BRUSSELS, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- After French and Dutch voters roundly rejected the European Union's first constitution in May and June, the controversial 480-page charter was placed firmly in cold storage. Some EU leaders hoped it would stay there permanently. Prime Minister Tony Blair promised a "period of reflection" during Britain's presidency of the 25-member bloc, which ended last week, but what citizens got was a period of inaction as London studiously tried to ignore the text.
In the last week, however, the treaty has come out of the deep freeze. "The constitution is not dead," Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel told a news conference in Vienna Monday after his country began its six-month EU presidency of the Union. "The constitution is in the middle of a ratification process."
Technically, he is right. Thirteen countries have so far ratified the constitution and only two have rejected it. But with the text needing the approval of all 25 member states, it cannot come into force until there is a rerun of the votes in France and the Netherlands.
Schuessel is not the only one talking up the merits of the rulebook for an enlarged Europe. Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor has said she believes the constitution could be signed off during Berlin's presidency of the Union in the latter half of 2007 if minor changes are made. And Nicolas Sarkozy, the rightist interior minister tipped to replace Jacques Chirac as French president next year, has also said the treaty contains "important advances which improve the functioning of Europe, and would move towards a political Union."
EU politicians have often be accused of institutional navel-gazing and of spending more time fiddling with the club's rulebook than solving the everyday problems of the Union's 450 million citizens -- like crime, poverty and unemployment. Yet there is increasing frustration in Brussels and other European capitals that an organization with 25 states simply cannot function smoothly with rules drawn up for just six countries almost half a century ago.
"I can tell you that the sooner the elements that are contained in the constitution relating to the decision-making structure are put in place, the better for the European Union," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the Brussels-based E!Sharp magazine. "Time is important."
The changes in the constitution that effect how the European Union acts on the world stage are: the creation of a more permanent EU president and foreign minister -- widely expected to be Solana -- clearer rules enabling groups of countries to strengthen defense cooperation, the creation of a European diplomatic corps and a treaty clause obliging member states to come to each other's aid in the event of a terrorist attack or major disaster.
"If the European Union has any ambition in the foreign policy field, it needs to make these changes," says Sebastian Kurpas, a researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies think tank in Brussels. "But if it tries to cherry pick it will be accused of introducing the constitution through the back door."
EU leaders vehemently deny accusations of cherry-picking, but this is precisely what they are doing. On Monday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso appointed former French foreign minister Michel Barnier to produce a report on closer diplomatic cooperation among member states -- something proposed by the constitution -- and during its presidency London pushed through another charter proposal opening up EU ministerial meetings to public scrutiny.
Solana says there are "some elements" of the constitution that could be agreed by member states without the constitution being ratified -- code for "foreign minister." Sarkozy also believes that "one way or another, we must give Europe the procedures that will enable it to make decisions in a quick and effective manner."
Austria plans to present a "roadmap" for taking the constitutional debate forward at the end of its presidency in June. Supporters of the treaty will then have to rely on the goodwill of French and Dutch voters to turf out the present incumbents in elections next year and replace them with leaders willing to stake their political capital on a re-run of last year's negative polls.
Until then, the bloc's leaders are hoping to regain citizen trust by proving that the Union is capable of tackling citizens' concerns at home and abroad. In the foreign and defense policy fields, despite warnings of a paralysis if the constitution was rejected by voters, this is precisely what it seems to be doing.
"Things are going well," said Solana in a recent interview. "We have 10 operations going in crisis management. But I can tell you that with the constitution in place, all these would have been much easier."
The U.S. administration, which supported the ratification of the constitution, will also be hoping the text is approved in some form or another. What Washington desperately needs is a European Union than can be a muscular force for good in the world, not an introverted power obsessed with endlessly fine-tuning its rulebook.
