The European Union

Dont mention the constitution

Mar 27th 2007
From Economist.com

Germany tries to look to the next 50 years of the EU

YOUNG Berliners partied the night away, with free beer and sausages and a Danish
hip-hop group made up of Catholics and Muslims. But this was the 50th birthday
bash of the European Union, so politicians were not content to left the festivities
take care of themselves. A couple of dozen men in suits, and a lady in a yellow
jacket, felt compelled to issue a document (where would the EU be without
memoranda?). Here was the EUs real celebration: the Berlin declaration.
Afterwards, the suits and jacket dominated the front pages of German newspapers.
It had all been, apparently, a triumph for Angel Merkel, chancellor and host. She
had managed to create somethinga good feeling, a good atmosphere, burbled
an EU diplomatout of nothing. Or perhaps, if you actually read the document, you
might conclude she had created hardly anything out of not very much. It was the
triumph of virtual politics.
For centuries Europe has been an idea, holding out peace and understanding, the
declaration begins. Such rhetorical flourishes obviously require a wide latitude of
tolerance but, even so, this was bit thick. For most centuries of its history, the idea
of Europe was much more likely to be associated with wars of conquest than with
peace and understanding. If peace was to be found anywhere (which it wasnt very
often), it was more likely to be encountered inside nation states. But in polite
European society, nation states are not usually considered sources of good things.
That hope [of peace and understanding] has been fulfilled, the document
continues. This is remarkably self-confident. Custom normally dictates a certain
tentativeness at this point in official declarations. People prefer to make references
to aims, not achievements. Americas Declaration of Independence talks only of
the pursuit of happiness, not the catching of it; its constitution was established
in order to form a more perfect union, not having created one.
Throughout most of the text, the Berlin declaration is a strange mixture. Parts are
inoffensively correct: the individual is paramount. Parts are surprisingly correct:
we have a unique way of living and working together in the European Union.
Boastful but accurate: no other institution has entwined national and supra-national
authority together in quite the EUs way. And some is outright misleading: The
European Union wants to promote freedom and development in the world. Well, it
may want those, but in practice the common agricultural policy has done as much
as anything to beggar African countries.
Thanks to the yearning for freedom of the peoples of central and eastern Europe,
the unnatural division of Europe is now consigned to the past. Really? That was a
very odd thing to say the day before Martti Ahtisaari presented his plan for the
independence of Kosovo to the United Nations Security Council. In the western
Balkans, Ukraine and Belarus the unnatural divisions of Europe have certainly not
been consigned to the pastto say nothing of Turkeys desire to erase a boundary
further east by joining the EU.

The German government originally wanted the Berlin declaration to rise above dayto-day squabbles and to stand the test of time. Of course, it couldnt really. Two
parts provide a practical guide to what the EU thinks it is doing now, and what the
German government (at least) hopes it will do next. The document includes a
laundry list: We will fight terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration...we
intend jointly to lead the way in energy policy and climate protection. This is the
lowest common denominator between countries such as Belgium and Germany who
like the EU for its own sake and want it to do as much as possible, and countries
such as Britain and Poland which want the EU to restrict itself to a series of specific
areas.
The declaration ends with the German governments own little wish list, which only
has one item on it: we are united in our aim of placing the European Union on a
renewed common basis before the European parliamentary elections in 2009. This
is code for: we want to bring back the European constitution by that date, though
the constitution is anathema to several countries, so the word itself cannot be
mentioned in the text (nor will it be mentioned in the revised constitution itself).
Mrs Merkel hopes that leaders will agree on a timetable in June, and hold a big
conference on a new constitution in the autumn. Whoever is president of France
and prime minister of Britain at that point will therefore have an enormous
headache dumped on them as soon as they take office. But, of course, they were
not around to sign the Berlin declaration.