The doomsayers were wide of the mark, but even so, a year on, very little has changed or even looks like changing: the EU constitution is getting dusty on a shelf.
During a meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Vienna last weekend, one thing became clear: the member states of the European Union agree on very little and the future of the constitution is still unclear. Many countries want a completely new version of the text albeit a more compact one.
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Click to listen to an interview with Daniel Gros from Newsline |
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What it contains though, remains the biggest sticking point. In the second half of 2007, a debate will start about a common foreign policy for the EU. By then elections in the Netherlands and France will have taken place and the two countries which said no to the constitution will likely have new governments.
So, with a handful of fresh leaders, Europe hopes to bring the constitution back to life. This should result in a new text, but not until 2009, when there will be European elections and a new European Parliament and Commission. In the meantime, the European Commission could also heavily rework the constitution, although Daniel Gros, an analyst with the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, says that won't be the easy option either.
"A straight revival - in the sense that this text will be approved by everybody - is unlikely, but part of the text, perhaps with some small modifications, will certainly be proposed especially under the German presidency [of the EU] which has made one of its first priorities the revival of the talks."
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Wolfgang Schüssel: "Making your mind up time for France and the Netherlands" |
Austria is currently holding the presidency of the EU and Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel today told newspaper Die Presse that a relaunch of the treaty must include something new, though not necessarily a rewrite of the original text.
He's also urging France and the Netherlands as well as other countries which haven't ratified the constitution to decide whether another vote can be held over the same constitution.
However, there's unlikely to be much eagerness for more referenda, due to the failures of the previous votes. Daniel Gros says the problem is that the voters don't really focus on the issue at hand, rather they use the polls to hand down their judgment on national governments.
"When you have a referendum usually the outcome is not so much focused on the particular question which is being asked, but on more general issues relating to the popularity of the government, of the general feeling of the population."
Painful
Once again the issue of what to do about the constitution will be central to discussions at a meeting of EU leaders in June. But rather like the painful EU budget debate, this issue could run and run… and run.