Jacques Chirac
The French president, has put renewed pressure on Tony Blair over the proposed new European Union constitution by arguing that any state that fails to ratify it within two years of signature must quit the EU.
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| Chirac seeks ratify or quit clause for EU constitution | |||
| 2004-04-30 | |||
| Jacques Chirac, the French president, has put renewed pressure on Tony Blair over the proposed new European Union constitution by arguing that any state that fails to ratify it within two years of signature must quit the EU. As the EU prepares to greet ten new members tomorrow in its biggest ever act of enlargement, Mr Chirac told reporters in Paris that he backed a proposal for a "ratify or quit" clause to be written into the text of the constitutional treaty which is expected to be concluded by heads of government in June. Mr Chirac's comments come ten days after Mr Blair surprised the political establishment and his EU partners by pledging a referendum on the constitution, which many commentators believe would be hard to win. Mr Chirac told a press conference in Paris that a "ratify or quit" clause was "obviously a rather blunt guillotine blade". But the president added: "It is perhaps a positive solution. It ought to be negotiated into the constitution. I am not against the idea that there should be an instrument for friendly pressure on countries that reject the constitution because, at the moment they do, they'll block all the others."
The officials said they expected the proposal to be tabled next month in the final stages of talks on the treaty but were confident it would be rejected by the UK and other member states seeking to hold such a referendum. "This isn't negotiable," said one Whitehall figure. "There are several EU governments - for example the Netherlands - which would not want to be in the position of having to contemplate leaving the Union if they lost the referendum." Nevertheless, the UK officials conceded that Mr Chirac's call for a "ratify or quit" clause was a sign of how serious the stakes could be for the UK's future in Europe if there was a No vote in a British referendum.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 Chirac can shove his precious constitution up his arse. Britain won't be signing. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-04-30 12:53:36 PM |
| #9 BigEd, how DARE you insult me! |
| Posted by: Kermit the Frog 2004-04-30 12:11:41 PM |
| #8 Anonymous2U> "and no one ever thought of this?? " Um, thought of what exactly out of all the things mentioned in this thread? If you are referring to the "ratify or quit" scenario, the problem yet again is that the EU unfortunately can't currently force the UK to leave if UK doesn't itself agree to it. So they'll first have to make the countries unanimously agree to a "ratify or quit" arrangement and *then* allow them to make the choice of the two. Difficult? Hell, yeah. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-30 11:44:20 AM |
| #7 Jacques Chirac The French president, has put renewed pressure on Tony Blair over the proposed new European Union constitution by arguing that any state that fails to ratify it within two years of signature must quit the EU. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-04-30 11:11:13 AM |
| #6 Hundreds if not thousands of trees dead in printing the thing and no one ever thought of this?? Only, of course everyone will join up front, if they decide to leave after, here's what we'll do. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-04-30 10:29:46 AM |
| #5 Rafael> There are actually two issues contained in your question: First, why a new treaty is needed (regardless of whether we'll call it a constitution or not) and secondly, why are we calling it a "constitution" or "constitutional treaty". The new treaty is for starters required if we want the EU to expand further in size, to take Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and even more states. The treaties until now provide too far veto powers in individual states -- moreover there was weird play with the vote numbers that gave truly bizarre and unproportional powers to the two middle-sized countries (Spain and Poland), to the injury of both smaller and larger states. The new treaty would simplify the situation by calling for a "double majority" (of populations and of states) akin to the two-house system of the US Congress (though in the EU this double-majority system will be connected to the Council, not the Parliament). Other matters like the rotating presidency -- in a union of 6, 10, 12, 15 that's workable. In a union of 25 it is simply not and it most definitely ain't workable in a future union of 35 or so. (Actually the troubles to ratify the constitution is why I've started thinking that expanding the EU before installing the new constitution was a big mistake. We should have ratified first, and then the countries that still wanted to join should be allowed in.) In other matters, the new treaty would help as simplification -- instead of having this treaty to tell about protected rights in the union, and this other treaty to tell about movement in the union, and this piece of treaty to tell us about trade issues in the union, and this other piece to tell about the law-making of the union, now everything having to do with the workings of the union will be contained in a single piece, no matter how abnormally long it will be. :-) As to the second issue -- why we are calling it a "constitution"... well, it's the honest thing to do. It is one, serves all the functions of one -- refers to the rights of the citizens, describes the balance of powers, establishes the instruments of judiciary/legislative/executive authority. And ofcourse it's a further step, no matter how small, down the way to federalism. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-30 9:42:42 AM |
| #4 oops...Russia=Germany ..doh! |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-30 3:33:05 AM |
| #3 Rafel - so that France and Russia can collect taxes from all of Europe - they have bled their own populations dry. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-30 3:32:17 AM |
| #2 More tales from the farce side. Could someone (Aris) explain to me why the EU needs a constitution in the first place?? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-04-30 3:02:58 AM |
| #1 If the Brits are smart, they'll vote no and quit subsidizing inefficient French farmers with their tax You want a common market, Britain? Make one with us. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-04-30 2:46:15 AM |