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The new EU Constitution – disaster
or progress?
May 2003
Under enormous time pressure, the 'Convention on the Future of Europe'
plans to finalise its proposals for the new Constitution of the European
Union in June 2003. Drafts of the different parts have been published
over the last months and have sparked controversial debates. At time
of going to print, the last pieces remain missing.
More than a thousand amendments have been proposed in the meantime and
it is completely unclear how the Praesidium of the Convention will bring
the process to a satisfactory end in a participatory way in such a short
time frame. Most likely, only one second draft of the Constitution will
be published in May/June. The Convention will then only have a few weeks
to discuss, change and accept it.
For environmental organisations, this situation is worrisome, because
the Convention's Praesidium showed an astonishing ignorance towards environmental
and sustainability issues. Sustainable Development, for example, was
defined only in economic and social terms in the drafts. Environmental
protection objectives were weakened in comparison to the current treaties.
The environmental integration principle of the Amsterdam Treaty was completely
forgotten. And finally, Vallery Giscard d'Estaing is proposing to take
the Euratom Treaty, which obliges the EU to promote nuclear power, unchanged
into the new Constitution.
Environmental organisations have continuously given input to the Convention
and have made their concerns heard (for an overview, see www.foeeurope.org).
Since so far we have only seen first drafts of all the articles, it is
impossible to know if our demands have been taken into consideration.
While many Convention members have supported our proposals for improvements,
it remains to be seen what the Praesidium of the Convention will make
out of them. Key demands of environmental NGOs on the Constitution:
1) Ambitious approach to environmental protection and a clear definition
of sustainable development:
In the chapters defining the objectives of the Union, the definition
of sustainable development must reflect its 3 pillars: social, economic
and environment. The Union must aim for a high level of environmental
protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment (as
already stated in the current treaty).
2) Environmental integration principle and policy coherence:
The new Constitution must include the environmental integration principle
(Article 6 of the Amsterdam treaty), which obliges the EU to take environment
into consideration in all Union policies. The external activities of
the EU must be coherent with other policies, especially with the objective
to promote sustainable development.
3) Participatory Democracy:
Citizens must have the right to participate in the decision making of
the institutions of the Union. Proposals for legislation, programmes
and policy must be published in time and opportunities for early and
appropriate consultation during all stages of decision making must be
provided. Citizens and their organisations shall have the right of access
to the European Court of Justice to challenge decisions of the EU bodies.
All bodies discussing legislative and major policy proposals shall meet
in public.
4) Review of the policy chapters:
The policy chapters (Part two of the Constitution, called: "Union
policies and their Implementation") must be updated. It is not acceptable
to integrate the policy chapters unchanged, as some Convention members
suggested. Chapters such as those on agriculture, transport, economic
and social cohesion, common commercial policy or development co-operation,
need urgent updating to reflect the Union's objective of sustainable
development. The agriculture chapter, for example, is still promoting
the increase of productivity, and thus not at all compatible with today’s
priorities.
5) Abolition or fundamental reform of Euratom:
The Euratom treaty must be abolished. It is undemocratic, biased and
out of date. It is unacceptable that the EU is obliged to promote nuclear
energy while the majority of the countries and citizens do not support
nuclear energy. If Euratom is integrated in the new Constitution, it
must be radically reformed, removing all promotional parts which give
nuclear energy an advantage over other energy forms.
For background information
and details on the demands, which are supported by Friends of the Earth
Europe, Greenpeace, WWF, European Environmental
Bureau,, BirdLife International, Transport &Environment, Climate
Action Network Europe and Nature Friends International, which together
represent more than 20 Million European citizens, see: http://www.foeeurope.org/activities/convention/convention.htm
The Convention is expected to complete its work in June 2003. After
that the proposal of the Convention will be discussed and a new Constitution
will be decided at an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) at the end of
2003 or in 2004. Friends of the Earth Europe urge Convention members
to take the demands of the environmental organisations seriously. A Constitution
which does not take these key points into consideration would be worse
than the existing treaties and would therefore loose the support of millions
of people, which the European environmental organisations represent.
Yet a new Constitution is a necessity, if an enlarged EU with 25 member
countries is to remain functional: democratic control must be increased
and decision-making structures must become more efficient and transparent.
The new Constitution will however only find the support of environmental
organisations if it also means a step forward for the environment.
Martin Rocholl
Friends of the Earth Europe
martin.rocholl@foeeurope.org
http://www.foeeurope.org/activities/convention/convention.htm
www.european-convention.eu.int
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