Focus on Germany London Office The Chandlery Office 609 50 Westminster Bridge Road GB London SE1 7QY Tel 00 44 20 77 21 87 45 Fax 00 44 20 77 21 87 46 feslondon@dial.pipex.com www.fes.de/london April 2006 The Way out of Europe’s Constitutional Crisis Angelica Schwall-Düren Despite our hopes and expectations, the process of ratifying the EU constitution will not be completed by the end of 2006. On the contrary: although 14 states have ratified it to date, the no votes in the French and Dutch referendums have brought the ratification process to a standstill; more than that, it is already now clear that these two countries at least will not have given their consent to the constitutional treaty by then. Many analysts have rightly said that the EU is undergoing one of the deepest crises in its history. Germany will have to take the lead Under the Luxembourg presidency, it was agreed there would be a period of reflection lasting until autumn 2006, during which ways out of this predicament would be sought. Thus far, however, there have been more signs of widespread perplexity than potential solutions. The fact that the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD states that Germany should give fresh momentum to the constitutional process during its presidency in the first half of 2007 indicates Angelica Schwall-Düren is Deputy Chair of the SPD Parliamentary Group. Her areas of responsibilities include EU affairs. that we do not seriously expect the deadlock to be resolved before then. Furthermore, outside of Germany people frequently say they believe that only our presidency is capable of taking the initiative successfully. This creates a two-fold dilemma: potential solutions must be discussed in advance with partners holding highly divergent views. If the proposals are revealed prematurely, however, conflicting national interests could result in failure. Moreover, when the constitutional treaty was signed by the heads of government, difficulties were expected only from countries that are less keen on integration, such as the UK. Now, however, two founding members of the EU have rejected it. Any potential solution must therefore overcome sharply differing reservations regarding the constitution. If an agreement is to be reached between the Member States, an EU constitution or corresponding treaty must first be seen as essential to ensuring the positive further development of the EU, both in its current composition(25, or 25+2), and in the case of any future enlargement to take in other states(deepening before enlargement).