Saturday, June 19, 2004
The document may have trouble passing referendums in several nations.
WASHINGTON POST
PARIS -- European Union leaders meeting in Brussels agreed on a historic constitution -- the first forged for the 25-nation, 450 million-person bloc -- ending two contentious days of negotiations that exposed deep divisions and clouded prospects for future cooperation.
The mood of success Friday night was tempered by the reality that the constitution still faces formidable hurdles. Many EU nations have announced they would hold referendums on its adoption, and rejection by any one country would sink the constitution. Chances for passage looked particularly problematic in Britain, where a small anti-Europe party recently made strong election gains, and in Denmark, which has a history of rejecting European treaties.
The EU operates under terms of a complex web of treaties, and proponents of the constitution say it would simplify operation of the union, streamline decision-making and, by creating a permanent president and foreign minister, give the union greater standing in world affairs.
Joy was also muted because the leaders failed to agree on a replacement for Romano Prodi of Italy as president of the European Commission, the EU's executive committee. Faced with a deadlock and no candidate acceptable to all the countries, the leaders agreed to postpone the choice until a future meeting.
Question of representation
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency and was chairman of the summit, worked feverishly to secure language that allowed agreement on the constitution, and received a standing ovation for his efforts.
The most vexing question holding the pact up was how to apportion voting power among countries of vastly different sizes -- the same question that torpedoed hopes for a constitution when the leaders met in December.
A deal was secured when small countries dropped their insistence on more voting power, Britain won agreement to preserve its veto over such sensitive areas as taxation and foreign policy, and Roman Catholic countries led by Poland dropped their demand that the constitution include a reference to God and Europe's Christian heritage.
Tensions among leaders
Despite the last-minute success, this meeting -- coming after a six-month cooling-off period -- seemed more acrimonious than last December's session. Relations seemed particularly strained between British Prime Minister Tony Blair on one side and French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on the other.
Having each suffered a severe rebuke from voters in European parliamentary elections Sunday, all three leaders appeared in no mood to make compromises, analysts and diplomats said.
Blair's official spokesman told reporters, "We are operating in a Europe of 25, not six, or two, or one" -- a clear broadside directed against France and Germany, which often fashion themselves as the engine behind EU integration.
Chirac was equally combative, telling the summit, "From now on, there are limits that cannot be overstepped," according to his spokeswoman, Catherine Colona. Signaling that France was tired of making concessions to Blair, Chirac said, according to Colona, "We will not accept any further retreat from what has been proposed by the Irish presidency."
"The problem now is the personality clash between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac, because both have to look as tough as they can before their own voters," said Heather Grabbe, a researcher at the London-based Center for European Reform, a research organization. Blair and Chirac, she said, "seem to be going toe-to-toe."