| -Caveat Lector-
Will Blair dare to push this through the parliament without a vote of the
people? -JR
EU redraft robs Britain of foreign policy
veto A change of wording in the latest draft of the European Constitution published yesterday would strip Britain of its veto in all areas of foreign policy. Ignoring warnings that the Government is prepared to veto the text unless major changes are made, legal experts in Brussels and Rome have stepped up the pressure on Britain and offered little beyond "declaratory" gestures in the fields of taxation, social security, criminal justice and energy policy. The latest version, released in advance of a tough bargaining session in Naples this weekend, empowers the EU to decide foreign policy by qualified majority voting for the first time. The dramatic change is tucked away in Article III-201 on the role of the new EU foreign minister. The original text limited majority voting to minor details but a tweak in the language extends it to all policy initiatives launched by the EU foreign minister, which can cover anything. The only safeguard is an "emergency brake" that allows any state in extremis to invoke "vital" national interests, but this too can be overruled by a majority vote. To make matters worse, a lower threshold for qualified majority voting will make it much harder for a grouping of states to block decisions. The only area of real progress for Britain is in defence. Now the EU military vanguard, the defence equivalent of the euro-zone, will be open to all EU states with viable military forces. But it is still not clear what dissenting states can do to prevent the bloc going to war if they disagree. London is delighted that a "mutual defence"' clause has been scrapped as part of a re-wording to ensure that Nato remains the foundation of European defence. A Foreign Office spokesman said the change was "totally unacceptable" and had no chance of surviving in the final text. EU diplomats said Ireland, the Nordic states and almost all the new Eastern Europe members would put up a fight. Even the French have doubts after finding themselves in a minority over the Iraq war. The new text was prepared by a team of Brussels insiders under the guidance of the Italian presidency. It does not begin to address the most intractable issues. These are: whether every small state should have its own commissioner; whether Poland and Spain should retain their "big power" status secured in the Nice Treaty and whether God makes it into the Preamble. Despite elegant attempts to finesse controversy, the text fails to meet almost all of the British "red lines" spelled out in a White Paper this autumn. The veto is still under threat in criminal justice, though a clause has been added to highlight the distinctiveness of English and Irish "common law". The text still calls for qualified majority voting over tax fraud issues - seen by critics as a Trojan horse for broader tax harmonisation - areas of social security and Britain's budget rebate. So far London has failed to secure any change in a catch-all clause that gives Brussels the power to co-ordinate the economic and employment policy of member states. North Sea oil, which makes up over 90 per cent of the EU's oil reserves, is still vulnerable to a Brussels take-over. A totally new "revision clause" has been added allowing ministers to ram through future changes to the bulk of the constitution by qualified majority voting. A senior EU diplomat called the manoeuvre "barking mad".
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