Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-02-Speech-3-014"
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"en.20030702.1.3-014"2
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"Mr President, Italy insists that the Intergovernmental Conference must be ready to begin by December so that President Berlusconi can issue invitations to the Rome Summit and solemnly bury the Treaty of Rome and give birth to the Rome Constitution. A serious constitution cannot be devised as quickly as that. When the EU is equipped with common citizenship, fundamental rights and a whole charter of rights that can be invoked directly before the courts, the character of the whole cooperative enterprise is altered, and every single provision of Title III is to be read in a new light and can acquire new significance.
To cite just one example: when the Treaty of Maastricht introduced common citizenship, it was expressly stated in writing that citizenship had no direct effect. The judgments of the Court of Justice nonetheless caused citizenship to be of direct effect, and people are now free to settle anywhere in the EU and have their rights further extended by means of the many fundamental principles in Title I of the Constitution and Title II of the Charter. The people and the elected representatives should be aware of all the consequences of the Constitution before it is adopted. This will require a large number of working parties, opportunities to table amendments and transparent democracy.
What would the Constitution mean, for example, for the Danish summer house protocol? Denmark prohibits Germans from purchasing summer houses in the way that Danes can. This quite clearly contravenes the ban on national discrimination under Article 4 and the principle of equality under Article 44. Can two such fundamental principles be set aside by an exemption, in the form of a protocol, to the rules governing the free movement of capital? Is there a hierarchical relationship between the fundamental principles and the other provisions in the Constitution and protocols? Alternatively, take Article 51, which protects the structure of the churches. Denmark can in this way retain a Protestant state church, but can Article 51 also lift the ban on religious discrimination in Article 2, paragraph 21 of Title II? Is the Danish constitution lawful or unlawful? It would be nice to know the answer before the Constitution is signed. Article 12(2) renders the majority of all the international agreements unlawful, for the EU would be given not only shared competence but also sole competence to enter into any agreement if only an internal act were affected. Ought it not at least to be stated in writing that all existing agreements shall continue in force until such time as they are altered?"@en1
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