BRUSSELS, June 18 (UPI) -- European Union leaders Friday agreed to the enlarged bloc's first-ever constitution at the end of a heated two-day summit in Brussels that pitted Britain against France and Germany, small against larger states, and federalist countries against more grudging EU members.
"This is a very significant milestone in the evolution of the EU," Irish Premier Bertie Ahern told reporters. "It will enable the EU to become more transparent and democratic and do its work in a more efficient and effective manner." European Parliament President Pat Cox said the deal was "proof the new EU of 25 can and will deliver to the peoples of Europe."
Ahern, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Union, received a standing ovation as leaders toasted the historic agreement with champagne. But the smiles could not hide the disappointment at failing to pick a new president for the European Commission.
The two leading candidates for the club's top post -- Belgian Premier Guy Verhofstadt and former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten -- both failed to receive enough support and withdrew from the race. EU leaders will now have to hold a special meeting next month to choose a replacement for current commission chief Romano Prodi.
Tempers were frayed Thursday as Paris and Berlin pushed hard for Verhofstadt and Britain lobbied for Patten. The Union's three most powerful states also clashed over the constitution Friday after French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder accused British Premier Tony Blair of attempting to water down the blueprint. "We are operating in a Europe of 25 ... not six, or two or one," Blair's spokesman told reporters.
The new treaty, thrashed out over more than three years of discussions, aims to give the EU a rulebook fit for an emerging superpower of 25 states rather than one suited for the six countries that founded the trade club almost half a century ago.
It will create the posts of EU president and foreign minister, scrap national vetoes over large swathes of legislation, reduce the size of the European Commission, simplify the Union's decision-making procedure and boost the powers of the European Parliament. But it will not create the United States of Europe dreamed of by some federalists, nor will it lead to a political union feared by Euro-skeptics.
Critics say the new rulebook runs against the will of Europe's voters, who last Sunday boycotted European Parliament elections in record numbers and increased the strength of anti-EU populists in the assembly. "This constitution will give Europe's institutions more powers and EU voters less powers," said Jens-Peter Bonde, the Danish leader of the European Parliament's Euro-skeptic grouping. "It is a giant step towards a European super-state where power is held by the executive for the executive."
However, supporters say the constitution is needed to streamline decision-making in a bloc of 25 states ranging from mighty Germany -- with 82 million people -- to tiny Malta, with a population of just 400,000.
"This is not like the Rome or Maastricht treaties, where there was a significant transfer of powers," said John Palmer, an analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Center. "This is about taking what has already been agreed and putting it in a more democratic and transparent framework."
In fact, the reality lies somewhere in between these two views. The constitution will make the EU marginally more democratic. The Parliament, the EU's only directly elected body, will have more power to shape the bloc's $120 billion-a-year budget and become a co-legislator with governments in most policy areas. A bill of rights enshrining Europeans' civil rights in one text will also become legally binding.
In terms of transparency, all decision-making meetings of the Council of Ministers -- the EU's most powerful body -- will be open to the public. And for the first time, the jumble of legal documents that currently passes for the EU's treaty will be replaced by a single, shorter and more comprehensible text. There is still a fair amount of turgid EU jargon in the blueprint, which pales in comparison to the U.S. Constitution in terms of both vision and precision, but for a club famed for its opaqueness the draft is a step forward.
The new treaty should make EU decision-making more efficient, if no less perplexing. Vetoes have been removed in 49 key areas -- including regional aid, justice matters and some areas of taxation and foreign policy -- reducing the possibility of one state blocking a decision against the will of 24 others. The voting system agreed in Nice three years ago has been replaced by a simpler method that will see proposals adopted if they command the support of 55 percent of EU states representing 65 percent of the bloc's population. And the number of European Commissioners will be reduced from the current 25 to 18 after 2014.
Few new powers will be handed over from national capitals to Brussels, but the constitution does create two potentially powerful EU posts. The Council of Ministers will have a president to coordinate policy and represent the bloc on the world stage. The EU will also get its first foreign minister, almost certain to be current external affairs chief Javier Solana.
Defense policy will continue to be made in national capitals, but a solidarity clause modelled on NATO's infamous Article 5 requires EU states to come to each other's help in the event of attack. Outside the treaty, a European armaments agency, an autonomous military headquarters and a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force will be set up.
Much to the dismay of the Vatican and staunchly Catholic countries like Poland and Italy, Christianity did not make its way into the constitution due to fierce opposition from secular states like France and Belgium. Instead, there is a vague reference to Europe's "cultural, religious and humanist inheritance" in the preamble.
The challenge now will be to sell the constitution to Europe's voters. Referenda have been promised in eight EU states and in at least two of them -- Britain and Poland -- the chances of most voters saying "yes" appear slim. Without ratification in all the bloc's 25 countries, the text will be torn up and Europe will once again be condemned to a long period of institutional navel-gazing.
