Proposed EU Constitution will put politicians on the spot

ANYBODY interested in watching politicians squirm should keep a keen eye on the proposed Constitution for Europe over the coming year.

Having spent 15 months drawing up its 250 articles, EU leaders are already in trouble and cannot agree on the most basic elements of the document.

Prime ministers have battled mostly in private for their pet desires to be included in the draft and for those they don't like to be left out.

Fighting in public, they know, won't help a document they will have to sell to their citizens in the near future.

And they don't want to be left like the Polish government which, after mustering the might of its farmers against the deal being offered on EU membership, must now convince them to switch sides and vote in favour of much the same deal.

Polish concern is now so great that they might not put EU entry to a referendum, but instead ratify it in parliament. Most other European countries are taking the same approach in relation to the constitution, although Ireland will put it to the people.

However, politicians are afraid they will suffer the next time they go to the hustings, if the electorate does not like what is in the constitution.

Of course, many politicians are due to be hoisted on their own petard anyway having used the EU as a whipping-boy for so long, they now have to admit to some of its good points.

Having also been happy in the past to keep the electorate in the dark about how the union actually works, and the core role that national governments play in it, they now have to give the voters a quick education.

The danger is that politicians being what they are, they will opt for a safe way and rather than showing leadership by taking important decisions and risking the consequences, they will opt instead for a fudge and the lowest common denominator.

At least one of the decisions made by the prime ministers so far has been a near disaster, and that is the appointment of former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

He may be a good European and the founding father of monetary union, but the selection of this 71-year-old is now threatening to ensure the constitution is stillborn.

Rather than acting as a chairman facilitating the views of the convention members and its inner core presidium, he has clearly come to the job with his own agenda. As a result, amendments that do not suit his purposes have not been included in revised drafts.

This problem came to a head in the past few weeks when the presidium failed to revise the draft dealing with the institutions and with a single EU president and foreign minister.

This section is the central plank of the constitution and indeed of the EU. Luckily, the 14-member committee was riven right down the middle and so Mr Giscard d'Estaing could not push through his options.

More amendments had been received from all over Europe on this section than for any other, but the divisions between state representatives were too deep and serious.

This is perhaps all to the good. For at least now the articles will have to be debated in public by the 105 convention members, who are all elected members of national governments and of the European Parliament.

So prime ministers will find it difficult to hide their true intentions and their willingness to push through issues for the sake of their own national interests.

Hopefully the gloves will come off and every country, large and small, will be forced to explain and justify the kind of EU it wants.

Who knows? In the end it might even be safe to let the people of Europe vote on it.