EU CONSTITUTION AND ELECTIONS Competing Models for Europe’s Constitutional Debate: The Basics Erik Jones* ∗ SAIS Bologna Center The Johns Hopkins University January 2004 Working Paper On 13 December 2003, the heads of state and government of twenty-five European Union (EU) member states (fifteen actual and ten prospective) left their European Council summit in Brussels without a constitution. This non-result was largely unexpected, at least prior to November. At the end of the summer, most analysts believed that the heads of state and government would come to some agreement, probably one closely approximating the draft constitution provided by the European Convention last July. If there were to be problems, they were expected to show up during the ratification process. Referendums to approve integration treaties have failed in Europe, albeit only occasionally. 1 The intergovernmental conferences (or IGCs) responsible for treaty negotiation have not. 2 Soon after the IGC responsible for negotiating the constitution was inaugurated in October, important differences between the member states became apparent. By December, it was clear that these differences could not be bridged during the Brussels European Council summit. Negotiations over a draft constitution collapsed for a number of ostensible reasons. Poland and Spain refused to make concessions to Germany and France about the structure of voting in the Council of Ministers. Political turmoil within the Council of Ministers of Economics and Finance (ECOFIN Council) concerning the procedures for macroeconomic policy coordination deepened suspicions that not all member states would find equal treatment under any constitutional framework. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi failed to provide effective leadership in his role as rotating European Council President. European Convention President Valéry Giscard D’Estaing paid too little attention to the need to build political support for his draft constitution at the popular level, and so forth. Although some commentators pointed out how much agreement had been reached–by some accounts as high as 95 percent of the provisions were settled–the failure of the constitutional negotiations was manifest. Delegations were already leaving by midday Saturday. 3 Yet the Brussels summit was not a total failure, and neither was the Italian presidency. The European Council made progress on a number of issues. The member states could agree on how European integration can be used in the present, ∗ This paper was originally prepared for presentation at “Europe’s New Constitution and its World Role”, a conference held at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University on 22-24 January 2004. As author, I would like to thank Polina Gerasimova for excellent editorial and research assistance. Dionyssis Dimitrakopoulos and Anand Menon provided very useful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. 1 Examples here include successive Norwegian referendums to ratify the accession treaties of 1973 and 1993, the Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, and the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty in 2001. 2 The one major exception was the Fouchet Plan negotiations of 1960-1962. See Silj (1967). The negotiations concerning the European Defense Community and the European Political Community (1950-1952) actually succeeded, but the ratification failed in French Parliament. See Willis (1968: 130-184). 3 For a blow-by-blow account, see Ludlow (2004) The Journal of European Affairs, Vol. 2, No.1, February 2004 8