An anniversary precisely nobody in Brussels is marking; The Constitution
These days the idea of a constitution is remembered as a curio of European history.
For decades the contraption most often favoured to describe the workings of the European Union was the humble bicycle.
Federalists painted the EU as an inherently unstable machine whose only chance to avoid a crash was to keep moving forward.
The self-serving analogy justified furious pedalling by those who dreamed of “ever-closer union”
Rolf Englund om EU-grundlagen ever closer union
Som jag skrev i Nya Wermlands-Tidningen 2002-03-01:
- Det är som att cykla, skrev Percy Barnevik om EU i Financial Times i juni förra året. Det går inte att stå stilla, antingen rör man sig framåt eller så faller man, hette det i artikeln, förmodligen skriven av någon av Wallenbergsfärens välbetalda PR-konsulter.
- Men varje 5-åring vet ju att det är mycket lätt att få stopp på cykeln utan att ramla. Man bromsar och sätter ner foten.
Likadant är det med EU. Man skall bromsa och sätta ned foten.
Om några veckor fyller mitt barnbarn Meya fem år. Hon vet hur man gör.
Englund blogg 18 maj 2020
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-eu-must-retreat-to-survive.html
In an anniversary precisely nobody in Brussels is marking, the theory of more-integration-or-bust got a nasty puncture 20 years ago this month.
... to endow the EU with the regalia of a nation state—hence the constitution bit.
A “constitutional treaty” dreamt up as the next big step in EU integration was voted down by French voters on May 29th 2005, by a 55-45% margin. On June 1st Dutch voters rejected it by an even wider one
The document had been crafted by a “convention” chaired by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, haughty even by the standards of former French presidents.
The parallels with the birth of America were intentional.
The preamble of the Euro-constitution invoked the “will of the citizens” as a justification for these new arrangements between them (never mind that the citizens knew little about this supposed will of theirs).
EU already had a directly elected parliament; now the union was to have its own official flag, anthem, foreign minister and even a dedicated holiday.
By 2009 much of the 450 pages of the constitution—brevity was not one of Giscard’s strong points—had been recycled into the Lisbon treaty,
which shoehorned most of its provisions into a whopper amendment of two EU treaties already in force.
The post of foreign minister was replaced with the odd-sounding “High Representative/Vice-President” for foreign affairs.
If you want to understand what is happening to the European Union’s constitution, the EU flag is a good place to start.
European leaders will agree to delete references to the flag in the constitution. Everybody knows the flags will keep flying.
https://www.nejtillemu.com/flageurach.htm#rachmanflag
Voters in Ireland and Denmark had previously rejected EU treaties—before being made to vote again.
The Economist 5 June 2025
EUs grundlag - The Constitution
http://www.nejtillemu.com/konvent2007.htm
Reinfeldt stöder fiffigt förslag av van Rompuy om att ändra i ett protokoll som formellt sett ligger vid sidan om Lissabonfördraget
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2011/12/reinfeldt-stoder-fiffigt-forslag-av-van.html
Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/06/article-48-of-lisbon-treaty.html
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