EU constitution

EU constitution

Posted Mar 8, 2005 12:53 UTC (Tue) by pdundas (subscriber, #15203)
In reply to: FFII: Council Presidency Adopts Software Patent Agreement by libra
Parent article: FFII: Council Presidency Adopts Software Patent Agreement

On whether the constitution is a good thing, you could go either way (though it's a bit off topic).

On one hand, it increases the power of the democratically elected parliament, which has advantages.

On the other hand, it does not increase overall democratic accountability VERY much, it adds little by way of accountability of EU institutions, and it reinforces the position of the EU which, being much larger and more unwieldy than national governments, is *in general* less responsive to individual voters. It's easier to amend a local law than to change a directive once it's passed, for instance. EU decisions (like US federal ones at times) seem to be governed by horse-trading between factions even more so than national decisions. The constitution also lacks a brief, clear, and enforcable outline of the limits of EU power, and provides poor protection for the rights of the individual. And it's way too long.

By being called a constitution and by its provisions it adds more of the trappings of a state to the Union, which you may or may not thing of as a good thing.

The BBC have an interesting summary.

To relate this to the topic, the constitution would not make it very much easier for the parliament to effectively censure the "executive branch" of the EU if it misbehaved similarly in the future.

Can someone explain how this debacle would have played out under the proposed procedures (assuming the council followed them)?

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