Two years after French and Dutch voters rejected the European Constitution in separate referenda, EU leaders met in Portugal on Thursday to sign a slimmed-down version of the Constitution in the hope that all 27 Member States will be able to ratify the Treaty this time.
Interestingly enough, Malta was the seventeenth country to sign the Treaty, with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Frendo putting their signatures to the 250-page text.
For some people it brings good luck, while for others – notably the Italians – the number is supposed to be unlucky. What luck will it bring to the ratification of the Treaty in Malta and in the rest of the EU?
“History will remember this day as a day when new paths of hope were opened to the European ideal,” Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said at the grand ceremony in a historic Lisbon monastery.
Socrates, in his pre-signing speech, insisted that the treaty poses no threat to the national sovereignty of member states.
Malta’s Foreign Minister Michael Frendo hailed the Treaty as “an important positive step forward for the EU setting a framework for a more efficient and effective European Union. A stronger EU makes us all stronger in a globalised world.
“This treaty also allows the EU now to concentrate on economic and social initiatives to ensure its greater competitiveness and to deliver greater value-added to the lives of its citizens developing the European economic and social model.
“This Treaty also facilitates further enlargement which is particularly needed in the Western Balkans. It increases the civil and political human rights dimension of European citizens.
“It secures for Malta its sixth seat in a way that there can be no reduction even with enlargement even though the maximum seats of the European Parliament have been fixed. Six seats is now the minimum threshold.
“The significance of this achievement for Malta is exponential in terms of the ability to be effective in the European Parliament and will continue to increase in time.
“Equally we have secured the acceptance of the criterion of island status so that double insularity is not required for island status to be triggered.
“This can have long-term positive consequences since the European Union for the first time is recognising that island status (not just being an island off an island) can carry with it inherent disadvantages which need to be taken into account in EU policy. Overall this is beneficial to our country and to our Union,” Frendo said.
Asked whether Malta has traded too much (a permanent Commissioner, as well as veto power on more than 50 areas, which will end up in majority voting) in order to get that extra seat in the EP, Frendo said: “It is wrong to depict this Treaty has having some tit for tat with a sixth seat being ‘sacrificed’ for more qualified majority voting (QMV)! There is no issue of trading here!
“The increase of QMV was part of a package agreed to by everyone while retaining ‘veto’ powers for fundamental issues such as constitutional change, foreign policy and taxation. It is wrong and untrue to give the impression as if Malta lost something: this is a package which applies to everyone else equally. If the Commission numbers are decreased - although we managed to include a ‘facultative’ clause which allows the numbers to remain the same if everyone agrees - they are decreased for all, Germany, Italy, France, Slovenia and Malta and all the others alike,” Frendo told MaltaToday.
Asked whether the Government agreed with holding a referendum on the ratification of the Treaty, Frendo dismissed the idea.
“This is a Treaty agreed to between States and should be ratified in accordance with normal parliamentary procedures. I firmly believe that: speaking of referenda puts us in a federalist mode and I strongly believe that we have to retain the character of Europe not just as a Europe of peoples (where numbers count) but, equally, as a Europe of States (where size does not matter). This is in our interest as the smallest state in the European Union,” Frendo said.

Similarities
The Lisbon Treaty contains many of the changes the Constitution had attempted to introduce. In fact a British think-tank estimated that if you put the texts of the European Constution and the Lisbon Treaty side by side, 96 per cent of it is an identical copy-and-paste.
For instance, the president of the European Council will be a politician chosen for two and a half years, replacing the current system where countries take turns at being president for six months.
Also retained in the Lisbon Treaty will be a new post combining the jobs of the existing foreign affairs supremo, Javier Solana, and the external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, to give the EU more clout on the world stage.
Moreover, a smaller European Commission, with fewer commissioners than there are member states (17 as against the current 27), from 2014 has been confirmed in the Lisbon Treaty.
Not every Member State will have a commissioner at any one time – a rotation system will be introduced whereby two-thirds of Member States will have a commissioner for a five-year period.
Also retained in the Lisbon Treaty was the redistribution of voting weights between the member states, phased in between 2014 and 2017.
New powers for the European Commission, European Parliament and European Court of Justice, for example in the field of justice and home affairs have been confirmed in the Lisbon Treaty.
Removal of national vetoes in 50 areas, which will be replaced by a new voting system as of 2014, will mean that a decision can only be taken if it has the backing of 55 per cent of EU Member States, representing more than 65 per cent of the bloc’s population.
The number of MEPs in the European Parliament will fall from the present 785 to 751 at the next EP elections in June 2009.
This means that 17 out of 27 Member States will see a reduction in their share of MEPs. However, Malta has retained the addition of the sixth seat agreed in the now-defunct European Constitution three years ago.

The differences
The European Constitution attempted to replace all earlier EU treaties and start afresh, whereas the new treaty amends the Treaty on the European Union (the Maastricht Treaty) and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (the Rome Treaty).
The Lisbon Treaty also dropped all reference to the symbols of the EU such as the flag, the anthem and the motto, although these will continue to exist.
Moreover, there is a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Lisbon Treaty, making it legally binding, but the full text does not appear, even in an annex.
The UK has secured a written guarantee that the charter cannot be used by the European Court to alter British labour law, or other laws that deal with social rights. However, experts are divided on how effective this will be.

The path to the Lisbon Treaty
The effort to draft a constitution began in February 2002 with the Convention about the Future of Europe and took two and a half years, but that text became obsolete when it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
France and the Netherlands said that following the 2005 referenda, they would be unable to adopt the constitutional treaty without significant changes, therefore it had to be dropped.
The UK also pressed hard for a modest “amending treaty”, which, like earlier EU treaties, could be ratified by means of a parliamentary vote.
Work began in earnest on a replacement treaty during the German EU presidency in the first half of 2007, and agreement on the main points of the new treaty was reached at a summit in June.
Negotiations continued behind the scenes over the following months before a final draft was agreed by the leaders of the 27 member states in October this year.

Ratification
If just one of the EU’s 27 member states fails to ratify the treaty, it cannot come into force. This time, most countries plan to ratify the treaty in parliament, which is less likely to cause an upset than holding a referendum.
So far only one country, Ireland, has said it will definitely hold a referendum.
Parliaments in Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark are also expected to give a turbulent reception to the 250-page text. However, Germany, France and Poland have pledged to be among the first to ratify it, so that the new reforms can come into force in 2009 as planned.
British Labour MP Gisela Stuart, who helped draw up the original European Constitution as a member of the convention chaired by ex-French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing four years ago, told the BBC: “This is a deeply dishonest process. As the chief author of the constitution, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, says: ‘All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.’”.
On his part, French Socialist MP and former Minister for Europe between 1997 and 2002 Pierre Moscovici, who was also a member of the Convention for the Future of Europe, took a more sanguine view. “Even if the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t change the face of the EU, it is the indispensable condition for re-launching the European project.
“Of course the text will not be sufficient on its own. It will solve Europe’s institutional crisis, but not its political and moral crisis. For that, the EU needs leaders for whom Europe is a mission, and not merely a constraint,” he told the BBC.

Opt-outs
Ireland and the UK currently have an opt-out from European policies concerning asylum, visas and immigration. Under the new treaty they will have the right to opt in or out of any policies in the entire field of justice and home affairs.
Poland is also due to sign up to the guarantees on the Charter of Fundamental Rights negotiated by the UK.
Denmark will continue with its existing opt-out from justice and home affairs, but will gain the right under the new treaty to opt for the pick-and-choose system.
Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has announced that a referendum will be held during the existing parliament’s lifetime on scrapping his country’s opt-outs.

Coming into force
The treaty should come into force in 2009 but different parts will take effect at different times.
For instance, the High Representative on foreign affairs could start work by late next year, as long as the treaty has been ratified.
The new-look European Parliament would not appear until after the European elections in June 2009. In fact, that poll will be seen partly as an endorsement of the new arrangements.
The new president of the European Council could also start work at that point.
Although a new commission will be chosen in 2009, its size may not be slimmed down until 2014.
Some extensions of qualified majority voting (QMV) in the European Council are already in place, such as the appointment of the commission president and the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy – but Poland’s objections over voting weights mean the redistribution of votes will not come into force until after 2014.
Some of the higher profile aspects of the treaty could begin to appear by the end of next year but it could be 10 years before the process is complete.

czahra@mediatoday.com.mt