The European constitution

[philip]

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[Stratos]

Here's a consolidated version of the new EU Constitution in .pdf format (325 pages )

That individual EU countries have to follow what someone within EU decides is nothing new, as long as those decisions are binding.

Close at hand, here's BBC's comment on the Constitution. It's a shorter read and offers some opinions from both sides. Do a search online for more, but you'll probably have to read the real deal to understand fully what the Constitution says.

There's some more info at Eur-Lex

[ 03-06-2005, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[philip]

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[Stratos]

Many people DO think that there's to much difference between the EU countries for some of these decisions.

I haven't read the constition yet, but of what I've heard they're gonna adopt a qualified majority voting system which is supposed to make things more fair.

[Timber Loftis]

The EU countries are not too different to operate under one federal system. Countries as diverse as Vermont, Texas, California, Alaska, and Florida do fine here. A properly-designed federal system (NOT to say we have one) can accomodate the differences -- that's what representation of the people by their representatives is all about.

Regarding the constitution, it's just too darned BIG and LONG. While I understand this is due to civil law system concerns -- which I admit I need to learn more about -- a 500 page documents isn't much of a "framework" but rather a "spell everything out" effort. We'll see how this goes, but I'll bet dollars to drachmas that the EU establishes a permanent "constitution review/reconciliation committee" to constantly monitor EU rules and regs for conformity with the Constitution and to constantly analyze necessary amendments.

Probably a good thing in context -- my experience is that Europeans are fond of paperwork.

[Dreamer128]

Originally posted by philip: Well I read an article in a (probably not very subjective) magazine and I was wondering if I should read a bit more about it since I think I'll have to go voting with the referendum and see for myself if it's a good thing or not. But the magazine gave a few things that don't seem really good to me. Like small countries get less (for the lack of a better word) power (in votes I reckon?).

True. Which is the price of more democracy. I think it's pretty natural that countries which a much larger population then our own get more seats in the European Parliament.

Also that countries have to follow if the Union decides something and that this could go pretty far. Examples were (not saying anything about how immigration should be or what's good) that any EU inhabitant could go to another country and get work there, so countries can't manage their own immigration anymore while there are a lot of different ideas out there on how it should be done.

'The Union' doesn't decide. We do. L'etat, c'est nous, so to speak. The European Union isn't a group of anomonous technocrats in Brussels. It's our own representatives and parlementarians, along with those of the other memberstates. We all work together to decide what works best for everyone. This will be even more so after the Constitution is ratified, as it will bring even more democracy and transparancy. Besides, question this, if the Constitution really did mean the end of life as we know it, why would every major political party we have endorse it?

The other thing was that the EU could change the complete welfare state if they wanted. Like a lot of national influence is going away to some bigger organ with a lot of different views. Like in a country on itself some things are pretty hard to decide already how are they going to do that for a large number of completely different countries. Also from my own observations (might not be true) I've got a feeling that economy is most important and that this leads to some pretty strange things like software patents and those stupid cases against M$.

Not really, we still have veto's in all the area's that count. I would say our 'welfare state' is safe for now. Well, safe from European influence at least. Besides, if our national parliament thinks a certain European issue can be handled better on a national scale, and a third of the European parliaments agrees with them then it will be delegated from the EU to our national governments. I also don't think that economy is number one for the EU. The Union has made many positive strides (at great expense) in the areas of welfare of enviroment.

[qb]Anyway what's so good about this?
More transparancy, democracy, cooperation but most importantly, more flexible institutions. The current Europeans laws provide for a Union of six states, whereas we are at 25 already. The Constitution provides much needed reforms. And Timber: the reason the Constitution is quite so long is because it replaces all previous European treaties. That's alot of text. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Philip, if you want to know more, you might want to check the Dutch governments site regarding the Constitution and all things European. http://www.bestbelangrijk.nl/ Not many critisism, mind you, but I can't imagine why any rational human being would vote against this treaty.

[ 03-13-2005, 06:16 AM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

[philip]

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