Brussels, 17/04/2007 (Agence Europe) -Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende, decided on Monday to join forces to call for a halt in the European Union project for a constitution and to work more towards a “conventional” treaty, albeit modified and improved, which would not need to be put to the vote of the British or Dutch people in a referendum. “What the Dutch and the British are saying is that it is important we go back to the idea of a conventional treaty, where the idea is to make Europe work more effectively, because we now have 27 countries rather than 15, rather than a treaty with the characteristics of a constitution”, Blair told the press on Monday after a meeting with Mr Balkenende in London. There is “all the difference in the world” between a constitutional treaty for which “several countries really have difficulties” and a simple, amended treaty based on existing treaties that makes the rules work more effectively, the British prime minister explained. His spokesman, cited by Reuters, then pointed out that a straightforward treaty would not require a referendum to be held in the United Kingdom “in the same way that for the last 50 years other treaties of the kind that we're envisaging haven't needed a referendum”. London had foreseen submitting the draft constitution to the British people, but the referendum was finally suspended after the French and Dutch no-votes.
Jan Peter Balkenende also intimated in London, on Monday, that there would be no need for another referendum in his country if the existing treaties were simply amended. “If we do not have the characteristics of a constitution (in the future treaty), that is also relevant to the question of whether you have to have a referendum or not”. In its working programme presented in February this year, the new government under Mr Balkenende did not take a definitive stance on the question of the referendum, leaving it up to the Dutch State Council to decide, in due course, whether the new treaty should be put to the vote of the Dutch people, or not (see EUROPE 9361). (hb)