Press Release, 25th June 2007

Global Vision’s analysis of the European Council’s mandate to the IGC responsible for finalising the new Reform Treaty shows that the new Treaty will cover most of the proposals of the rejected ‘Constitution’. No number of terminological amendments can disguise this fundamental truth.

Ruth Lea, Director of Global Vision, said, “It is now very clear that the vast majority of the proposals in the Constitution have survived and there will be a further, fundamental shift of power from the Member States to the EU’s centralised institutions if the new Reform Treaty goes ahead. There is absolutely no doubt that the Treaty is a further step in the ratchet towards an integrated European Government. Anyone who denies this is being deliberately concealing and misleading.”

“Moreover, despite Britain’s ‘opt-outs’, the new Treaty will profoundly curtail British national sovereignty. This must be clear to Gordon Brown as he steps into Number 10. He must honour Tony Blair’s pledge for a referendum. To refuse would be a betrayal of the British people and nothing short of a con-trick.”

The new Reform Treaty will include:

• The Union will have legal personality for the first time, allowing it to sign international treaties
   
• The three pillared structure of the EU, introduced by the Maastricht Treaty and modified by the Amsterdam Treaty, will be replaced by a unitary structure.
   
• The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) will become a Union competence (power) headed by a permanent ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’ - a Foreign Minister, by any other name.
   
• Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters will also become a Union competence but the UK has a voluntary ‘opt in’ procedure for this area of policy.
   
• The Protocol on the Charter of fundamental rights will be legally-binding but the UK has an ‘opt-out’. ECJ judgements will not directly affect UK law, unless British law permits them to – though there are doubts that this opt-out will be legally enforceable.
   
• Competition as an EU objective has been downgraded and transferred from the Treaty to a Protocol.
   
• There will be a permanent President of the European Council, which becomes a formal EU institution for the first time.
   
• The voting weights in the Council of the EU will be changed, albeit with a delay until 2014, and will reduce the ability of any Member State to block legislation.
   
• Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) will become the norm in the Council’s decision-making, with vetoes going in areas including transport, energy, space policy, sport and the annual budget.
   
• The policy of having one Commissioner for each Member State will end and there will be strengthened powers for the Commission President.
   
• The Union will have new powers to harmonise civil and criminal laws and legal procedures and a European Public Prosecutor will be created.
   
• There are also part-new and part-consolidated powers in the areas of public services, space, energy, climate change, civil protection, humanitarian aid, public health, sport, tourism, outer-most regions, administrative cooperation and financial provisions. And there are also new powers on economic coordination and employment policies and increased power over social policy.

Conversely, the changes to the ‘Constitution’ are few. They include: 

• Changes in terminology including the dropping of the term Constitution and the title-change of the Foreign Minister.
   
• The dropping of the symbols of the Union in the Treaty.
   
• The relegation of ‘competition’ as an objective of the EU to a Protocol.
   
• Specification of the need to combat climate change.
   
• Reference to the spirit of solidarity concerning energy supplies.