EU constitution ?

froggy 2

The Commision president would be a bit more potent, but it is not a "revolution".
He would be elected by parliament, but on the basis of a single candidature choosed by the council (I-25/I-26).
It's new power is to select, but only from lists of three proposed by members, and fire (which is more important) commisionners.

At the opposite, the chart of rights seem to be weakened, since it would only be only applied on the EU fields of competence (II-51); anyway, the member states would have to respect the value of union, so this weakening is not so important....


Actually, there is one big thing new:
This is a CONSTITUTION . It implies it has a a much stronger value:

A treaty has only a power on the precise points it deals with.
A constitution is universal on every point (in this case, on every EU fields of competence), unless specified otherwise. It gives general frame which has to be respected by all decision taken by the union institutions (including parliament and council) in the present time and in <b> the future </b> .


The problem I see with this draft constitution are the following:
1) I am (relatively) left-wing, and I see that I make a free competition a value (I-3 and II-69) almost of the same rank as freedom, security and justice. It would be the first constitution wich would telle about the economic system: for instance, in France, the today constitution has allowed diriged economic policy (until the mid-80s) with wide nationalisations, as well as strong right wing policies (privatisations) since the early 90s.
This would not be possible with this new text.
2) More broadly, many articles are about the various policies, and I tend to think this has nothing to do in a consitution. The perfect example is article I-40 about military capacities. the whole part III (or almost all of it) is in this case.
3) The public services would disappear: the services of general economic interest are far from being the equivalent: first, they are only "economic" (what about education, culture, health for instance), then they are subject to competition (III-55), which implies there would be "profitable" consumers, and non-rpofitable one... end of egality of service, I'm afraid.
4) Any modification would be hard : see IV-7 dor details.

It's late, and I still have some work, bye.

rcunning03

Also, please explain, how the European Union, if it were as powerful in comparison to any other single bloc on earth as the US currently is, would not act in the same unilateralist manner as the US?

fair enough, i'll give you that point but do you not think the world would be a much better balanced place if we had a strong europe as well as a strong us, that way each power could act as a check and balance to each other.

granted i may of only been a child in the 80's(im 28 now), but when we had two superpowers the world seem more balanced and generally they kept each other in check

i think china will be a superpower in the next 10 years or so and ideally a strong europe could act as a mediator between the two, but as it stands at the moment we are irrelevant, the only reason countries like iran, israel meet with the eu is because were allies of the us, our say at the moment is irrelevant

Victor

I can understand a gradual move towards tax harmonisation - however this potentially just means that the larger states impose a tax regime that only suits them.

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/2006623?view=Eircomnet

Harney vows to face down EU over tax powers
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 22nd November, 2003

The Government will not accept that the European Union should have powers in the future to govern company taxation rates by a qualified majority vote of EU member states, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney said yesterday. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.

The draft European Union Constitution produced by the Convention on the Future of Europe proposes that EU finance ministers could agree unanimously to decide some corporate tax issues by qualified majority voting.

In a forthright speech to the Institute of European Affairs, the Tánaiste said the Government wants to bring the current inter-governmental talks on the new Constitution to "a timely and successful conclusion".

"We have said, however, that in the area of economic policy, tax is a red-line issue for us. We are saying this to our colleagues, old and new, respectfully and firmly. We want to be clear and fair to all concerned.

"Everyone in a negotiation has bottom lines. There would be no need for any negotiation if everyone had the same bottom line, or if no one had any bottom line," she said.

The extra EU tax powers proposed in the Constitution, negotiated by delegates from EU governments, MEPs and national parliaments, is "just a temporary halt along this road" for pro-integrationists, she said.

"But I am convinced it would be a recipe for instability and tension around this issue that would prevent progress on the Union's economic, financial and internal market policies," she said.

The proposal would mean that Ireland would have "one minister, one vote, once only" on company taxation.

"After that one vote, national decision-making would be gone forever," she said.

In a blunt warning, she emphasised that the Government would not recommend to voters that they accept such a fundamental change to the EU's laws. "And I don't see the Irish people approving that," she went on.

The Government's "red line" means that the agreement reached during the Nice Treaty which was "approved explicitly in our referendum should remain in place", she said.

The Tánaiste's refusal to consider tax decision-making by a qualified majority vote even in the long-term is significant, since senior Irish officials appear more favourable towards the idea.

Ireland, along with the United Kingdom and Sweden, are under increasing pressure to concede on taxation, as efforts continue to agree a new treaty before the Italian EU presidency ends in December.

Taxation is a core part of a country's sovereignty, she made clear: "Fiscal choices are decided by elections. Monetary choices are not. How much we tax, what we tax, and who we tax, are not mechanical matters of technical rules and targets.

"They are about democratic political choices. In each of our societies, we argue about them, we contest them, and we resolve them. Tax decisions define our political life.

"This is why my colleagues and I in the Irish Government are firm in our view that policy on direct taxation must remain a matter for national governments," she told the institute.

The Government's stand on taxation played a decisive part in persuading Irish voters to accept the Nice Treaty at the second attempt: "We asked people to vote Yes to reaffirm that position. And the people did so, only one year ago," she said.

The lack of qualified majority voting up to now has not stopped efforts to curb "harmful business tax practices", which have been fully supported by the Republic.

Varying corporate taxation rates throughout the EU are "good for the diversity and dynamism of the European economy, and will benefit the countries joining the Union in May 2004," she added.