short of a miracle that the delegates from so many different states […] should unite in forming a system of national governments." I think we should draw the same conclusion from our great experience of the European Convention.

Thank you.

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