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Student Zone - Update Materials

Update 1: June 2005 - Europe and the European Constitution

A major theme of Politics and Governance in the UK is 'Europeanization': the way membership of the European Union is reshaping domestic politics. Behind this lies three decades when the European Union grew in scale and scope, and was a major source of policy innovation. In the text, I anticipate two referendums on European issues, though without being able to give a date: on a proposal for British adoption of the Euro; and to ratify a constitution for the government of the European Union. The Constitution was signed by all 25 member states in December 2004. 

But almost as the book was ready for publication cataclysmic events not only almost certainly killed off the proposed Constitution; they raised huge doubts about the continuation of movement to European integration. The two events were rejections of the Constitution in popular referendums in first France, and then the Netherlands: the 29 May referendum in France produced a 55% 'no' vote; the 1 June referendum in the Netherlands produced an even more emphatic rejection, 61% against. Nine member states have ratified the Constitution, but of these only Spain has done so in a referendum. The UK government planned a referendum for Spring 2006, but has put the plan on ice.

The outcome of the French and Dutch votes in the short term solved a serious problem for the Blair Government, since even before the negative votes, it was highly uncertain that the Government could have successfully carried a favourable referendum outcome. But the wider effect has been to create a sense of crisis and paralysis in the European Union. It is agreed that the expansion of the Union from 15 to 25 members through the 2005 enlargement requires major reforms in decision procedures, and will also require major policy innovations. But it is not clear how to proceed, since most observers now accept that the Constitution in its original form is a dead letter. 

The sense of crisis was deepened by the collapse of the first European Council meeting (a meeting of all heads of government in the Union) immediately after the referendum, as a result of a failure to agree a budget for the next budgetary cycle. The immediate sticking point was the refusal of the UK to compromise on a special annual rebate worth £3 billion negotiated originally by Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1984. But the argument about the British rebate is widening into a broader argument about the scale of the purpose of the EU budget, and indeed of the Union itself. Arguments about the balance between support for agriculture (the biggest item of EU expenditure) and other activities like basic research have become shorthand for arguments for how the Union should reshape its institutions and policies to adapt to the pressures of global competition. The shape of the argument will be a major theme of the British Presidency which begins in July 2005, and which will be a subject of an update here in September.

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