Caught in the coils of Giscard's folly
Sunday Times - 07 December 2003
Gisela Stuart MP was one of the 13 people who drafted the new EU constitution. She doubts the process, the motive and the final product
As a modern European — German by birth and British by choice — I am a first-hand beneficiary of Europe’s freedoms. A whole generation now takes for granted the chance to travel and work across Europe. These opportunities changed my life. When I came here in 1974 I did not need a work permit, I had the right of residence and I could go on to a British university.
After 30 years here I have not only succeeded in learning English, the original purpose of my visit, but I am now the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. In 1939 the constituency was represented by Neville Chamberlain. Now it is represented by a woman born near Munich. To my children, the notion of Germany and Britain at war would seem sheer fantasy.
So nobody needs to convince me that Europe has been a force for good. That is why I want to make sure that there is a European Union that is effective and democratic.
When I was appointed by the House of Commons as one of its two representatives at the European convention charged with drawing up the new European constitution, I was enthusiastic. I did not — and do not — prejudge the outcome of the intergovernmental conference next weekend which is meant to conclude the drafting.
But I confess, after 16 months at the heart of the process — I was on the 13-strong presidium committee which drew up the draft document — I am concerned. I am not convinced the proposed constitution as it stands will meet the needs of a Europe of 25 countries. The government does not have to accept it. Enlargement will continue without it, and so will the EU.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was one of those who compared the EU convention to the US constitutional convention at Philadelphia in 1787. I’d rather have been in Philadelphia. The most frequent justifications for a written constitution were to make the treaties more understandable to European voters and to streamline decision-making after enlargement. I support both; but at 335 pages, the draft document is hardly handy for a coat pocket, one of the original aims.
From my experience inside the convention, it is clear that the real reason for the constitution is the political deepening of the union.
The convention’s monthly debates were confined to short inspirational speeches, it having decided early on that it would not take votes. Thousands of amendments flooded in, and commentators often remarked how difficult it was to see from the outside how decisions were reached on what was kept in and what discarded.
All I can say is that it was equally difficult from the inside. In the early months, the presidium members would meet in a small room in the Justus Lipsius building 15 minutes’ walk from the European parliament. Attendance was limited to the 13 members, the convention’s secretary-general Sir John Kerr, his deputy and the press officer. Kerr, a former Foreign Office permanent secretary, conducted the proceedings with the skill befitting someone described in John Major’s autobiography as “Machiavelli”. (When Kerr asks you the time, you wonder why me, why now?)
After the first six months, presidium meetings became more frequent and lengthier. On several occasions we retreated to the Val Duchess, a small palace used by the Belgian foreign minister. It was at a dinner there, the weekend before the public presentation, that the skeleton of the draft constitution was given to presidium members in sealed brown envelopes.
We were not allowed to take the documents away. Precisely who drafted the skeleton, and when, is still unclear to me, but I gather much of the work was done by Giscard and Kerr over the summer.
There was little time for informed discussion, and even less scope for changes. Large parts of the text passed through without detailed discussions.
In the final weeks, meetings became open-ended and some lasted into the early hours. Giscard and his deputies, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene, were an effective trio. Amato came up with elegant compromises and Dehaene was the man to strike deals.
Giscard, on the other hand, was a master at imposing his will. It didn’t always work. During one crisis moment when the Spanish led a move to block discussions, refusing to give way, the situation was resolved only when Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, took Giscard out for dinner, enabling the rest of us to break the deadlock. There were moments in those 16 months when I empathised with my laptop spellcheck — when I typed in “Giscard” it replaced it with “discard”.
It was only in the final months of the convention that simultaneous translation was provided for presidium meetings and we could be accompanied by an assistant to give legal advice. Even then, texts would arrive late and only in French. Whenever the president expressed his irritation at my inability to conduct legal negotiations in French, I offered to switch to German. He never took me up on it.
Some members of the secretariat showed particular irritation with my insistence that documents be produced in English. On one occasion a redraft of articles dealing with defence mysteriously arrived just before midnight. They were written in French and the authorship was unclear. Verbal reassurances were given that this was little more than a “linguistically better draft of the earlier English version”. The draft was discarded when some of us spotted that references to Nato had mysteriously disappeared. Sometimes wordings would be agreed in the presidium without being translated into the official texts circulated to the rest of the 200-strong convention.
In last-minute deals in the presidium, the six founding member states struck agreements on the draft constitution. It became a mixture of individual idiosyncrasies, principled positions and political horsetrading.
Consensus was achieved among those deemed to matter, who made it plain that the rest would not be allowed to wreck the fragile agreement struck. In the final stages, a number of delegates, including me, made it clear we could not endorse the text and that it should be regarded by the parliaments that sent us as no more than a basis for further discussions. Yet hardly was the ink dry on the draft than this was turned into an endorsement by all those present and governments were warned not to pick apart the carefully achieved compromises.
There is an understandable desire by those who have served in the convention to have something lasting to show for their endeavours. Not all of us went as far as Giscard, who told us on one occasion: “This is what you have to do if you want the people to build statues of you on horseback back in the villages you all come from.”
Democratic legitimacy involves parliaments and people. We need to ensure that people agree with the direction of their political leaders.
So far the British government has resisted the call for a referendum, but it is likely to come under further pressure. The final judgment will, in part, depend on the precise text. The contents of the constitution must be given proper democratic scrutiny. The government will face increased pressure to allow MPs a free vote if it rules out a referendum. Otherwise Euroscepticism will increase, not just in Britain but in other countries too.
Should a country, or several countries, fail to endorse the constitution, the EU will not collapse — the previous treaties remain and the accession of new countries still goes ahead. I repeat. The government does not have to accept it.
The Making of Europe’s Constitution by Gisela Stuart is published by the Fabian Society on Monday
© Sunday Times