The Basic Law of Europe will wait for Angela Merkel

friendship of Peoples

A two-day summit of European Union member states opened in Brussels yesterday. Its main goal is an attempt to revive the European constitution, which was rejected in referendums in France and Holland a year ago. As a result of yesterday's meeting, the decision on the fate of the constitution was postponed for another year. However, if the controversial document cannot be revived, this will be a big blow not to the EU, but to Turkey, the Balkan countries, and Ukraine that are striving to join.

Football instead of politics

Meeting in Brussels, the leaders of European countries carefully pretended that negotiations on the future of European integration occupied them much less than the World Cup. British Prime Minister Tony Blair even refused to participate in an official photo shoot with the participation of heads of state and government of the European Union, going to watch the match between the national teams of England and Trinidad and Tobago. However, the main reason for this apparent indifference lies in the fact that the European Union now, more than ever, has many almost unsolvable problems. The contradictions between the participants are so great that instead of talking about them in front of journalists, the leaders prefer to feign excessive love for football.

In the year preceding the current summit, the European Union experienced the most serious crisis in its history. At the beginning of June last year, within a week of each other, France and then Holland rejected the European constitution in referendums. Then a series of other events followed: terrorist attacks in London, pogroms in the suburbs of French cities. All this led to a sharp surge in xenophobia and Euroscepticism in the Old World.

The current summit, in addition to the abundance of problems falling on the shoulders of its participants, is also distinguished by a large number of new faces. Previous key players like Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi or Aleksander Kwasniewski left their posts, leaving their replacements with a very problematic legacy. Their places were taken by Angela Merkel, Romano Prodi and Lech Kaczynski. At the same time, the position of heavyweights like Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair is becoming increasingly precarious - the French president is leaving next year, and rumors about the upcoming resignation of the British prime minister have been circulating for several months. On the sidelines of the Brussels summit, they are increasingly saying that Europe is preparing for a new European policy - but in order to implement it, it is necessary to wait until the veterans who have held politics in their hands for the last decade retire.

At this summit, more than ever, the division of European leaders into old and new is evident. Newcomers like Angela Merkel and Romano Prodi are among the most active champions of European unity. “Old men” Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, on the contrary, are more active in sabotage than others - it has been noted that any anti-European demarche is very popular with the public in their homeland. In Brussels, everyone is almost accustomed to the fact that the French president disrupts European meetings, and the Chancellor of the Austrian presidency of the EU, Wolfgang Schuessel, even developed a special “French” program that could interest Jacques Chirac and would not allow him to defiantly leave the summit. In order not to give Mr. Chirac a reason to slam the door, Chancellor Schuessel even refused the European Parliament's request to consider the issue of creating a single headquarters for this body. Until now, European parliamentarians have sat alternately in Brussels and Strasbourg. This year they decided that frequent travel was inconvenient and expensive, so all meetings should be held only in Brussels. However, it is obvious that just the appearance of this issue on the agenda will arouse the ire of France, so no one has dared to discuss it yet.

Thoughts instead of a referendum

The main problem of the summit, of course, is the fate of the European Constitution. After the failure of referendums in France and the Netherlands and the expiration of the so-called reflection period taken by the European Union a year ago, European politicians are at a crossroads: abandon the constitution altogether, delay the adoption of the constitution for several years, or try to introduce it in a shortened form.

The ideologists of the first option are traditionally Eurosceptic Britain and the Netherlands, which said “no” to the constitution - they believe that the idea of a European constitution should be buried altogether. They are joined by Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ireland, which decided to postpone the holding of referendums for an indefinite period.

France takes a less rigid position - after all, the father of the European constitution is its former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Jacques Chirac's potential successor as president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said not so long ago that Paris could approve the text of the document if only its first two chapters, containing only general provisions, were left - in this case, even a referendum would not be needed.

But this prospect does not suit the members of the European Union, who have already approved the constitution. There are currently 15, with agreement from Finland, the 16th country, expected soon. In order to somehow move the process forward, Wolfgang Schuessel proposed rebranding the European Constitution, which is unpopular among Europeans, calling it the “basic law.” The idea of renaming appealed to the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Recently, Mrs. Merkel has repeatedly emphasized that during her EU presidency (which begins in January 2007), Germany intends to put forward a number of proposals aimed at overcoming the constitutional crisis. The optimism of the German Chancellor is largely due to the fact that in 2007 parliamentary elections will be held in two refusal countries - France and the Netherlands - and the French will also elect a head of state. At the same time, Angela Merkel announced plans to hold a special conference in Berlin in March next year entirely devoted to the issue of adopting a European constitution. The German initiative has already been supported by the new Prime Minister of Italy, and in the recent past, the head of the European Commission, Romano Prodi.

Nevertheless, yesterday European leaders agreed that there is no need to rush - there is still a year before Germany's presidency. It was for this period that it was decided to postpone the discussion of the future of the constitution.

Treaty instead of expansion

Even if the European Constitution is not adopted, this is not the end for Europe. The EU will be able to live without a basic law - on the basis of already existing agreements. However, the problem is different: the agreement signed in Nice sets a limit on the number of EU members - there can be no more than 27. Currently there are 25 members of the European Union. However, in the near future, Bulgaria and Romania will join the EU, for whose accession European parliamentarians voted back in April 2005. Yesterday, EU leaders approved the recommendations of the European Commission, according to which these countries will become full members next year. Thus, the coveted number will be reached - and without the adoption of a European constitution establishing a new limit, further expansion of the EU will be impossible.

However, the list of those wishing to become members of a large European family is by no means exhausted by Bulgaria and Romania. Next in line are Croatia, Türkiye and a number of Balkan countries. Croatia began negotiations on accession to the EU last fall and has now achieved candidate status for admission to the union. “As for Croatia’s accession, there are currently no protests from the population of the EU countries,” the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, recently noted in an interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien.

But Turkey’s EU membership, which has been seeking this for the last 20 years, is a completely different story. The leaders of the largest European states have long made no secret of their reluctance to see Turkey in the ranks of the European Union. Germany, France, Italy and Austria, for example, have repeatedly proposed tightening the requirements for new candidates, referring primarily to Ankara. Earlier this week, Turkey managed to take the first step towards rapprochement with the EU. On Monday, Brussels and Ankara signed the first of 35 agreements needed to begin negotiations on Turkey's accession to the EU.

It should be noted that even ardent fighters for European integration have a negative attitude towards Turkey’s membership. The tone for anti-Turkish sentiment is set by Angela Merkel, who does not hide her distrust of Ankara. While "Turkey's enemies" have an obvious reason to keep Ankara at a distance, its relations with Cyprus. For example, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker recently said that the EU should freeze negotiations with Turkey if Ankara does not open its air and sea ports to Cypriot ships this year.

It is therefore clear that for many Europeans, skepticism about the European constitution is not the end of the European idea. Extending the period of reflection on the fate of the European constitution for another year - until veterans leave politics and the German presidency begins - does not at all mean an intention to bury European integration as such. The current delay in this matter can be interpreted as a deliberate tactical move necessary in order, under a plausible pretext, to besiege the eastern neighbors rushing to join the European Union. And in this sense, Europeans are clearly embarrassed not only by Turkey, but also by the Balkan states behind it, as well as Ukraine and Georgia.

MIKHAIL Kommersant-ZYGAR, NATALIA Kommersant-PORTYAKOVA

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 107 dated June 16, 2006, p. 9

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Football

Non-guaranteed constitution