So here we are celebrating the Lisbon Treaty

The Constitution is dead! Long live the Treaty!

At last. Two and half years since the French and Dutch said "no", two and a half years that the EU has been stagnating, unloved and inefficient, two and half years of 25, then 27, countries working together with rules written for only 15. Two and a half years later, and it's now been nearly week since the Council of the European Union popped the open the Champagne in Lisbon to celebrate an agreement on the new "Reform Treaty" (aka simplified treaty aka modifying treaty).

For all those who haven't been following the EU's developments, here is a quick recap of what has been going on.

In 2005, the French and Dutch rejected the badly-named European Constitution (it was actually the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to give it its full name, law students will appreciate the difference). They had been asked to express their views in referenda organised at the time, while some countries had simply ratified through their national parliaments.

This double rejection (which might have been far worse if other countries such as the UK had been asked to vote) plunged the EU deeper in to an institutional crisis. The Treaty of Nice, planned for fifteen states from Western and Southern Europe, was unable to take into account the particularities of working with twelve new countries including ten from Eastern Europe.
All Member states agreed that the EU needed a new, more modern, efficient and democratic set of rules to follow, but nobody dared bring the subject up.

Two years go by and Germany is set to take on the EU presidency. The presidency rotates from country to country for six months, and during that time the particular country hosts the summits and outlines priorities. The head of state is the president of the EU council, the minister for foreign affairs the EU's minister for foreign affairs and so on.

Germany takes over on January 1st 2007. At the concluding Council meeting on June 21st-22nd Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that it is time to get on with things and summons an Intergovernmental Conference. An IGC is a meeting of all the different Ministers from Member States who work together to modify a treaty. A treaty can only be modified if it has the unanimous accord of every Member State so it is vital that all the governments, who represent the interests of their individual country, work together. On June 26th a precise outline of what everybody wants is produced and handed over to the ICG who then gets everyone negociating and produce a compromise. Legal experts transcribe the whole thing in to a treaty.


Portugal takes over on July 1st 2007. On October 2nd, the Portuguese presidency announced that legal experts have come to a agreement on the text. On the 5th, all 251 pages of it (including reambules and protocols) are translated in to all 23 languages of the EU. One can imagine some pretty sleepless nights in the translating department.

Next step is the summit at Lisbon, where all EU heads of State meet for an approuval of final version of the Treaty - or not. Things did look pretty hairy for a while, as each country in turn produced last-minute extravagant or stupid demands, or simply threatened to block the process if they didn't get what they wanted.

The UK is a well known bitch in these matters. The UK is however allowed many 'opt-outs', which means it can simply opt out of any part of the treay it doesn't like. That is why the UK (and Denmark) are not part of the eurozone, and why the UK will not ratify the bit of treaty that deals with fundemental human rights.

Poland however was more problematic. The mad twins Kaczynski are anti-Europe & are supposed to stand for Polish pride & national values. They made extravagant demands for a 6th permanent Advoacte general at the European Court of Justice who would be polish. They also wanted the Compromise of Ioanina (name of the Greek place where the summit it appeared at was hosted) to be added to the treaty and not left in an annexe. The compromise basically allows a few countries, if they strongly disagree with what the majority have voted for, to delay the decision and impose a further round of negociations.

Austria wanted fewer German students over on Erasmus trips. Nobody took much notice of them except to point and laugh I would imagine.

Italy however pulled a real wobbly over seats at the European parliament. A parliament of 785 members is huge and unmanageable and the idea is to bring it down to 750. Italy however was furious that they should lose 6 MEPs (down to 72, which is one fewer that the UK and two fewer than France). Prodi threatened to veto the whole thing.

But lo & behold it all went fine in Lisbon, and on the very first night the all cracked open the champagne. Poland got a bit of what it wanted (the Ioanina compromise is in a protocol, not an annexe, and can only be changed unanimously). The UK got its opt outs as usual. As for Italy, they simply rearranged the seating pattern : the EP president no longer counts as one of the 750, whoopi! an extra seat, here you go Italy.

Things are not however over. The leaders have agreed but what about the countries? the citizens? well, for most Member states the treaty will be ratified by the national parliament, and it seems unlikely that doing it this way will be a problem. The mad twin Prime minister Kaczynski is gone, replaced by a bunch of pro-EU liberals, so Poland will probably ratify by Parliament. Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty and again the outcome should be favourable. Other countries however may be problematic.

Maybe Gordon Brown will crack under the pressure and submit the treaty to referendum where it will promptly be shat upon. What about France? Though Sarkozy would never put the ratification of the text in to the hands of the citizens (who are restless...) maybe the socialists will once again stupidly divide over the question. Petitions are already on the net campaigning for a referendum.

Nothing is yet sure, though the series of ratification should start mid december, probably with Germany and France.