The Spectator

Referendum est

Article 1 of the proposed EU constitution speaks of ' the will of the people'. Let us therefore hear it

issue 17 May 2003

It is hard to decide which is the most ludicrous of the articles of the forthcoming EU constitution, but article 14 must be a contender. Back in October last year, the Praesidium of the European Convention produced its opening draft. The Praesidium is a group of magnificoes who have been meeting in Brussels, under the direction of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, he of the Bokassa diamonds. You may think Praesidium a pompous and fittingly Soviet-sounding word for mainly has-been European politicians. But the Praesidium clearly believes its members will be seen as the founding fathers of a new and rather superior country. It is a country called Europe, and we are all to be its citizens.

It is the Praesidium’s historic function to bless that country with a constitution, and to that end its members have been groping for uplifting language, even if the effect is unintentionally comical. Under article 14 of the new constitution, which will become a fortiori the constitution of the United Kingdom, there must be a ‘common foreign and security policy’.

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