Oral Report to the European Council

Abstract

Building democracy at the supernational level is an unprecedented task, but so once was building democracy at the level of the modern state. By today’s standards we would not likely classify France, Britain, or the United States in the nineteenth century as “democratic,” but in the time they were in the forefront of democratic development. The same can be said for the European Union today, and the progress of the EU in the last half-century has been remarkable. Recent advancements by the Brussels Convention—reflected in the resulting draft treaty for a European Constitution—represent significant steps forward for entrenching the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the people’s input and participation in Europe’s supernational institutions.

I am please to be able to submit to you an unequivocal document, a single document setting out the draft Constitutional Treaty for Europe. . . . [T]he document produced by the Convention represents an important step forward in the construction of Europe and will enable the enlarged Europe of the XXIst century to operate on solid foundations. Since our proceedings opened on 27 February 2002, we have been aware of the fact that our recommendations would only carry weight and authority if we managed to achieve broad consensus on a jointly presented draft. The Convention has succeeded in doing this, and our proposals thus pave the way for a Constitution for Europe. . . .

The draft which you have in your hands replaces the Treaties accumulated over the last fifty years with a single, new Constitutional Treaty. . . . The draft responds to two major requests made in the mandates issued to us in Nice and Laeken: the request for the European system to be clarified and simplified; and the creation of new tools for going in the direction of "more Europe" . . . and for meeting the requirements of security and justice and of a common foreign and defense policy. . . .

To meet the first purpose, we propose significantly improving the European System by:

• • producing a clear and stable definition of the allocation of competences between the Union and the Member States. From now on it will be clear who does what in Europe. Competences are divided into the exclusive competences of the Union, competences which are shared between the Union and the Member States, and areas of supporting action, where there can be joint action or coordination measures, but not measures harmonising the laws of the Member States . . . .

• • creating a control mechanism for the application of the subsidiarity principle with, for the first time, direct involvement of national parliaments . . . .

• • simplifying the Union's instruments for action by reducing their number from fifteen to six . . . .

• • conferring a single legal personality on the Union,

• • doing away with the three-pillar structure, which is a source of confusion and of overlapping competences. The Union's institutions will have a single structure, whatever the sphere of action. Only the procedures will be tailored to the specific nature of the subjects dealt with, as is normal,

• • simplifying terminology. . .

As for the second request, we propose moving towards more Europe in important areas where there is strong demand from our fellow citizens and a position of principle is already included in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam:

• • the measures in the draft Constitution relate first of all to the definition of resources and methods allowing the creation of a genuine area of freedom, justice and security in the European Union. This is a fundamental reform which citizens want to see. . . . Thus, from the citizen's point of view, Europe will have two of the features on which the communal life of people is based: a currency and justice,

• • as regards external policy, we propose the creation of a post of Minister for Foreign Affairs of the European Union who will be appointed by and answerable to the European Council, and will be both President of the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs and a Vice-President of the Commission in order to ensure coordination between diplomatic action and development aid policy. . . .

At the same time, we have reflected at length in order to find a method of...