Austria vowed this week to breathe life into the European Union’s ailing constitution during its just-started EU presidency — but analysts warn that no real progress was likely before next year.
As he launched Vienna’s six-month term at the EU helm Monday, Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said he would focus on reviving the text and bridging the gap between the EU’s institutions and a disillusioned public.
“The constitution is not dead but it is not in force,” he said. “The constitution is in the middle of a ratification process.”
French President Jacques Chirac also called, in a New Year message, for a new departure for Europe following the blow to the historic blueprint for Europe’s future.
But with elections due in mid-2007 in France and the Netherlands, two founder members of the bloc whose citizens rejected the charter last year, analysts doubt that the EU’s most euro skeptic country can make much headway.
“2007 is the earliest we can expect any substantial development,” said Marco Incerti of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies think tank.
One EU diplomat who has been heavily involved in the constitutional crisis said there was no chance of significant breakthrough before Austria hands the EU reins to Finland in July. “Six months would seem premature to me, we would be in a sort of vicious circle,” he said. “These six months will help generate discussion on what we could do and then we could expect a summary of possible ideas in June.”
The constitution is aimed at improving the way the EU runs as its expands by synthesizing its treaties, and doing away with red tape and unwieldy processes like the rotating presidency system.
It has been ratified by 13 of the bloc’s 25 member states but was rejected by France and the Netherlands in mid-2006, which prompted nine other countries to suspend the process amid a “period of reflection” about Europe’s future.
“What the Austrians could do is give some more visibility to the issue and bring the spotlight back on the constitution,” Incerti said, but he warned that the path would be treacherous.
“It is a very fine line to tread. You have to inform the citizens about the constitution and its pros and cons without giving them the impression that we are again trying to push it through the back door,” he said.
The latest euro barometer survey shows that Europeans have become more ambivalent about the benefits of membership since the constitutional crisis and a dispute over the budget, with only one in two supporting it.
Options for the future are few and hugely controversial: Forge ahead with a compromised document; “cherry-pick” the best parts at the risk of compromising them too; or move ahead in what Chirac calls European “pioneer groups”.
“It would be a good idea to construct an avante -garde around a few countries,” Charles Grant, from the London-based Center for European Reform, wrote in French newspaper Liberation.
“But it seems strange that France would be leading this avante-garde when she is the one that brought down the European constitution,” he said.
As a first step, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik has begun a trip to France and the Netherlands to see what chance there might be of holding new referendums after next year’s elections.
