The EU's draft Constitution is a step too far. The Irish EU Presidencyshould be a time for a rethink of the drive to integration, writes Gisela Stuart
After the collapse of negotiations last weekend the Irish presidency has its work cut out to get things back on the road, but it would be a mistake to get rushed into another botched compromise - the Nice Treaty was just the most recent. In the end that satisfies no one and stores up trouble for later.
The Convention on the Future of Europe was supposed to come up with proposals to reconnect the people with the EU and to prepare the institutions for enlargement.
It did neither and dodged the real issue: is the EU model which first hit the road in Rome in 1957 really appropriate today? And if not, what changes are needed to make the EU roadworthy for the 21st century?
The convention started with the best of intentions, bringing together public-spirited politicians from old and new member-states to put things right. However, a weakness was that it lacked the democratic legitimacy that it later claimed for itself and its proposed constitution, and the public didn't care a fig about its deliberations or conclusions.
The convention met for 16 months, yet at the end 60 per cent of the population in Greece didn't know there was a new EU constitution, although 75 per cent thought it should be amended! That about sums up the way most men and women in the street see the EU: whatever comes out of Brussels can only be improved.
Many people outside the European "priesthood" simply don't understand what the Union is for. That makes them deeply suspicious, because the language of the EU is opaque, and just when they think they have worked it out, it all changes again. At the very time the people of Poland were voting in a referendum on whether to join the EU, the rules of the club were being changed.
The Constitution attempted three things: first, a simplification of the treaties of the last 50 years, bringing them together into one document; second, a tidying-up of the arcane decision-making procedures, making them more open and transparent; and third, the creation of new political structures for foreign policy and defence, a new president of the European Council, and a change to the Commission composition and the voting weights in the Council of Ministers.
This third part was about power: between institutions and between member-states, and that's where it came unstuck. The convention struck an uneasy compromise. The number of commissioners was reduced, and voting weight in the Council of Ministers was aligned to the size of the population of a country. It was this that unravelled last weekend, with Spain and Poland taking the blame.
But this is unfair. The relationship between large and small countries is important if the EU is to be a framework for genuine co-operation. More particularly the problem is between France and Germany and the rest, since neither Poland nor Spain is "small", and it's core-versus- periphery as much as big-versus- small.
Tensions are not new. Older readers may recall Holland, always nervous about the Franco-German steamroller, vetoing de Gaulle's Fouchet Plan in the early 1960s, and more recently large countries have flouted the spirit and letter of the Stability and Growth Pact. In the short run this may be the right thing to do economically, but it sticks in the craw of the small countries.
The days are gone when the problem might have been settled with hard cash. When Germany was a willing and able paymaster for the European dream, Spain might have got more money for its regions and Poland more for its farmers. Without cash incentives, dissenting countries are now threatened with being "left in the slow lane" as France and Germany form a "pioneer group".
But what does this mean? Where do Germany and France intend to go to in their fast lane? They can proceed - the mechanisms of enhanced co-operation and structured co-operation are there - without having to threaten those who chose a different route.
It might be thought that as a big country Britain should be comfortable with joining France and Germany in some sort of triumvirate to "run" the EU. But even if that were possible, it is a deeply unhistorical view of Britain's relationship with the Continent: it is against our interests to have a Europe "run" by anybody.
"United in diversity" was the new motto for the Union suggested in the proposed new constitution. It does not mean one size fits all and/or the imposition of more regulations and red tape.
It does mean respecting individual countries' concerns and responding to the economic and social conditions of a country with the flexibility required by modern economies.
Ireland prides itself on being a neutral country, while Britain has never been and never will be. In an enlarged Union 12 countries will have the euro, and 13 not. This is not a sign of failure, but recognition that there is not a pan-European answer to every problem.
But, not once in the 16 months I spent on the convention did representatives question whether deeper integration is what the peoples of Europe want, whether it serves their best interests or provides the best basis for a sustainable structure for an expanding Union.
There are some things the convention produced worth holding on to, but it is also a time to reflect, and in a recent Fabian pamphlet I outlined some of areas that need to be considered in more detail and with less haste: making decisions at the right level, getting the right institutions to do the right thing, maintaining room for manoeuvre on national policy, and anchoring EU decision-making in national institutions to establish the trust which is lacking.
Enlargement will go ahead, and the EU will not collapse because of events last weekend. The Irish presidency should be a period for reflection to restore a sense of direction for the EU. There will be pressure to cut deals, but above all else the EU needs clarity about where it is going. It is too important to rush it through. We need to get it right.
Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP, is a former British representative on the Praesidium of the Convention on the Future of Europe