EU constitution

The European Council has approved a new draft constitution for the European Union. Will the political leaders who have been part of this process now come to rank historically with the American founding fathers and Canada's fathers of Confederation? It's too soon to tell. Unlike those earlier exercises in nation-building, the EU constitution will be submitted to popular referendum in several member states, including Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg, and possibly Poland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France as well. This could ultimately doom the effort. Why? "Analysts agree that a 'no' vote in any one EU state could plunge the EU into a serious crisis. In theory the constitution must be ratified by all EU member states to come into force."

As I've written before, wholesale constitutional change is difficult to sell under the best of circumstances. Look at Canada's Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, as well as the recent Annan Plan in Cyprus. Add to this the fact that Europeans appear to be in a generally "Eurosceptic" mood, as demonstrated in the results of last week's elections to the European Parliament, and it would appear that a successful European constitution is by no means a foregone conclusion.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the US Constitution, now so revered by Americans but new and untried in 1787, had had to go before the voting publics of the 13 prospective member states. I rather imagine it would have been voted down in at least some states. That might have ended the undertaking then and there. Or the US might simply have consisted of, say, 8 or 10 members, with the remainder maintaining their independence in some form. This would seem to indicate that the formation of constitutional federal systems, with each member state possessing the same powers vis-à-vis the federal centre, may be a thing of the past. Constitution-building is intrinsically an enterprise for élites. The incorporation of direct democratic mechanisms into the process, coupled with a unanimity provision, would appear to be a recipe for failure, although no one seems willing to admit this outright.

The wave of the future may thus be asymmetrical treaty federations, like the old Holy Roman Empire, or the EU today, in which the various member states negotiate their own unique relationships with the federal -- or, perhaps more accurately, confederal -- centre.

Later: By the way, the EU constitution fails to mention Europe's christian roots.