I would like to avoid all expressions of satisfaction at the political agreement returned by the 27 member states on the new European treaty; there are as many of these as you could require in the following pages. The most arduous phase starts now: that of the ratification and implementation of the new treaty. A few comments:
1. The new treaty is illegible. The Constitutional Treaty drafted by the Convention would have replaced all of the current treaties with a single text, laying down the objectives and ambitions of European integration. But it no longer exists. A “reform treaty” is, by its very nature, a collection of timely changes to the texts which it reforms. Very often, the new wording needs to be compared to the one it replaces in order to be understood. Giving out this text to the citizens in order to convince them would be an absurd undertaking.
The best way to help anyone called upon to take position (members of national parliaments, if Parliamentary ratification is the method to be used, the citizens if popular referendum is chosen) would be a neutral explanatory statement, to be the same for all of the member states, with comments reserved for the political forces, which will all defend their beliefs. Can this be done? We will have to think about it. At the same time, a consolidated text bringing together all of the modifications should be created. It won't be easy, but it's necessary.
2. Two interpretations to be rejected. There are two diametrically opposed interpretations of the new treaty. One is that this treaty is nothing more than a sweetened-up transposition of the Constitutional Treaty, whose external aspect of a constitutional nature it removes, whilst keeping the substance. According to the other, the original ambitions disappear and the result is giving up on the objective of European integration.
Neither interpretation is without its pitfalls. The first aims to prove that the Community institutions and governments, instead of respecting the verdicts of the people who rejected the draft Constitutional Treaty, are circumnavigating them; this, with a few minor changes, is also the position of both the British Conservatives and of the “Sovereignists” (from France and elsewhere). The second highlights the definitive decadence of European unity, the death of the Community dream, at the end of all ambition. Both of them are deceptive. The new treaty removes the mention of the European super-state, whilst safeguarding the national identities and setting the principle of subsidiarity in stone. But at the same time, it makes possible, or at least makes easier, colossal progress in European unity, as regards energy, economic coordination, the acknowledgement of the role of services of general interest; even progress in the field of foreign policy and defence are made more practicable. Everything, almost everything, becomes possible, for those that want it.
3. Possibilities without obligations. Any member state which does not wish to move forward will have this option. The time has come to lay down and generalise the basic principle which Etienne Davignon reiterated just recently (on the occasion of his 75th birthday), and which, in his view, represents the golden rule of European integration: “nobody can be forced to do what they do not wish to do, but nobody can prevent the others from doing it”. The single currency proves that this freedom of choice is possible, whether you call it reinforced cooperation or any other name. Admittedly, there are numerous legal and institutional problems, and democratic control over these new ideas has not yet been invented, but on the substance, Etienne Davignon was quite clear: “in order to have credibility, there does not always have to be 27 of us. The credibility of the euro exists without the United Kingdom. The credibility of other policies can also exist without it and without other countries”.
4. If a small minority does not ratify… Is the determination of the committed countries to move forward whatever happens, even if a few member states do not choose to follow, valid also for the ratification of the new treaty? The authorities in place avoid talking about it, because everybody would prefer not to think about it. But Jacques Delors and Etienne Davignon have broken the taboo. In a text signed by both of them, they state (our translation): “the use of qualified majority voting, as provided for by the new treaty, should also apply to the ratification process. In this way, if it turns out that a small minority of member states is not able to ratify this treaty, this minority will not be torpedoed like its predecessor was in 2005”. What is more, the new treaty formally opens the “exit door” to any country which does not wish to stay in the EU. Each country has the freedom of its own choices; what is no longer acceptable is a few of them standing in the way of all of the others. (F.R.)