EU ‘paralysed and confused’ on constitution, say MEPs

MEPs should pick up the EU constitution baton and take the lead in reviving a stalled future of Europe debate, the European Parliament is set to declare next week.

The assembly’s constitutional experts, MEPs Andrew Duff and Johannes Voggenhuber argue parliament needs to take over “from a paralysed and confused EU leadership”.

“From Europe’s leaders we have had a display of a wide range of simplistic solutions to the crisis,” Duff said on Friday.

“From President Chirac we have had a proposal for a piecemeal approach to the constitution and from Nicolas Sarkozy we have had a proposal for a restructured version.”

From [the Dutch and UK foreign ministers] Bernard Bot and Jack Straw we have confirmation that the present treaty is finished; from Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel we have him disagreeing with all of these people and then we have the president of Finland disagreeing with Schuessel.”

“All their proposals are constitutionally improper or politically quite unrealistic. Some of them are both.”

Duff and Voggenhuber reject the current ‘piecemeal approach’ to EU political and institutional reform, emerging as the EU starts to react to its self imposed ‘period of reflection’ after the constitution’s collapse last year.

Both MEPs want parliament to show a clear way forward on reviving the constitution debate in Strasbourg next Wednesday and Thursday.

“We have to decide as a parliament if we are to fill the political space or to be satisfied with being supine parrots of fashion; commentators of the paralysed and confused European council,” said Duff.

Voggenhuber argued that there didn’t appear to be any serious EU leadership on the constitution.

“The crisis seems to be getting worse,” he said adding, “The question now is who is going to be able to lead us out of this crisis.

“Someone has to take responsibility, someone has to take initiatives. If it’s not the parliament, then who is going to take the lead and stand up for the constitutional process?”

The MEPs’ salvage plan will see the European and national parliaments convene a series of joint forums over the next year, with the intention of stimulating the debate on the nature and direction of Europe.

This could lead to the possibility of modifying and improving the current constitutional text.

And if the EU’s period of reflection does favour some kind of modified text, then the MEPs suggest a series of further EU wide referendums should be held on the same day as the European parliamentary elections in 2009.

MEPs will debate and vote on the Duff-Voggenhuber report next week in Strasbourg.

If the report’s recommendations are carried, then the MEPs say the first parliamentary forum could be held on May 9, in time to present recommendations to EU heads of state at the June European summit.

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