Lawrence Fullick provides an update on the proposed EU constitution and the lack of references to God.

The government may hope that the proposed EU constitution has gone away but two groups of “Wise People” are engaged in studies with a possible impact on future political arrangements.

The more political group is chaired by the Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato and includes two EU Commissioners and two former Prime Ministers; Chris Patten is the one British member.

The French Interior Minister and likely centre right presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed that there should be a “mini treaty” containing parts of the proposed constitution. The group of the “wise” welcomed Mr Sarkozy’s move.

However Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff disagrees with his idea of leaving aside Part III of the text which deals with the internal rules of the EU. Duff has proposed a Plan B which highlights five policy areas in which the EU can demonstrate its value: economic governance, the social model, climate change, enlargement and its budgetary system.

The Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has stated that until there is an institutional settlement there should be no further enlargement after Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next year.

One suggestion which was rejected in the course of discussion on the proposed constitution was a mention of God. The text, as agreed by the Convention writing it, contained no mention of Christianity but simply a reference to “drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe”. The Charter of Fundamental Rights incorporated in the constitution refers to “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.

Angela Merkel the new German Chancellor visited the Pope in August and afterwards said the “constitutional treaty….should be connected to Christianity and God”.
25 March 2007 will be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome and an EU summit to be held in Berlin – it being then a German presidency – is planned to adopt a declaration on the values and ambitions of the EU.

Partly to influence that declaration Comece, the EU Catholic bishops’ group, has set up another “Committee of Wise People”, all Catholics, to prepare a report on the significance of ethical values for European unification to be presented at a Congress in Rome on the same date. The one British member is Sir Stephen Wall, the former diplomat who has been an adviser to Tony Blair and Cardinal Murphy O’Connor. There are five former Commissioners and three former Prime Ministers. We await their findings with interest.
For more information on events from Europe, check out the Liberal Democrat European group at www.ldeg.org