2.11 Constitutional Treaty: UK Government's White Paper

These are some observations on the UK Government’s White Paper on the Constitutional Treaty: 

• The Government was broadly welcoming to the European Constitution.
• The Government specified ‘red line” issues, where they will insist on retaining unanimity for voting. They were:
• Treaty changes.
• Taxation.
• Social security.
• The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
• “Key areas of criminal procedural law”.
• “Own resources”, referring to the British rebate.
• The CFSP, generally, de facto was added.
• The UK’s right to carry out frontier controls was de facto added.
• The White Paper was broadly in favour of legal personality for the EU, but added that the UK’s representation in international organisations (e.g. the UN Security Council seat) and British control over aspects of the remaining inter-governmental parts of the JHA must be safeguarded.
• The Charter of Fundamental Rights was not a red line issue. The White Paper said that the Government would make a final decision on the Charter “only in the light of the overall picture at the IGC”.
• The White Paper made some mildly sceptical noises about the plan to allow the EU to co-ordinate the economic policies of member states. But it did not state that the Government would oppose this proposal.
• There was no explanation of the new ‘shared competence’.
• The “escalator clause” was mentioned along with a statement that anything undermining the role of national parliaments in Treaty changes would be opposed (paragraph 62). (The ‘escalator clause’ would allow the European Council to replace unanimity requirements with QMV in any area it wished without seeking the consent of national parliaments or the European Parliament and would put the remaining vetoes permanently under threat.)
• On competences the White Paper did not make it clear whether the Government supported, for example, the new EU competence on energy. Instead, the White Paper said the Government ‘will need to consider, on a case by case basis, whether the conferral of specific powers on the EU is the best way’.

Reference

FCO, A Constitutional Treaty for the EU: The British Approach to the EU Inter-governmental Conference 2003 (White Paper), Cm 5934, September 2003.

RL, February 2008.