Welcome to democracy

No doubt it was a slip of the tongue, as his spokesman duly hastened to emphasise. At a press conference in Dublin this month, the Downing Street website recorded Gordon Brown saying that he had “discussed the European constitution” with his counterpart, Bertie Ahern. Slips are, as always, revealing.

The EU “reform treaty”, on which the detailed drafting began this week, is supposed to be a tweak here and a tug there. On that, the mandate handed to drafters at the slimmed-down intergovernmental conference by last month’s EU summit is theoretically explicit. But the changes in train are a far cry from the mini-treaty, contained on a “few sheets of A4 paper”, that was being discussed only a few months ago.

In terms of the sovereign powers transferred to Brussels, of expanded roles for the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, of the potentially intrusive and legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, and of expanded majority voting in the EU Council, the “reform treaty” is indeed the old constitution revisited.

The details of the 277-page text on which officials are working (in French) follow the rejected constitutional treaty so closely that it is, to put it mildly, odd that neither Brussels nor the Government can produce an official English translation until deep into the parliamentary recess (an English version of the amendments made can be found here).

The biggest difference will be that, whereas the constitution had the (limited) clarity of a text, the end result of this exercise will be an impenetrable legalistic impasto. So as Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the initial constitution’s architect, puts it: “Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly.” Welcome to democracy, as defined by self-serving grandees and bureaucrats.

This is the "new" Europe. It's socialist Soviet Union all over again, with an islamic twist. Anybody out there that want's to guzzle down this coctail? I once voted for membership in to EU. I'm beginning to think that is the largest mistake I've ever made. What I voted for was globalism, free markets to benifit all. But what we got is protectionism and a super state bureaucracy- with France (!!!) as the puppet master. Cheezus! Please somebody give me a Green Card...