Blair 'Trying for an EU Constitution
Without a Referendum'
by George Jones and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Tony Blair was accused yesterday of preparing to introduce a scaled-down European constitution by the "back door" before he quits as Prime Minister this summer.

The Conservatives and the UK Independence Party reacted angrily after Downing Street confirmed Mr Blair did not believe a referendum would be needed on a new European treaty expected to be agreed during his final days in office.

After the European constitution was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands, EU leaders are looking at ways of introducing many key changes by amending existing treaties.

Mr Blair told journalists on Thursday that a treaty amending the existing legal base would not have the characteristics of the constitution which aimed to re-establish the Union with the trappings of statehood, such as a flag and anthem.

A Brussels summit on June 21 will be Mr Blair's last appearance on the European stage and will tie the hands of his successor on key EU constitution issues.

Germany, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, has confirmed that talks will go beyond setting a timetable for a new European treaty to tackle the substance.

Berlin has sent a questionnaire to all Europe's capitals and is asking for feedback on a 12-point checklist of controversial points from the former EU constitution.

Britain, the Netherlands and Czech Republic have all called for elements that have constitutional trappings to be dropped in order to avoid a requirement that it be approved by a referendum. But the 18 EU countries that have already ratified, or largely ratified, the constitution will resist fundamental change.

Both Labour and the Conservatives were committed to a referendum on the original constitution, but it was shelved after the No votes in France and the Netherlands.

Mr Blair expects to agree the basic outline of a new treaty at the June summit, leaving his successor to oversee negotiations on details and ratification by Parliament.

Downing Street confirmed yesterday it was Mr Blair's view that a referendum on proposed changes in Brussels would not be needed. It declined to say to what extent Gordon Brown, Mr Blair's likeliest successor, had been involved in discussions.

William Hague, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, said: "What he is saying now sounds suspiciously like an attempt to introduce elements of it by the back door, despite its decisive rejection by the voters of France and Holland."

Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party leader, said: "The British people have not had a say on our position in the EU for 32 years, and we must have a referendum on any treaty which transfers power away from Westminster."
The Daily Telegraph, 21st April 2007

EU's Back Door is at Number 308
by Christopher Booker

As our EU partners, led by Angela Merkel, flounder about trying to find ways to get the EU constitution back on track without any need for those beastly referendums, startling light has been shed on another way the EU is already misusing the famous Rome treaty to extend its powers.

The importance of the treaty, of which the constitution was merely another instalment, is that everything the EU does has, in theory, to be legally authorised by the articles it contains. These represent the powers legally ceded by nation states to Brussels. But when the original treaty was signed 50 years ago, it included a catch-all Article 235, which could be used to justify laws not authorised elsewhere in the treaty - so long as they served the purposes of the "common market".

In 1997 the article was renumbered as 308 and has long been used to smuggle in laws which had nothing to do with the "common market". Only now, thanks to the persistence of a UKIP peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has the Government finally come clean on how extensively Article 308 has been abused.

A list placed in the Lords Library shows that since 2004 the EU has used it no fewer than 45 times. Many of these laws represent major extensions of its power, such as that setting up an agency to administer the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a significant part of the as-yet unratified constitution. Article 308 has also been used to authorise a whole range of other important measures, from setting up a European Health and Safety Agency and increasing the powers of Europol, the EU's police force, to co-ordinating national social security systems.

When Lord Blackwell recently asked the Government how it could justify the misuse of Article 308 in this way, he was sent a letter written in 2004 by Jack Straw, as foreign secretary, explaining that 308 was no longer considered to serve just its original "narrow and restrictive" purpose of promoting the common market. It can now be used to justify anything that would help to achieve "one of the objectives of the Community". Since one of those objectives is to pursue "ever closer union", it is hard to see how, by Mr Straw's logic, Article 308 could not be used to whistle into law the whole of the constitution. Perhaps Mrs Merkel would like to suggest it?
The Sunday Telegraph, 29th April 2007