EU Constitution Comments

Comments of Paris-based Susan George (SG) is TNI Associate Director, Vice-President of Attac France and an active campaigner against the constitution

a former president of France, was named as head of the constitutional convention that produced this document. The members of the convention, 105 of them, were named from above, they were appointed. About two thirds of them were either European or national parliamentarians, but they were not elected by the citizens to do this. Then there were some others supposedly representing civil society. So that's the first criticism: the non-democratic aspect. A constitutional convention is normally an elected body, so that it comes in a sense from the people. This constitution does not come from the people; it comes from an appointed group.

This document contains a lot of policy. It includes a whole chapter on economic policies basically fixing Europe on a neo-liberal framework. That kind of stuff should not be present in a constitution because if the European governments would like to subsequently change that policy choice it would not be possible, it would be anti-constitutional. So that's very dangerous and very easy to explain to people. The inclusion of this whole chapter on neo-liberal policies in the constitution is one of our main points of critique.

Another important criticism is the militarisation of the EU. The document includes key articles saying that the member states of the EU will improve their military capabilities every year. This has been turned around by part of the left, who say that improving doesn't necessarily mean spending more, but if you know where these proposals come from then you get worried. They are the product of a working group which included several representatives of the European military industry, and who want to sell their goods. That's why they were very happy to have these paragraphs in the European constitution.

Part three includes a whole list of policies in every area, agriculture, environment, police co-operation, justice, the central bank, etc. But the main thing is, however, that the objectives of the union define it as an economic space where you have freedoms of movement for goods, services, people and capital, and a space in which competition is free and unhindered. Competition comes into the text 47 times, the word market 78 times, the phrase social progress is not mentioned at all, or once I guess, and unemployment is not mentioned at all.

We have many objections to the content of this document, but the major one is that this text is not amendable, is not revisable. It's not amendable because you need a triple unanimity across all 25 countries. To amend the constitution there first has to be a convention, which has to reach a consensus. Then they hand the baby to the heads of government, who also have to be unanimous in agreeing the proposed changes. Then it goes into a process like the one we are going through now, of either parliamentary approval or referendums, and that also has to be unanimous otherwise the constitution cannot be changed. So it is considered by anybody who has read the thing to be virtually impossible to amend.

Overall, though, our argument comes back to neo-liberalism. When the constitution was handed by the convention to the heads of states and governments, their additions and subtractions made it even more neo-liberal than it was when it came out of the hands of the convention. Perhaps that reflects the governments of Europe as they are today. But it becomes a problem because it is extremely difficult to change this constitution. As the 1793 French constitution says, 'One generation should not subject future generations to its laws.'

People who have actually read the text of the constitution almost always come out of this difficult exercise determined to vote against it, despite the official financial and media propaganda for the yes vote, which says 'its more democratic than what we had'.